Failure is Still the Best Teacher Around
I read the title of this entry: "Failure is Still the Best Teacher Around" in a book that I picked up the year after coming to MIT.
And it is perhaps one of the most true things I have found. The Head Admissions Officer got a lot of laughs when she told my entering class that we would fail a lot and hey, that was alright.
But it's true! MIT has taught me that all things are possible (except of course breaking the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics). The most difficult of tasks simply require more planning, more effort, and more training. Something I heard recently was that: If you're not failing, you're not doing new things.
In the future (and now on campus), I plan on doing what I will merely denote as 'epic endeavors'. Projects like building my own arcade machines (http://kevinrustagi.com/the-arcades), being in rock and roll bands and helping to rekindle the music community at MIT (see below on this page), starting my own company (http://kevinrustagi.com/my-card), and leading programs for non-profits, like Camp Kesem - MIT (http://kevinrustagi.com/camp-kesem-nothing-short-of-amazing) are all, to me, 'epic endeavors'.
As I've continued down this path wherein I set visions for teams and help them realize deliverables and generally conquer, I've come to find that the wheel can always be sharpened.
This brings me to the video above. The MIT Gordon Engineering Leadership Program is a selective 2-year leadership training program that helps do exactly that - make me sharper and more aware. It is actively helping me to hone my skills and become an engineering leader.
I'm here fortunately not for my ego, but rather, to learn. The above scenario was an exercise in poor planning and early time management followed by my best effort at damage control (once within the scenario.)
Part of what's so great about this program is that we receive feedback from the seniors who are running the program's workshops and went through it last year. I also received very detailed feedback and analysis from an individual senior after this activity with details and points that I did well, and more importantly, ones that I can improve upon.
With an excellent staff that is here to help us, I am excited to be 'failing' with the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program here at MIT.
Here's a quote from one of my favorite engineering leaders of the past, David Sarnoff, one of the first CEOs of RCA: “Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving.”
Successes and failures alike - I look forward to the ways in which I will use the tools I am currently gaining.
