A Letter to students . . . Make yourself an instrument of change

To my dear students,

Treat your education as a personal “investment”. If you treat it as such, you must nurture it to increase its value. All investments come at a cost, not only the monetary cost (tuition) but in this case, also the time and effort you put into it. Getting the most out of your investment will only happen if the value that you get from it (revenue) is greater than the cost of getting it.

We either minimize cost or maximize revenue or both.

Minimizing cost means seizing every opportunity to learn, even outside of the school context. Learning is a shared responsibility, do not be a passive spectator – talk to your teachers or your colleagues, ask the right questions, read real books! Broaden your perspective by listening to different views. Go out and meet other people and experience their culture.

Maximizing “revenue” means treating the result of your personal investment as an “asset”. Treating it as an asset requires you to further enhance it. Organizations will see it in you and treat you as an asset when you bring added value to them. If organizations recognize you as an asset, they will further invest time, effort and money in you because it is in their best interest to increase the value of their employees. It makes the employees more motivated, more competent, more engaged and thus more productive.

Treating your education as an “asset” also means being able to make a difference in society, if it is too big for you – target your community- if it is still too big, try to make a difference to just one person. Strive to do everything possible, big or small, to make people become kinder and more compassionate to others.

Make yourself an instrument of change.

The apostle Paul once wrote to his friends in Philipi

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. – (Phil 2:3,4) “

It is now your choice to make. Are you an “asset” or a “liability”?

_______________________

Reposting from June 29, 2016

This letter to students even more rings true during this pandemic. Econometrics treat education as part of social capital, the collective worth of education and training of the citizens of a country or a state that help in fueling prosperity and progress. The corona virus single-handedly, swiftly, and broadly shifted the paradigms of most components and drivers of society. More so for education.