Nietzsche and Kundera

Who said that we engineers and tech people don’t use the right side of our brain? Right now Nietzsche (philosopher) and Milan Kundera (novelist) are seriously messing with my mind.

I am taking a Philosophy class which basically revolves around studying Nietzsche. It is a very interesting class; it’s a complete 180 degree change from my other courses (which basically involve loads and loads of mathematics). It’s being taught by Professor Jack Snapper. He is an amazing professor (and no he will not be reading this blog and I am not trying to get a better grade =p). He can talk to a person on their level, he understands that not all of us have read Plato, Socrates and Kant and thus summarizes their thoughts whenever and however they are relative to the text. You won’t find yourself lost in his class even if it your first philosophy class (this one is mine). We sit and discuss one line from Nietzsche’s’ work for forty five minutes or even more if it has a deep underlying meaning.

I remember one time we were in class and a huge spider was discovered by Prof. Snapper, the next thirty minutes were spent discussing what kind of spider it was and whether it was poisonous or not. It might seem like a waste of time but it really wasn’t because Prof. Snapper started telling us about his travels around the world and how he collected different artifacts and learnt about different cultures. It’s interesting to see how much one can learn just listening to the experiences of others.

Last Friday, I went to meet Prof. Snapper at his office to get some guidance regarding a paper I had to write. It’s amazing to see how much stuff he has in there, it is almost falling on top of each other, book cases filled with books (not only philosophy books but with books on logistics and computing, mathematics, linguistics and what not). You find artifacts from India, China, Persia, New Guinea, Africa and that’s to name a few. I love how he has the patience to sit and discuss with students at great lengths. All you need to do is show up at his office ask him to help and he will guide you in the right direction.

I love this about IIT, you do not need to let go off your creative thinking just because you are in a tech school. You can explore any area that you want because you are given ready access to it!

Sophomore Leadership Retreat!

One of the best things at IIT is the Leadership Academy. The basic aim of the academy is to train students to be good leaders and work effectively in a team. They hold seminars where they talk about important issues such as how to put your ideas across and how to deal with conflicts.

The academy helps students by giving students who have qualities of a leader a full tuition scholarship, which makes life for the student a little easier since they don't need to worry about their finances thereafter.

As a part of leadership training, the leadership academy organizes a sophomore leadership retreat every year। Sophomores go to lake Geneva Wisconsin and spend a weekend there। The entire goal of the retreat is to us train students to be leaders and overcome their fears. The students are encouraged to challenge themselves, physically and mentally. The students are divided into teams. Each team is led by a scholar.Over the next two days, people who were complete strangers at the beginning if the retreat become good friends and usually maintain their friendship even after the retreat.

I went to the retreat a week ago। I am a scholar and was leading my team with the help of another scholar. We two barely knew anyone in our group. Through the various ice breakers we became a little acquainted with each other. We came up with a team name - SQUIDS and a team cheer that went like "we've got inky power ho ha".

The first thing on the agenda was team Olympics। It was amazing to see how the entire team acted like one, encouraged each other when one would loose faith and made sure that no one felt left behind. For this reason our team hit the best resilience and most persistent team award.

After that the team went on high ropes। I have always been afraid of heights and was thinking of not taking part in the activity. My teammates encouraged me at this point of time. Thy ensured me that they would ho me down the minute I thought that the challenge was too much. I climbed up the cargo net and guess what. I had a great time there. I enjoyed the scenery from 40 feet above ground and totally loved the feeling. I was glad I went.

-Anam