My First Day @ Soil

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As I sit back with my fifth cup of tea for the day, I’m hit with an epiphany “Almost 4 months of my student life are over!” rushing to the library to grab an economics book or cracking the financial accounting nut at midnight or just sipping hot tea at the canteen and weekend partying in sector 29, life at SOIL is a full circle.

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A friend of mine at the School of Inspired Leadership once told me and I quote “Whether we like it or not, we all have become an integral part of each other’s story”. As term one ended, I finally got the time to think about what my friend was talking about and then as I thought further I began to think, I had a sudden flashback-about four months ago- it was my first day at SOIL.

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When I stepped through the gates of SOIL in April 2017. I was overwhelmed and so inexpressibly scared, my heart was racing and my palms felt cold, I thought I’d been caught in an emotional whirlpool. Much to my surprise and gratification I came out with a feeling so much peaceful and calmer at the end of the first day. Like a typical PGP candidate would do, I had done my homework – spoken to loads of alums, read a lot of articles, blogs etc. The graduating batch “Self-Starters” was talked about how wonderful their experience had been at SOIL.

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The SOIL experience kick started with the Induction week organized by the seniors. A week they totally dedicated to us and made us feel at home, made us feel responsible for holding high the name of SOIL. I was surrounded by a pool of 130 talented individuals with so many accomplishments and years of work experience, coming from varied parts of the country. The reverberant applause on the Dean’s first few words invoked in me mixed feelings in superabundance. The walls of SOIL radiated joy, acceptance, hope and warmth.

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A Japanese tradition to join hands with all present in the hall, a flow of positivity runs through all and a soothing decorum of the morning circle made a concrete impact on me. Five pillars of the institution are not just houses which we were put into, but they are the values which are necessarily important for us to inculcate within, to be the inspired leaders we desire to become. The founders inspiring message and faculty’s introduction and induction gave me a sense of relief that I was at the right place. I was about to relive my engineering days with a new course and schedule.

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On day one we were first sorted to different houses – Mindfulness, Diversity, Ethics, Sustainability and Compassion which formed the 5 value pillars of SOIL and then assigned to smaller teams. We were given deadlines to complete the tasks which were a prologue to what were in store for us throughout the year.  The most interesting and challenging task was the case study competition as we had very limited time and various other tasks on our plate. We worked very hard and strived to give the best presentation in our capacity.

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Flash-back takes me to first week when the alumni told us- “This is going to be the best year of your life!”  I am sure of repeating the exact words to induct the Class of 2019.

To sum it up, it has been an amazing life changing 4 months and I can’t wait for the other half to unravel itself and amaze me.

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Written by Kusama Singh, a student of the PGP-BLP program, class of 2018.