Ways Student can actively be engaged in Independent Projects while studying in University

NikunjLeave a comment

There is nothing called failure in Student Life. It`s all learning and improvising.

Every student has some dream of either becoming a scientist, an athlete or an actor. The internet is really divided into extremes and has content either for elite university students or entrepreneurs who are drop out from the top-notch university. But I do not belong to neither of them. Therefore, I started this blog for students from developing countries or students with low resources or opportunities. The only prerequisite is that you have to start the process of executing as early possible. Let’s say that you start in your high school or first year of undergraduate school.

If you are interested in getting to know about my journey of studying and working in different countries as a Ph.D. student with scholarships. You can check my blog here- 

How to win Scholarships?

Is it your 50th or 100th project that you have actually tried and have failed to execute? It is the hardest part of the progress. But you got to realize that you had the strength and patience to try at least 20,50 100 projects. Both numbers and results do not matter while you are trying and learning different ideas. But the speed of your executing definitely matters as it defines that you are actually thinking and creating ideas to execute your idea either you are contacting the collaborator, shooting a video for your academic or fitness project, writing an in-depth blog or ebook.

Time management and information about working hours is quite subjective which keeps changing as per the demands of your activities and lifestyle. I usually don’t understand the concept of time management for the student who is engaged in so many things. But there is one thing that a student can control and distribute its energy to specific activities which are utmost important.

Channeling all your energy to the important actions or events of your day will increase your productivity with ease, time and happiness. This can be done by organizing your mind with the idea of the amount of energy you have in you to utilize it with a focus on completing certain duties with complete attention.  This idea of energy management will grow into awareness with the practice of utilizing your energy precisely.

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I am referring everything to the energy because I am pretty sure you have heard these sentences –

I am in a relaxed mood

I am tired

I am quite energetic and so on.

If you can understand these moods and energy to channel it towards related productive activities, it will automatically grow in different directions with the consistent and solid grind. The application of energy management in your daily life also enhances your strength to accept the changes.

The uncommon and unique trajectory of a student with precise utilization of your energy will indeed shape your energy investment into some unique product in terms of personal and professional development.

But students focus on time management which leads to so many ugly stories of students. There cannot be more ugly and terrible news that rate of depression, suicides, and emotional disorders have increased tremendously across the globe.

Ideas to manage and invest your energy as a Student

Enter and choose the field where you like to devote completely. In some or most cases, you cannot choose the field because of one or the other reason. I can understand but in that situation, choose that as your sub-field and work on it religiously. Invest good quality of your energy in the project either fitness or writing.  There is no one systematic way of learning a subject and field that you enjoy. If you are really passionate and devotional about the project, you will figure out the ways to invest your energy and find and unlock new strategies to learn anything.

Did you ever notice your performance during the peak hours or during the high rush of the deadline approaching? It is indeed fantastic how so many students can outperform themselves and achieve incredible results.

Do not establish a routine

It creates unnecessary resistance and limitations to stay within the time frame. Instead, if you are really enjoying the process of your work, there is no way that you will be bound to time. Enjoying the process pumps you to do an extra pushup, run a mile longer even if you are exhausted. The enjoyment in the work will kick you in without breaking any mind and time barriers. Enjoying the process and channeling your energy towards the work that you like the most will produce more work than you are supposed to do in a timeline.

There are always a few things like writing, communicating your project or handling administrative work in your project that you might not like. Notice these things carefully and never put this off until the last minute as nobody is going to come for you.

If you are a student and if you want to do your dream project, you will have to do everything on your own in the beginning stages. 

The idea of shifting and delaying to learn the difficult tasks needed for your project will not work. Try to avoid using the famous line “I work effectively under pressure”. It`s fine as it’s your genuine way of working.

But one only reach the spot of working under the pressure with consistent delaying and procrastinating about million other micro things which do not matter.

Eliminating the distractions in your School and University time period is of the essential elements for your project to flourish at a high rate. Everyone has different distractions but the most common will stealing minutes in between your work to watch a youtube video, communicating with your friends about useless and micro things. This is you investing your finite energy towards distractions which will ultimately kill your motivation to execute and finish the tasks of the day.

Engaging with social and cultural groups

This one is not easy to understand and explain when you are in your High school and undergraduate. Interactions and communications in these groups happen at a different level in an interdisciplinary approach. Social and cultural groups which are distributed uniformly and connects every single entity of the system or any organization that you are linked with.  These social and cultural groups will have common platforms in the University and digitally where they will gather for meetings.

