Way back, when I was in final year of engineering, one of the compulsory tasks mandated by University was to deliver a seminar presentation. The students were supposed to select a topic, prepare and submit a paper on same and later when it would be our turn, present it . We would be assessed and accordingly marks would be awarded (out of 25).
Well, we all know how serious we students are towards academics, and I was no exception. Unfortunately for us, the professor who was in-charge of overseeing this particular academic activity was very strict. Since we all had tremendous respect for her teaching abilities, we could not take much liberties. She had put in some strict criteria for us to pass the subject, couple of which were that we had to be present for all the topics being delivered, and we had to deliver as per the schedule she prepared.
Mundane never excited me (even then), so after grudgingly sitting in for a few presentations, I started skipping. On top of it I did not submit my topic paper even when it was past the due date for me. I remember squirming my way out a couple of times by giving one excuse or another. But one fine day, when not many student presentations were left, the professor gave me an ultimatum that I better submit the paper the next day and present the day after. Also, given that I had taken too many liberties, she’d be evaluating my efforts out of 15 marks only. With a minimum of 13 marks needed to just pass the subject, and knowing her being a a stern task master, I knew I was in deep waters.
Overnight, I wrote a paper on ‘Natural Language Processing’, and submitted it the next morning. Thereafter I started preparing towards my actual delivery of same. I remember we each had an time slot of 20 mins followed by QnA. And do what I may, my delivery was not extending beyond 7-8 minutes. After lot of practice deliveries, I finally gave up and decided to let it be.
Next day, when it was my turn to deliver I went on to dais and with a pounding heart commenced my presentation. Just a few minutes in to the delivery, I started getting questions from the faculty. And I kept on answering and continuing with the delivery of the topic. By the time I was done, I realized it had taken 35 minutes. Just before I got down from the dais, the professor asked me one last question “Were you presenting someone’s research paper”. I replied, “ No ma’am, I have prepared it all on my own” (and deep inside knew that she’d not fail me).
When I reflect back, I believe what made it possible was that I had selected a topic, which I had (then) grown very passionate about. I had stumbled upon a book on NLP in the college library when I was in my 3rd year, and had thereafter ended up reading up a few more books and journal topics on same (it being pre-internet era then). I think the fact that it was not one of our ‘syllabus’ subjects helped me explore it to the extent I could.
Over the years, I have seen that in professional/entrepreneurial life as well.
When we talk about something we’re really passionate about, results show for themselves.
In fact one of the suggestions I give to all entrepreneurs is to sell their product/service to first hundred customers themselves. The passion/conviction of the entrepreneur is one of the most important ingredients that makes the sale happen. In fact investment too!
Yesterday, as I was digging through some of my old file folders for an document that I needed, I stumbled upon the NLP paper I had submitted, and it triggered the train of thought leading to this post. A cue perhaps, for me to get back to the field, given the strides AI/ML has taken lately.
And yes, when the final results came, I had been awarded 20 (out of 15 🙂 ).
Not that the mark sheet has ever mattered!
