SST Staff & Faculty Meeting on 11/27/2012

Projections for student numbers in Spring 2013: 9200 - 9400 students

Around 1500 students are expected not to return in Spring 2012 and this gap will be replaced by the new students joining GGC in Spring 2013. The total number of students in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 would remain similar.


Top 3 majors at GGC:

1) Biology: 13.6%
2) IT: 7.5%
3) General Business: 7.5%


Projection for student number for academic number 2013-2014
400 additional students than AY 2012-13

No new faculty recruitment might occur for AY 2013-14

AY 2012-13: about 75% of credit hours are taught by full-time faculty and this number might fall in AY 2013-14 to around 65% due to increase in student count in STEM majors and not new faculty recruitment in AY 2013-14.

Building Active, Successful Learners (Thu. Nov 15 2012 10:30am - 12:00pm)

This is my summary of the presentation given Dr. Michele L. Simpson, professor emeritus at UGA. Author of many books including:"Teaching Study Strategies in Developmental Education: Readings on Theory, Research, and Best Practice"

The speaker presented us with a comprehension passage and made us answer questions based on the passage.

Fake Reading:
This paragraph did not make any sense to me but I was able to answer 80% of the questions via fake reading. This is common in students where students don't see the relations between the ideas presented in the passage but just look for few points that answer the questions. Instead of doing fake reading its a good habit to writing on the books and annotate their learnt thoughts in their notes and text books.


Beliefs about learning:
- Liearning is quick
- is easy
- is something that someoneelse does to you
- Learning is inherent property of a person

Characteristics of active successful learners
- Sophisticated view of learning that involves making idea-connections.
- Repertoire of strategies, there is not one generic method of learning
- Successful learners monitors their learning continuously
- Reflect, evaluate and plan their learning strategies after their exam results


How can we promote active learning in our classrooms

I). Communicate tasks explicitly to students
a task can involve a project, a test, a paper, a presentation. A lot of following things can be done communicating the tasks to the students.
A) detailed syllabus
B) Frequent quizzes, sample questions, several unit tests. Giving frequent quizzes helps students to get used to start learning regularly and this also helps in reducing the stresses associated with limited exams.
C) Provide students with model answers, pass around the previous years projects, showing the best essays, project reports from previous years, old exams with solved model answers also helps.
D) Provide checklist of things to students indicating all the things that need to be done before submitting an assignment to the instructor


II). Demonstrate the critical thinking processes
A) Provide subject related suggestions to student in between the first day of class and the first exam day.
 B) Provide models of doing active reading, solving problem, applying equations in Physics problems and let students know how an experiences Physicist solves a given problem. Read aloud instructor's thinking process while solving a problem. Paraphrase the problem that you read, communicate the ideas, concept learnt to yourself, summarize your learnt ideas.


III). Encourage engagement and meta-cognition
A) Give students credit for writing the important concepts that were taught it a given class period.
B) Quiz with a card
C) Quick writes annotation
D) Think/pair/share technique: Dr. Wiegert at UGA started the class with aa question screened at the front and students were asked to solve the multiple choice problem. After a given time, the students worked in pairs and ask students to come to a consensus to come to an agreeable solution. In the mean time Dr. Wigert would go through the class to know the general understanding of students. their pitfalls and then addressed the same during the lecture.

IV). Nudge student's beliefs
A) Share the learning theory and show the research resulting graph data to inform students about ineffectiveness of just hearing and reading. I have this data plot and will put it here sometime.
B) Incorporate self-evaluation
C) Capitalize on testimonials of other students from the same class who has shown improvement in their grades during the semester.



Putting it together for attaining successful students

A) Making sure of the understanding the task given to students.
B) Tailor student's reading and thinking skills
C) Engage and monitor students
D) View learning of students through out the semester.

STaRS (Science and Technology Research Showcase) 2013 at GGC:

- In Spring 2013, Tuesday April 9th 2013: probable time 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm

- 26 hands on activities

- 70+ research or class projects

- 18 undergraduate research presentations

- 5 table advertising student clubs

- 8 tables of professional/graduate programs (HSU, GHSU, UGA, KSU, Ga Tech), GGC Career development table

- 65 SST faculty riectly involved with STaRS activities, posteers, and/or STEC 4500 presentations 

- 40+ additional faculty indirectly involved

- Estimate 1000+ students attended or were involved

Glitches, things to improve

- Funding problems in operational and GGC foundation

- Poster printing cost $400

- Miscommunication with facilities regarding requests for support  (tables, etc). 

To do:

- More events inside classrooms itself and letting people know about it to visit them

- STEC 4500 students are required to present on STaRS.

- Encourage students to take part in STaRS and not to have a regular class. Instead make it a part of their class. Students need to attend the same and earn credits (may be) for this event.