Contribute to these platforms

Find an International Societies and nonprofit organization

The advanced members in these societies have already developed a sense of leadership and management skills which comes with experience. It is a strategic decision to work on these skills if you are not a born leader/manager. These international societies are usually advised by senior researchers or leaders who have links around other international societies and can put you in the related networks which will help you push your career.

How to engage in International Societies or nonprofit organization?

The best way is to join and volunteer for the organization. Once you have entered the place, interact with people from a different domain, create online projects, create content and fundraising events for them.

These strategies will help you understand the fundamentals of networking which can you use all your life. If you want to enhance your networking-

Follow these steps

  • Interact consistently with all the members in the societies or groups
  • Offer your services within or outside the system for free. It will act as a catalyst for your future ventures
  • Be humble and share opportunities with students who don`t know new things.

It will always be WIN- WIN for you 

 

 

 

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Skills that you can develop in your Research Visit or Internships- Reflections on the Visit of Thonon Les Bains, France

NikunjLeave a comment

International research visits, internships or exchange programs and collaboration across national boundaries bring your research efforts to the next level and to the broader public which helps in better promotion or marketing. Some students asked me the ways to maximize the overall output of there internships or research visits in there undergraduate, Masters even Ph.D. school.

  1. Organize social meetups- The possible idea of organizing and meeting people in your internships in both formal and informal ways is quite similar to the way you meet people in any house parties or sports events discussing the love of sports and food. Also, you can always similar meeting in various digital tools such as google hangouts where you can organize a conference to the meeting call to discuss your potential project or put any of your query in the related fields. I recently started working with a non-profit organization in Canada which that organizes the social meet up using google hangouts to discuss the progress of the team in different domains which is indeed productive. As you get to engage with students working in the areas of a client meeting, organizing conferences or big events, expanding the team through collaboration with potential members.
  2. Try to document your internship work or idea in words or video authentically while keeping its originality as intact as possible.  Keep your content simple and user-friendly just like you enjoy user-friendly mobile apps. The content in your online platforms should describe the real which comes only if you have strong interpersonal communication skills. It is indeed an essential tool to organize different sort of social hangouts, which will keep the communication flowing in between the members. So, I always put forward my ideas with the potential person/s who is interested and wants to listen to your ideas.  Small things that have made the macro change in your project which could be a beginning of social media services such as a blog or youtube channel, creating new networks in linkedin and so on which can lead to a social hangout between the like-minded group.  Organizing and executing your internship or research visit in this manner which develops multiple skills such as the ability to collaborate and work in a team with the multicultural group and adapting to changing tools.
  3. Being an enthusiast student, I always have the opportunity to work on my interpersonal communication skills while working in different teams through internships, research visits, and conferences. In January 2018, I stayed in an institute in Thonon Les Bains which is in the north of Europe and is usually freezing in the month of January where the temperature can drop up to -15 C. The lab was just next to the massive lake known as Lac Leman from the French border and Lake Geneva Given from the  Swiss border. You can easily reach to most captivating cities of Switzerland- Lausanne, and Geneva by boat or an hour drive. It is a bit expensive to travel in Switzerland when you are living with a Spanish student scholarship. However, I managed to go to many places in France and Switzerland. I met my supervisor there, who introduced me to the lab members and current research going on in the department. Over the next 2.5 months, I worked alongside different Ph.D. students and technicians sharing the same house which was opposite to the workplace and the incredible Lake Leman. These international swings will break down your shyness and other traits that create a barrier for you, and further enhancing your confidence level to add more positive contributions to the team. Getting hands-on experience in an International organization can help you integrate into multicultural groups support you to go a long way towards global research and management teams. Therefore, Working in a multicultural team is an honor where you get to share different culture, cuisine, and stories. The purpose of the visit was to conduct experiments with the environmental samples and learn bioinformatics flow.  Learning algorithms to treat and analyze the big datasets is the base of future academic and industrial projects. If you learn to manage and handle big datasets, then you have already opened many doors for yourself.  This opportunity was the stepping stone to expand my limited knowledge of algorithms and possible uses of machine learning in biology. My main task was to prepare all the environmental samples for DNA sequencing that had to be sent to another laboratory for further processing and generate raw (unprocessed) computerized DNA data.

