7 life-changing success mantras for Indian millennials, according to IIT Delhi Director Dr V Ramgopal Rao

Marks, ranks and getting jobs are the sole motive of millenials. As much as all of these count significantly in determining the career graph of students, Dr V Ramgopal Rao, Director of one of India’s most premier institute Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi has some valuable mantras for students, mantras that are life-changing if you choose to follow them.

He believes it’s important for them to focus on larger picture rather than just getting bogged down by low marks/ranks or over not getting a job.

Coming from him, these 7 tips are the most valuable life mantras and they are as crucial as your academic performance:

- Don’t just focus on placements and salary packages
The dream for a student should never be to chase the best companies and the fattest salary packages, but to aim high with the right attitude. If you’re setting a goal, prepare yourself to become worthy of achieving it.

- Learn as much as possible from the course you are pursuing and from the institute
College life is when you inculcate good/bad habits and discipline that stays with you for life. The ultimate aim should not be to get over with a semester, but to learn as much as you can from textbooks, environment and your college life. Rote learning can only get you past exams, but real life learning can get you past the worst of obstacles lying ahead of you.

- Make use of the opportunities that come your way
It needs an eye to see the opportunities that come your way, and the willingness to tap them. If you are in a relaxed mood, the best of opportunities shall pass by you, and you wouldn’t even notice how you failed to identify them when they were easily available.

- Enjoy the journey
Don’t lose the fun in journey by excessively focusing on destination. There’s more learning in how you achieved something in life than what you achieved. Let’s use an example - If you have a 3 day trip to Manali, you can enjoy the entire time if you realize that it’s just not getting to Manali that’s important but the way leading to it, alongside the beautiful river Beas, is in fact equally exciting. However you waste two days travelling if you fail to admire the beauty on the way and feel happy only to see the ice-laden mountains for that one day you spend up there. Every goal has a tough journey, and till the time you can enjoy that tough journey and learn from it, you cannot get to your destination.

- Come up with ideas which can solve India’s problems rather than focusing on making a career in US
Our economy is largely agrarian. If all the farmers today were to go abroad, what would happen to us? Where would we get the food that we eat? Not everything can be imported, right? They cannot afford to leave, but you can. However, think what a loss it is for people of this country if even one student educated in India is working abroad for MNCs. If we were to bring all of the back, India wouldn’t have stayed a developing country for long.

- Nothing substitutes hard work
There are no shortcuts to success. You work hard and you earn it. Nothing comes easy and what comes is not there to stay for too long!

In the end, Mr Rao has to say – “At the end, this is just one beautiful life, make the most of it. Do what all you can, explore all the possibilities and opportunities, learn all through the way, and achieve your dreams.”