- Encourage non-major faculty to participate in STaRS

- Need more formal volunteer sign-up process to spread the volunteers across the time slots and distribute them to the events

- Encourage students to handle their club, class related STaRS activities

- Participating students did not get access into various rooms to get their passports stamped

How to get things done by sub-committees

FACILITIES COMMITTEE

- Talk with facilities to set-up infrastructure for STaRS

- Identify venue  for all events (Bldg - A), identify rooms available for STaRS events on April 9th 2013

- Available room assignments for events

- Food coordination

PARTICIPATION COMMITTEE:

- Passport management

 

Next meeting: Nov 8th 2012 @ 8:30 am 

 

GGC Convocation 2012: Sept 20th 2012

Here is the summary of events that occured during the Convocation 2012

This convocation had 431 returning honors students of GPA of 3.8 or above. There were a total of 59 new full-time faculty at GGC.


The following were the award recipients during this convocation.

Outstanding Teaching: C. Douglas Johnson
Outstanding Service: Alvina Atkinson
Outstanding Student Engagement: Josephine Adwuni
Outstanding Scholarship and Creative Activities: Joseph C. Sloop
Outstanding Part-time teaching: Thomas De Bra

Reflections of sitting in a Newton's Laws classroom

I wanted to type out my experiences in a Physics-1 class. I hope sitting in another instrucotr's class would help me in reviewing my thoughts and ways of teaching and may be to learn new ways of making my lectures interesting to my students. 

The professor of this class started off by asking student how their weekend was, in order to get them started with the class environment. After a couple of questions to random students in the class, the professor started off by asking questions about the concepts of three Newton's laws which were covered in previous class. This helped in knowing if student's were reading up on the covered materials or not. 

While asking questions to the class, the professor was observed to move in the class among the various student's groups. I observed that the professor kept asking questions in the class and had the students reply as a group. Personally, I felt that the professor was at ease with the entire class and enjoyed talking to students and in having a dialogue with the entire class. Professor was noted not to point out a particular student, rather than keeping a student as a center of focus, the professor look at the entire class.  As this professor did not use the presentation ppt file, he diid not have to restrict himself to the front of the class, instead the time was used to move through the class to keep all students attentive. 

While referring to vectors like velocity and acceleration, and force, the professor was observed to use hand gestures to show the directions of vectors. 

Another interesting thing that I noted in this class is that the professor used the concepts of support force and applied it the civil engineering, muscle structure to keep student's interest and to encourage them to ask questions about the concepts being covered in the class. There was another aspect of this class, the professor used anecdotes from Galileo's and Newton's lives to keep the class involved.  To make the concept of universal gravity interesting, this professor informed the students that our Milky way galaxy is on a collision course with Andromeda galaxy, and that due to gravitational force, our galaxy sucks materials into itself as it travels through the space. For explaining concept of friction, this professor used a student sitting on a chair to mimic a shopping cart and reiterated the directions of cart's motion, friction direction, and acceleration direction.

This professor used the power point presentation to ask conceptual questions. Professor answered the questions and discussed why the other multiple choices were not correct.

Thats all for this class people, I hope this might be of some help in future when I reflect back of for someone else who wanders to this page.

Guru versus a Teacher

Wanted to take this space to jot down the supposed differences between a guru and a teacher. I got this in an email from a friend. Its open for  thoughts and interpretations. I personally want to be a mentor not a guru or a teacher. This again is from my opinion that a guru is more subtle in his ways of teaching and such subtle ways need not be the best way for the pupil.

"Teacher and Guru" 
 
I know that a Teacher is different from a Guru, but never knew that they are different in so many ways.
I know "All Gurus are Teachers; But all teachers are not Gurus".

If you get not only a Guru but also a "Satguru", you are the most blessed one.

Teacher And Guru

A teacher takes responsibility of your growth.
A Guru makes you responsible for your growth.

A teacher gives you things you do not have and require.
A Guru takes away things you have and do not require.

A teacher answers your questions.              

A Guru questions your answer.

A teacher helps you get out of the maze.     

A Guru destroys your maze.

A teacher requires obedience and discipline from the pupil.
A Guru requires trust and humility from the pupil.

A teacher clothes you and prepares you for the outer journey.
A Guru strips you naked and prepares you for the inner journey.

A teacher is a guide on the path.                  
A Guru is the pointer to the way.

A teacher sends you on the road to success.
A Guru sends you on the road to freedom.

When the course is over you are thankful to the teacher.
When the discourse is over you are grateful to the Guru.                   

A teacher explains the world and its nature to you.
A Guru explains yourself and your nature to you.

A teacher makes you understand how to move about in the world.
A Guru shows you where you stand in relation to the world.

A teacher gives you knowledge and boosts your ego.
A Guru takes away your knowledge and punctures your ego.

A teacher instructs you.
A Guru constructs you.

A teacher sharpens your mind.
A Guru opens your mind.

A teacher shows you the way to prosperity.
A Guru shows the way to serenity.

A teacher reaches your mind.
A Guru touches your soul.

A teacher gives you knowledge.
A Guru makes you wise.

A teacher gives you maturity.
A Guru returns you to innocence.

A teacher instructs you on how to solve problems.
A Guru shows you how to resolve issues.