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Thonon Les Bains

4. I had the perfect and new challenges which ultimately gave me the interesting output for my knowledge base. Other than that, there are few moments especially when you are traveling in a strange country where people speak a language that is completely strange to you. The first few days were challenging but with passing days and changing climate; I was able to connect and make good relationships with all the colleagues and researchers. These opportunities give you the chance to have detailed stories which build the missing pillars in your journey either academic or non-academic. All these networking and learning events in the student journey are the fundamental blueprint which should be followed religiously i.e., to enjoy the process and work on networking thoroughly.

Think about your student life as the huge pillar formed of conversation and meetings either personal or professional which creates the base of your future projects in terms of collaboration and recommendations.

These strategies come along with certain emotions based on your experiences and what you have learned from it. It will happen like a rollercoaster ride if you believe in your projects and trying to figure out the ways to execute in million possible ways. However, I believe that every experience will be uplifting and rewarding in the later stages.

Maybe you can make 100 networks in 2019, Maybe 50 or Maybe you can make 1  Right now. Send that email.

The importance of attending subject-specific workshops or conferences

NikunjLeave a comment

I have already mentioned the importance of national and international symposiums and seminars that bring people from a different background that share similar objectives and challenges in solving the common problems.

Importance of Workshops, Symposiums and networking events in Graduate Student Life?

Let us focus on the importance of subject-specific or small scale workshops which brings in a number of people working on a rising or new subject in an interdisciplinary approach.  At the beginning of something new, it always starts with a small scale workshop which a student can only identify if he is consistent and up to date in terms of information and activities happening both online and offline about the subject area.

Attending small workshops or subject-oriented programs defines your maturity level to understand the subject in detail. This is one of the major shift that can happen in your student life either academic or non-academic. I always bring a small note about the Internet which has created a huge change in every single individual life either in the commerce sector, fitness sector and it is already bringing a big change in the student or independent academic researcher life.

Through small scale workshops, a lot of conversations and ideas can happen around the meetings. The primary aim of the small workshops or subject-oriented workshop is to derive the maximum benefit from the debate and discussions on the subject to find the directed solutions and new insights. The workshop theme usually solves the same problem in different geographical communities.

My supervisor in Spain was quite an active and smooth operative person who helped me out in all the paperwork while I was completing my administrative work in Portugal to get the work permit of Spain. In the meantime, she also created a space for me in an International Workshop in Croatia even before I got officially enrolled in the program. This workshop was the part of the massive program related to European rivers and water-related issues which helped me a lot to prepare myself mentally.

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Pic- DNAqua-Net, EU Cost Action

I arrived in Croatia in the month of November, and it was freezing out there. I had the brief idea about workshop theme and I was incredibly happy and overwhelmed because of the countries and new experiences.

Well,

Most of us are aware that we are living in a world of supercomputers and artificial intelligence, but I was not conscious about it until I attended the workshop about metabarcoding and diatoms. It was the moment I realized that artificial intelligence and computers are indeed hitting all the subjects equally. Moreover, this workshop introduced me to questions like the use of algorithms and machine learning to study biological data and biodiversity of microbes. Supercomputers, biological barcodes, and algorithms are the biggest biological shift we will ever live in the society. It has become practical and efficient to change the fundamentals of everything in the ecosystem. The combined technology of barcoding and supercomputers can tag every single microbe and living life on the planet earth. But for the moment, this program was focused on just DIATOMS and RIVER ECOLOGY.

Many researchers and Ph.D. students came across all Europe who were presenting their progress in the use of powerful computers and algorithms to treat biological data. It was not new, but the speed of growth in this field was astonishing because of fast development in computer processing power.   It is not so simple, but various researchers have identified the problems and the plausible computerized solutions which are way cheaper and faster than traditional methods to study the ecology of rivers.

It is not that these computers will replace all the bioscience research but can speed up the specific process such as classification of species or genes using defined algorithms.

Now here is when I learned a valuable lesson, I noticed that there were nearly 10 Ph.D. students are trying to mimic the use of a microscope. Further, when I explored this subject genuinely made me realized it could make the freelance Research possible with an economic upside for Ph.D. researchers especially that who enjoy algorithms and tech-based work. It will be beneficial to the biology students to learn or expose themselves to algorithms and a coding language.

In the workshop, there were people from the laboratory in France where I had to visit for the training and understand the new technologies that they have been implementing in studying the ecology of rivers. So, my supervisor introduced me to all of them.

