Aptitude – Attitude – Altitude

These three words look same on the first glance and make the whole difference with just permutation of three alphabets ‘ p ‘ , ‘ t ‘ , ‘ l ‘ .

This context came from a altogether different weekends of mine. Batulda site was irrepairable down since last week, due to some technical glitches.

Today my whole day with junior sister spent to bring the site up after remaking it again. As Batulda’s wish was there should be a quote on each page. For the time being I have kept a quote that I loved most and its needed to all of us, who feels student at heart. Though at the place, there will be dynamically changing ‘quote of the day’ later on. A lot of work is to be done for the site, but for the time being everyone is happy to see that site is up.

So the quote that I put was:
“Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.”

What struck me this quote is, yesterday’s reference of a another girl. She carried ( all 70% plus) and contractual experience of 1 year in the industry.

And she told me she is still unable to find a job, she wanted to meet me for some suggestions to find out a job in the industry.These kind of people, really need some support to get up. They don’t want to hang up too. But they lack the dedicated attitude that is required to project their aptitude right. So without the right attitude, their minimum altitude move to the higher plane. And in the long run they loose their confidence level.

I have good as well as bad experiences in this regard, when I decided to join postal courses bidding bye to engineering admissions. It was really difficult to be a self learner, especially in technical course, but at last of my masters I was determined that I will do my project work in health informatics system in NIMHANS or Manipal Hospitals. At NIMHANS, I was not allowed to enter the library beyond three consecutive days as following the rules for the outsider. Somehow I found a place to sit in editor’s room, actually to spend time and collect data from booklets / manuals. Weeks went off like that.

No project guide. I had my rough design of project work ready done in paper and html files in floppies. One day, I got a chance to show my drafts to the editor about my project needs for suggestions. He felt sympathy for me. He suggested me to meet some professors in statistics and psychopharmocology department. Now at least I got his reference, editor Sri Gopalakrishnan. I used this reference to the concerned persons. Two of them felt sorry to help me.

Last reference was Pradhan sir. I saw him as, the father figure, sittting in the mainframe (complex) systems room. The dustfree, moisture controlled cool AC air entered my nostrils and from the tables glared me, were the huge monitors with moving protein structures.I fell in love with the place.

He listened to my proposal and laughed aloud and told me about the negligible importance of the project. And next he shot one quetion to me, ” Can you make toilets in your anscestral village, where it may not be there? ” Strange question,out of context, indeed it was ! What the man, he is, working on some of the best computers in India and asking me to make a toilet !

“Yes sir, I can make” – I replied affirmatively . “Okey than you can start the project here, come from yesterday” And rest is the history. Library, cafeteria, best computer systems and support was ready to help me even on the weekends, when dust covered the railings. I am looking for the day,when he will at the best position there. I came-up with a project work to his satisfaction, and recently praised by State Informatics Officer of Bihar. I am not bragging, but its my experiment, how attitude helped me out in some of the worst situations.

Still not having a tag of IITian with me, pains me many a times, its my attitude thats carrying me forward, surpassing my real aptitude, as well as many of my classmates who scored good in conventional aptitude tests. And that’s the reason, I am fearless of all the altitudes when I see upwards.