Self-education, I firmly believe, is the only kind of education there is. These are the words of the famous author Isaac Asimov. And over the years my experience has come to teach me the same.
TMOD, Club President, fellow toastmasters and esteemed guests. My name is TM Ahsan Bagwan and I'm a software engineer by profession. I'm standing in front of you for the purpose of delivering my ice breaker speech. I'm told that speaking about oneself is as easy as it gets but I can assure you that it isn't by any means.
My father came from the small town of Jejuri where their primary occupation was agriculture. My mother's family hailed from Miraj in Sangli. Once in a while I still go over to the village. Nostalgia sets in and I can walk down the memory lane.
Coming to my childhood, I went to Rosary School where I was always tagged as a good student. For those of you who don't know TM Gulshan Chugh is also an alumni of that school. Although I was seldom a topper I enjoyed learning with all my heart. It was here that I developed great aptitude for quiz. I then went on to bag the trophy for the maggi quiz contest. Thank heavens that Maggi came clean. Otherwise my achievement wouldn't have hold any weight. Well time flew and there I was tangled up in the rat race.
All the while I lived a very comfortable life all through my junior college and well into my undergraduate studies. To be honest, the concept of rote learning didn't appeal to me to that extent and it showed. I took my own sweet time to understand things through. But hey all that struggle made me a better person than what I was yesterday.
I liked the philosophy of the open source movement. And before I knew it I tinkered with Linux distros. Allow me to act as an evangelist here. To start with some main deal-breakers, forget about viruses. Stop pirating software. After all you are getting it for zilch. More importantly you can install linux side by side with your current OS and try it out.
It was at this point that the title of my speech made a lot of sense. The societal conditioning that learning stops after college seemed ludicrous. I realized that programming gave my life the purpose that was missing so sorely.
I hope to contribute heavily to open source projects. In this way I could give back to the community that made the world of software a better place than what it was.
I'm a voracious reader. I will always keep a book handy for those moments of downtime that occur all the time. My all time favourite book is Freakonomics.
I've also developed interests in listening to podcasts lately. Incidentally the folks at Freakonomics host a podcast too by the same name. Podcasts are without any doubt a treasure chest of knowledge. Thanks to the traffic situation they are ideal to listen to when commuting. It doesn't require much effort to follow as compared to audio books. I'm a big fan of TED radio hour podcast. My favourite episode by far is the one where the topic was abut grit. And that again brings me to the very topic of my speech.
The gist of that was that one thing which might be holding us back from learning new things is the belief that you can't learn new things. But neuroscience and psychology have shown this to be false. Our brains remain plastic and malleable well into old age, and its possible to create new connections among neurons and learn new things even if you are 80 years old.
I realize I didn't touch much on my profession. I love what I work on because I believe I ought to because of spending much time at work. One thing I'm proud of is that I work with some very chilled out people who are very approachable regardless of their ranks. Having said that I would like to work for myself down the line.
This was what I thought would give a glimpse int my life. I would like to end my speech with yet another quote on lifelong learning by Henry Ford.
"Any one who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
I'm committed to lifelong learning. Are you?
---
References:
- http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/179010396/unstoppable-learning
- http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/03/18/how-and-why-to-become-a-lifelong-learner/
- http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
TMOD, Club President, fellow toastmasters and esteemed guests. My name is TM Ahsan Bagwan and I'm a software engineer by profession. I'm standing in front of you for the purpose of delivering my ice breaker speech. I'm told that speaking about oneself is as easy as it gets but I can assure you that it isn't by any means.
My father came from the small town of Jejuri where their primary occupation was agriculture. My mother's family hailed from Miraj in Sangli. Once in a while I still go over to the village. Nostalgia sets in and I can walk down the memory lane.
Coming to my childhood, I went to Rosary School where I was always tagged as a good student. For those of you who don't know TM Gulshan Chugh is also an alumni of that school. Although I was seldom a topper I enjoyed learning with all my heart. It was here that I developed great aptitude for quiz. I then went on to bag the trophy for the maggi quiz contest. Thank heavens that Maggi came clean. Otherwise my achievement wouldn't have hold any weight. Well time flew and there I was tangled up in the rat race.
All the while I lived a very comfortable life all through my junior college and well into my undergraduate studies. To be honest, the concept of rote learning didn't appeal to me to that extent and it showed. I took my own sweet time to understand things through. But hey all that struggle made me a better person than what I was yesterday.
I liked the philosophy of the open source movement. And before I knew it I tinkered with Linux distros. Allow me to act as an evangelist here. To start with some main deal-breakers, forget about viruses. Stop pirating software. After all you are getting it for zilch. More importantly you can install linux side by side with your current OS and try it out.
It was at this point that the title of my speech made a lot of sense. The societal conditioning that learning stops after college seemed ludicrous. I realized that programming gave my life the purpose that was missing so sorely.
I hope to contribute heavily to open source projects. In this way I could give back to the community that made the world of software a better place than what it was.
I'm a voracious reader. I will always keep a book handy for those moments of downtime that occur all the time. My all time favourite book is Freakonomics.
I've also developed interests in listening to podcasts lately. Incidentally the folks at Freakonomics host a podcast too by the same name. Podcasts are without any doubt a treasure chest of knowledge. Thanks to the traffic situation they are ideal to listen to when commuting. It doesn't require much effort to follow as compared to audio books. I'm a big fan of TED radio hour podcast. My favourite episode by far is the one where the topic was abut grit. And that again brings me to the very topic of my speech.
The gist of that was that one thing which might be holding us back from learning new things is the belief that you can't learn new things. But neuroscience and psychology have shown this to be false. Our brains remain plastic and malleable well into old age, and its possible to create new connections among neurons and learn new things even if you are 80 years old.
I realize I didn't touch much on my profession. I love what I work on because I believe I ought to because of spending much time at work. One thing I'm proud of is that I work with some very chilled out people who are very approachable regardless of their ranks. Having said that I would like to work for myself down the line.
This was what I thought would give a glimpse int my life. I would like to end my speech with yet another quote on lifelong learning by Henry Ford.
"Any one who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
I'm committed to lifelong learning. Are you?
---
References:
- http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/179010396/unstoppable-learning
- http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/03/18/how-and-why-to-become-a-lifelong-learner/
- http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