Within the span of 2 days of this workshop, there was a macro change in my perspective and strategy towards science and life. Taking a step, attending a small scale workshop can load with information which indeed takes some time to out the knowledge in use in real time will be a serious help. I think the small scale workshops have the power to fill up the missing information and understand the evolution of the subject from others perspective as well. And, I have never been so grateful after meeting incredible researchers and students around the world.

Workshops are the best annual meetings designed to facilitate the interaction between supervisors and students to enable future collaborations between different groups in the same sector. It will give the strong foundation that has huge upside at all levels.

 

 

My in-depth analysis of Student Emotional Intelligence

NikunjLeave a comment

A few days back, I realized something important when a 20-year-old asked me, why are you not stressed? It was that instant that made me write more about student life and emotional intelligence. The ongoing journey of my student and travel life has pumped me to make a mission of helping as many as students and raise them above from a stressful life.

Everyone around the student usually talks about IQ which constitutes majorly about there intelligence and intellectual ability which is fine but in this competitive spirit of developing there IQ, most of our student and a young population have messed up their emotional intelligence.  When a student spends his precious 4-5 years in an educational institute in learning and managing things, it is supposed or expected for a student to have a strong emotional intelligence along with intellectual ability. But the system has completely failed in helping students in developing their Emotional intelligence. There is no doubt about it, as seen by the facts related to student mental health problems.

More education should be directly proportional to more calm mindset and controlled emotional state. 

The primary thing that a student can do while running their university life is to maximize there impact in developing emotional intelligence and learning to enjoy the process. Enjoying the process is a kind of trait that comes with increased self-awareness.

Student life consumes the maximum days of your life as you spend almost 20 years until you are graduated, so you need double down the work on the traits and tools that will increase your emotional strength. I have been working on it for a significant period of time especially when I started working and studying in new countries which made me realize more about my emotional stability which usually decides your overall output in both professional and personal life. I am spending enough hours on understanding the patterns of my emotions and how it impacts my work output. We know that there is a lack of tools in the system as there is no standard method which defines the strategy to help students strengthing the fundamentals of emotional stability instead the system is shaking and cracking up their emotional stability

The way the world is transforming with fast communication, fast transportation, fast information, fast processing, we should make Emotional intelligence (EI) the topmost priority for all the students. Looking at the statistical figures of student mental health crisis pumps me more to dig up deep and test different tools on myself to understand this aspect of life which we “Including all the stakeholders” involved directly or indirectly with students have neglected for years. I think it is high time to define the baseline of emotional intelligence for the students, develop proper and significant tools to understand and improvise their EI. I truly believe that students with strong EI will bring harmony and balance in the ongoing disrupted student university life.

However, at the moment, nobody is giving importance to EI as it is not achievable with visual tools like the gym. And most of the students are hiding their emotions in the competitive spirit which is making it more worse for there overall life. It is hard to discuss, debate or teach the Emotional intelligence as most of the information is dispersed and is not available in the single library like the information is available on subjects like physics, chemistry or social science.

Working on EI will allow students to set the fundamental base of their life in the early years before heading to professional life. For ex: I have met so many people who are successful and making good money in professional life but have completely messed up their emotional health due to lack of awareness about Emotional Intelligence. Forex: Being a student, my EI  allowed me to give back to the new freshers in undergraduate and master school in the University where most students are competing with each other just to be on the top of the class. Talking to new students and helping them out will build up your EI in multiple ways. EI is a whole new subject which can be understood as an individual by trying different strategies and testing them in new situations where your EI is at stake.

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Making your EI as the biggest strength will help a student in living a “HAPPY SUCCESSFUL LIFE”.

GRADES ARE TEMPORARY, SOME NUMBERS ON A PIECE OF PAPER BUT EI IS THE BASE OF STUDENT EMOTIONAL HEALTH. IT IS TIME FOR STUDENTS, UNIVERSITIES AND RESEARCH INSTITUTES JOIN FORCES TO WORK ON BUILDING TOOLS FOR STUDENT EMOTIONAL HEALTH.

Consistent working on EI of a student will break down the negative trend of thoughts and decisions and will help him/her upregulate the self-esteem and self-confidence. It can help the student understand the real meaning of education. The student will become a great executor of both life and any skills that he/she will learn.

Skills are always changing with the advancement in technology but EI is constant.

EI will help the student to ease down at the troublesome period while understanding the importance of a long game. Students will strong EI will provide there support to the students in need rather than competing with them.

