What I Didn’t Learn In College...

Photograph by Amit Haralkar

Doctor
Dr Aashish Contractor
Head of department, preventive cardiology and rehabilitation, Asian Heart Institute
TN Medical College, Mumbai; University of Virginia

went to one of the better medical colleges, so in terms of what they taught us, most of it was useful. There was, at times, emphasis on topics that didn’t find much use later. In terms of what we were not taught, and which I learned later, I’d say it was the bedside manner a doctor needs to better manage patients. As interns, we were taken on rounds, visiting patients with senior doctors. At times they did instruct us about managing patient’s expectations, but only through personal initiative. There was never an institutional plan to teach us this skill, especially important for chronic-care patients. Very little attention was paid to the mental health of patients too. Not specific mental health issues but to the general hand-holding many patients require. These things I learned on the job.

Photograph by Sanjay Rawat

Dentist
Smriti Bouri
HoD, Dentistry, Max Hospital
Guwahati University

he one critical thing you’re not taught in dental college is how to handle the stresses associated with dentistry. How to manage your time and schedule, critical to the practice. Also, dentists are never really told how to manage their own health—the back and neck problems that crop up—you learn to manage them as your career progresses. Dentists are never told how they could better handle difficult patients either. In the last 10-15 years, the practice of dentistry has changed to become more evidence-based. We now consider what an individual patient wants rather than go by the book alone. Managing your clinic or practice, including the second line of support—the technicians and assistance staff—is also not taught. Dentists learn these things from life when it would be better if they could start their practice prepared with this information.

Photograph by Narendra Bisht

Engineer
Rajiv Kaul
Executive vice-chairman, CEO, CMS Info Systems
BIT, Ranchi; XLRI, Jamshedpur

hile both my higher education stints did teach me how to work in teams and with my peer group, neither taught a whole lot about leadership or developing talent. That I learned as I went along. The teaching isn’t necessarily people-oriented. You have to learn how to get the best out of employees and peers over time, through work experience. That is why, after I trained as an engineer, and I knew my calling was in marketing, I still took up a job at tcs as a software consultant for a year. I considered an important question before making this decision: did I deserve the tag of a computer engineer after a four-year degree? I felt I didn’t. Only after that year did I confidently call myself an engineer.

Photograph by Jitender Gupta

Journalist
N. Ram
Former editor-in-chief, The Hindu
Columbia School of Journalism

hen I went to Columbia, in the ’60s, I wasn’t a typical journalist in India, seeking professional training in the field. I was one of the very, very few who went to journalism school and so my experiences may not be typical. It broadened my vision, to go to study journalism. It sharpened my focus and introduced me to all kinds of situations as well as the framework of ethical values journalism goes by. But I think journalism school must be at the post-graduate, not undergraduate, level. You can’t simply learn a trade by going to a trade school, and expect to excel in journalism—you also need a base of skills that a general education gives you, at the BA level.

Lawyer
Karuna Nandi
Lawyer, Supreme Court
DU, University of Cambridge, Columbia Law School

did evening classes in law for a year in Delhi and it was not bad at all, perhaps because students there are more serious about their education. One thing I did feel, that in India we focus on learning the law rather than the intellectual skills a lawyer needs to drive the point home before a judge and make a convincing argument. It was at Cambridge, where I did my LLB, that I found a very academic focus but where I also learned how to do those intellectual cartwheels. It was only later, in Columbia, while doing my LLM, that I was exposed to the competitive environment lawyers have to operate in. It was the place that taught in the cutting edge of critical approach to issues such as race and gender theory.

Photograph by Amit Haralkar

Conservation Architect
Vikas Dilawari
Vikas Dilawari Conservation Architects
SPA, Delhi

n one way, you can compare what happens in an architecture classroom with students in any other class: everything happens under standard temperature and pressure conditions. Much of professional training does not prepare architects for what is happening outside, for how the world actually undertakes building and construction. Also, when I was studying, there wasn’t much focus on conservation. Since it was my chosen field, it gave me an edge. I could stand out. Often, architecture schools presume it is after their education—during apprenticeship—that graduates learn about standards intrinsic to the profession. I was lucky my apprenticeship was with someone who maintained high ethical and moral standards.

Photograph by Apoorva Salkade

Social Worker
Lysa John
Global campaign director, Global Call to Action Against Poverty
TISS, Mumbai

ocial work has been a life-long pursuit. The one thing institutions don’t teach you is how different the real world is from theory. In school, you basically focus so much on idealism that you forget to include a little of the practical. Later in your career you find you have to make decisions that are unpalatable with what your studies taught you. Only with interactions in the field do you realise it’s not just all about flag-bearing or agenda-thrashing: social work is also about striking a balance between your ideal objectives and making small incremental changes. It’s a dilemma that is regularly played out: the grand divide between the so-called ‘jholawala’ social workers and others.

Fashion Designer
Pankaj Ahuja
‘Pankaj and Nidhi’
NIFT, Delhi

worked for 11 years—two in a buying house and nine with Rohit Bal—before I launched my own label. It held me in good stead. Because the one thing they don’t teach you in fashion school—and this you learn only in real life—is how to run a business. We are taught a bit of costing, but it’s not nearly enough. Even today, I struggle with managing finances, taxes, understanding various laws. My advice for fresh graduates—work experience is invaluable. Don’t be in a tearing hurry to launch your own label—serve coffee in a restaurant, operate the fax machine, do anything that exposes you to how offices function. Because you only realise what they didn’t teach you in college much after you graduate.

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What I Didn’t Learn In College...

Top professionals in their field tell us what life, not their college, taught them