However, I recognize the utmost need for a student to work on there EI, is to increase the overall input in improvising the existing strengths. The best way is to become self-aware which will come with testing and trying new things. Emotional intelligence has to go in parallel with your intellectual ability to solve desk or professional tasks. The takeaway from the article is to practice the idea of testing and trying different things to become more self-aware which will enhance your emotional intelligence.

Some tips that I used to work on my Emotional Strengths

  • Don`t get too caught up or stressed up because of exams and assignments. We already know that we get limited energy in a day, Let’s say, you have 100 units/day which should be appropriately distributed to get sufficient marks and other independent projects that you want to create. Build up your skill sets especially that deals with communication and human relations. Being stuck in the cycle of assignments and exams is not an intelligent strategy in today’s world. It is neither gonna build your professional skills nor EI.
  • When you face a problem or set back, don’t drop all your projects or ideas. Let that pressure build up, but be aware of it and try to meet it on the same day. Some things that you are doing in your University time should be entirely for joy and happiness which could be designing a unique fitness flow, writing or art, and craft. So, the only advice is to take it easy and enjoy the process of working while you are overflowing with confusing emotions.
  • Most of the students at the University have COMMON habits or routines. Therefore, getting into the trap of ordinary routine is an evil plan that usually destroys your unique and weird ideas. BREAK IT, COME OUT OF IT.
  • Pay proper attention to your supervisors and team members. The power of attentive listening is enormous. I understood the importance of listening while working as an Undergraduate researcher or intern which gave me the essential tips and information. We are living in the age of information. Clear information only comes if you are an attentive listener. A good relationship with a senior student will provide you material and further teach you with the skills that you might need.
  • Build your social circle and relationships wisely- Good relationships and good friends will help you in the troublesome period. They are the major components of your personal and professional life.
  • It is important to ask yourself the difference between 70% and 80% marks. How much time are you investing to increase your grades? And How much time are you investing in building your EI?
  • All students cannot be equal in one thing. Everyone cannot become a topper or crack competitive exams. There is a tremendous difference between you all who have significant abilities to uplift your life unimaginably. It will only happen if you learn to enjoy the process and enhance your EI.
  • Spread your learnings and knowledge with new students in University- This will increase your network and collaboration with other students.

 

 

Dear Student Researchers, Now, you have your Chance !!!

NikunjLeave a comment

The digital platform gives you 100% control to say and publish things loudly without any fear. Do you want tips to develop your digital work? Have you found your research or work interest? It does not matter if you are a first-year undergraduate or about to submit your Ph.D. thesis. There are 4 billion people on the internet, and the number is only going to rise. So, everyone has their share of attention.

In the beginning, students tend either to lose control as they face challenges in the project to move further making them quit before they have started. The interference of these movements and hurdles in your game are the warnings to calm down, take a step back, analyze and solve it. Instead, these hurdles should motivate you to make different moves. Especially, with the availability of the flexible tools which accepts alternative solution freely without any entrance exams or cut off the list.

Learning about digital tools online through various Internet laid the foundations to build my basic digital profile such as website, linkedin profile and a blog. Since I was in the late third year, I created my first blog and tried to involve as many undergraduate students in writing in different domains. The blog was not a success, but I learned many things about blogging, communication, and people management.

The undergraduate school is the perfect time to analyze the stillness between your ideas and execution. You may notice, if you are prepared to hustle and execute consistently, there will be regular and systematic progress in your vision. There is a moment of frustration and stillness, but most of us lack the courage to move into the next phase.

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Let me share an interesting story with you about Foldscope which is a microscope under $1. It was invented by the students and researchers of Stanford University. The first prototype was released back in 2010 and they have planned to distribute at least 1,000,000 foldscopes in the year 2020. So, It took almost 10 years to come at this level with so many resources. The product is incredible and revolutionary but it took a lot of hard work, research, patience, and consistency to achieve this masterpiece.  The moral of the story is that if you have an idea in your undergraduate school that you believe in and that this project will not make you wait for weekends to enjoy your life.

Instead, it will help you forgot the concept of weekends and understand and fall in love with the concept of passion and process more.  

The time cannot be more exciting. The age of fast information, fast communication, and fast processing is already existing with incredible infrastructure. You have got a super mobile phone and fast speed internet which does not leave us with any excuse to share our ideas with billions of people WITH A CLICK.

You have almost 5-6 years of University to understand and practice your skills and craft in different digital platforms to analyze the people response and further expectations. But I am sure that you will succeed and manage to find it out if you are consistent in your efforts.

The way of student life is already changing and the digital research or projects will contribute a big part in student success.  These digital platforms are not just for fitness, music and travel industry. There is a significant need to rave all these platforms with Students research and their philosophies. You have a way to replicate your knowledge in real and virtual life.

Why Create a Personal profile?

The digital profile will be the substitute for your CV or cover letter for your future applications and collaborations all over the world. The presence of the internet is essential to grab all the opportunities. The digital profile is fantastic and is way better than a piece of paper that highlights your grades and a couple of awards. It gives you more room and independence to sell yourself creatively.  It makes you visible to other people who can directly contact you even if you have not sent them your CV which opens opportunities from another way around. The employer or future collaborator have an idea of your vision and creativity from your wide presence on the Internet. If you are contributing the real values and content in the social media and digital platforms related to the subject of your future employer, it helps him to pre-evaluate you which can give you edge over other candidates.

It does not matter; if you enjoy or support the extensive use of social media, it is happening.  Getting and building your digital profile is not easy, but the access to the resources and unlimited free tools can make things happen with hard work, dedication, and mental focus. The primary thing about using a digital platform is content creation which can be done in multiple ways. It is indeed true that the starting point is always confusing. Now here is all the management and smart work lies ahead.

Content creation is easy if you are studying and creating content about the subject that you really like and deeply passionate about. It would be efficient and straightforward if you define a big theme which can be used to create multiple short pieces in the form of words, pictures, and art on different social media platforms.

Choose a theme or subject that you want to talk about and keep it as a seed of your further piece of content. The first thing you should do is create a large piece of content which could be in the form of video, article or podcast to be used as a reference to develop other related content. Writing or recording a detailed piece of content is much easier to accomplish as compared to short and specific content.

Let me give an example

If you are biologist interested in studying plant kingdom. Record or write your understanding about plant kingdom in detail which will subsequently be used to create other pillars of your digital profile. And in initial stages perfection is subjective, focus on the detailed information related to the subject. Once you have built the base of your content, you can try to create pictures or short video content suitable for other digital platforms like Instagram and blogging platforms that have a large population of graduates, master and other tech researchers who will be interested in scientific content.

Furthermore, you can create content for the people who are interested in enhancing their information about plants based on medical properties or geographical regions. The first way is to develop useful microcontent to grab the attention of the people. Microcontent only takes 30 seconds to 1 minute of your selected population in return of helpful information that you give them

Digital Researcher demonstrates the immense potential to challenge the routine of the Universities and Schools. Public opinion about your work will be of utmost importance in the coming days and will produce a more significant number of digital researchers in science which won`t require any green signal from the defined body.

The public will be happy to see the freelancer researchers changing the regular pattern of defined work as many of them are heavily funded with tax payer’s money. But the public is never being informed about the output of their tax money.  The digital world is making the world more transparent which is a big advantage to the independent researchers or freelance researchers.

Digital Profile Will Help All Students

NikunjLeave a comment

As I realize after working in the different laboratories with outstanding master and Ph.D. students who have incredible ideas and profound knowledge of the subject but lack the communication skills and networking skill either real or digital.  I am getting the impression that students coming from different generations are getting confused with the sudden change in the communication pattern. Some are struggling to adopt this change and some have accepted easily within the flow.  I can be wrong but if in 2018 you are not communicating digitally even if you have equal attention of 4 billion people, through digital platforms is a big mistake.  I want to bring the attention of all the aspiring students from different backgrounds to lay your foundation in today`s digital platforms to create the fundamental blueprint of your vision which will take years to develop. In some lucky cases, you will be able to see results in just a few months.  As I continue to understand and communicate with students using social media and personal interviews, I have started to notice the amount of stress, anxiety, and misunderstanding in them is at an extreme high.

As most of the aspiring and passionate students are stressing in the early stages by navigating their life by other people and there personal experiences which is not right.

Especially in 2019, it should not be the strategy where graduate students are trying to get hold on to the title to secure a job in industry or academics.

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What is the need for Digital foundations?

In today`s low digital drive, it is a requisite to create a robust digital foundation. For some or most students, digital networking and content creation could be a boring field, but if you want to stay in the information and digital world game, then content creation and digital networking is the most important subject.

Aspiring young researchers, students, and innovators should take this digital chance to create their style and stand out from the crowd. It could have been accepted if you are not able to improve your communication or networking in the 1980s, but in 2019 the things and opportunities we have do not leave us with one excuse. The chances are unlimited right there on your phone. It is also something that gives you the attention of 4 billion people if you are upright and unique in your work. Does not mean that you will be on the top in just four months as you are competing with many people with the same baseline and passion for sharing their ideas. It is worth noting that, if the travel and fitness content creators can create such a buzz in the market, then why not the students from other backgrounds? I am pretty sure; this digital profile will help you to build your confidence, creativity, leadership and networking skills. There is no harm in understanding the digital platforms and putting them to good use for the betterment of society.

Taking initiatives for the community in addition to academics is indeed useful to build up your communication skills and networking that can be done through; scientific podcast, setting up a talk show in your society or among different colleges, a scientific journal among the undergraduate or graduate students. It’s one of many ways to network with researchers and interact with fellow student researchers.

Back in 2013, when I was in 2nd year, I became an associate editor with an undergraduate research journal of Colorado State University, undergraduate students ran that for undergraduate students. This gave a whole new idea about the power of digital tools for coming undergraduate and aspiring students.

Have you wondered how your CV would look in the next 10-15 years? Have you ever wondered how people used to communicate or collaborate back in the 1970s or 1980s? The things and method of communication are never the same and so as the student life and its trend have wholly changed globally. Companies and the academic institutions will see their potential candidate digital profile as a standard requirement- I believe that it worth doing it now to develop your digital profile in every sort of platform available because all the platforms are completely different and need in-depth research to get your whole command on it.

All the elements that are revolved around scientific and technological research are not the same anymore. Therefore, I would advise you to develop or use tools that enhance your communication with people from a different background such as media, IT, digital marketing, video creators or editors which will add significant value in your planned projects.

Even academicians and researchers look for the people to work for them who can perform well in more than one domain. The future and even present entirely belong to the digital world. Getting out of your comfort box and connecting with people from all the background especially who understand the domains like digital, machine learning and artificial intelligence more than you. These interactions and networking skills will be life-changing moments and will help you to grow and reinvent yourself in so many ways.

Importance of Workshops, Symposiums and networking events in Graduate Student Life?

Nikunj1 Comment

Exchange programs or summer/winter schools are practical opportunities to improve your business skills and human relations. Attending these events is the platforms to work on your networking skills, learn about different ways of working and adapting in a fast-changing world. I always try to apply for winter or summer schools to improve my cross-cultural communication and diversify my overall profile in order to know more. It is a chance to reflect on changes, think on your feet and express your ideas in an interdisciplinary group.

In 2015, I grabbed one fully funded opportunity of Indo-German Winter School on water management issues in urban areas in IIT Madras, India. It was an exciting program of 2 weeks that selected 15 students each from both India and Germany.

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After learning from many conferences, workshops and symposiums of while participating in many the lectures and activities, I learned that the happiest and successful person in the future world would be the one who can adapt and adjust quickly with global and multicultural teams.  The person with such an ability will be the natural winner in any group and will have a higher potential to win in any long version game.  And we don`t develop this ability in school or University

The best part of this Indo-German school was that the theme of the school was completed new and was also surprised when I got selected for this program. The broad topic of the school was to discuss sustainable water management in urban areas in an interdisciplinary approach.  But I had the practical experience of working in wastewater treatment, and I thought this program would diversify my knowledge in the subject of water.

In this program, I gained ample knowledge of water management issues and treatment problems in urban and rural societies of India. Further, there were comparative discussions about water issues in both India and Germany to share research and development. Mostly, I was listening about the policies, different systems, stakeholders and economy related to water projects.  I was astonished by the knowledge and leisure I gained in those 15 days which is infinitely different compared to what I had learned in my university or other internships.

The sole purpose of attending this school which was completely unrelated to my academics was to develop the untouched ability to work in a team with a different process of working. The more I attended these events, school, and conferences, I lost all my fear of the opposite party, and I learned to enjoy talking to multiple people and people from different backgrounds.

The diverse and multicultural the group, the bigger the output of the whole session. As a result, I was able to communicate and express my ideas in different domains with competence.

The way to enhance your chances to win scholarships globally is to do things that can enrich your soft skill sets and do things you feel uncomfortable which will ultimately diversify your experiences.