A teacher is a systematic thinker.
A Guru is a lateral thinker.

A teacher will punish you with a stick.
A guru will punish you with compassion.

A teacher is a pupil what a father is to son.
A Guru is to pupil what a mother is to her child.

One can always find a teacher.
But Guru has to find and accept you.

A teacher leads you by the hand.
A Guru leads you by example.

When a teacher finishes with you, you graduate.
When a Guru finishes with you, you celebrate.

Now It All Goes Into The Box: Zeitgeist

This is a summary of the movie Zeitgeist: Moving Forward by Jacque Fresco.

Before going ahead with my summary of this movie, I would like to touch upon the meaning

of this German word "Zeitgeist" that sounded (to me) like a thing that is horrible. But when I 

looked up its meaning, I realized that this word Zeitgeist meant "the spirit of the time", "the spirit of the age". It refers to the popular climate (including ethical, political, spiritual, intellectual, etc)

within a nation or a specific group of people living together. 

I was suggested to watch this movie by a Physicist who had a very individualistic and subjective/personal way of looking and interpreting at things he saw in his surroundings.  It sometimes made me wonder, are all Physicists have their unique way to seeing things.

This movie starts off like many of the ones with similar cerebral genre. At the opening the movie has a mixture of background score with varying scenes showing the materialistic engagement of the current world along with the other harsh realities of the have-not world. Jacque stats off from the recollection of his school days and refers to his "questioning nature" in the school days, It perhaps made him quit school and learn by himself using the existing literature of various fields of study. A personal analysis of Jacque concludes that the rule of the economic game here inherently invalid. Humanity since its beginning has worked in a way that is aimed at mindless consumption and using up all the resources given at man's disposal by nature. Jacque makes a comment "This shit's gotta go" and refers to a change that needs to come in the direction where humanity is headed. 

Human Nature:

A professor of Neurological sciences at Stanford Dr. Robert Sapolsky is interviewed to talk about the influences of the external environment on the human behavior, that ultimately gives ise to differences in the personalities of all individuals. Dichotomy of things that nature is built around the thought of nature of being deterministic at the very core. Causality of human behavior is driven by the DNA. The professor does not agree with this view and says that Bio;logu is too complex to be understood by the reasoning of Genetics alone.  Does it gives rise to a deterministic approach to life: genes equal somethings that cannot be changes (destiny ?) inevitable. Perhaps its worthless and inevitable to change that's already been determined. Dr. Sapolsky strongly disagrees with such a disposition. In another interview by a physician Dr. Gabor Mate mentions that many medical conditions like ADHD, Schizophrenia  are not genetically programmed, the truth behind that many things are not genetically programmed, except for very few conditions. A predispositions due to genetic conditions is different from predeterminations of a conditions solely based upon the genetic factors. For example in the case of breast cancer, out of 100 women only 7 would be carrying a breast cancer carrying gene. Out of  a 100 people having such a breast cancer carrying gene not all will get cancer. Nothing is predestined as far as breast cancer is concerned, at least due to genetic conditions (peer-disposition) only. Another example is given of the scientific reason why only children experiencing child-abuse have a higher tendency to commit suicide, its due to the affect of surrounding environment on the individual that is responsible for how a certain genetic condition can convert from a pre-disposition to pre-deterministic condition. Such an influence of external conditions on the behavior of genetic pre-dispositions is called Epigenetics. Epigenetics studies the area of genes where certain genes can get on or off (activated or not) depending on the interaction of the carrying-individual with his/her environment.

In another interview of Dr. James Gilligan of the Harvard Medical School, he mentions about an Australian research that points that a child with an abnormal gene can have a normal rate of violence as long as they are abused during their childhood. Coming to the experiments involving mouses that have a learning genes knocked-out, taking such genetically knocked-out mouses and providing a nourishing stimulating environment (than a wild/regular mouse) lead to a normal learning by the mouses whose learning genes were knocked out. Looks like providing a much caring and nourishing environment to learning gene knocked-out mouses can result in normal learning ability being developed by such mouses also. "This behavior is Genetic" is a valid statement to certain extent only, ant not written in stone. The genetic argument allows in ignoring the influence of the environment and can be potentially handicapping in attaining progress and giving-in to the deterministic way of living.

In an interesting argument by Dr. Mate, addiction is referred to as a generic attitude of craving, temporary relief with long term negative consequences, it is also accompanied by an impediment towards stopping such an addiction. In general things like shopping, addiction to power, electronics, video games can be considered as addictions. Various addictions have varying degree of negative consequences. An addiction towards earning money by tobacco corporations are in denial about the impact of their products, Such an denial addiction is highly respectable by society. Such corporate board members are respected by the society, in contrast to drug related individual addictions

What makes a person addicted. In short its not an activity or a drug that is addiction but instead its the susceptibility of an individual to being addicted to a particular thing. Addictions are due to genetic pre-dispositions is not entirely true, scientifically.

Pre-Natal Environment Effects:

It has been seen that if expectant mother undergo stress during pregnancy, then their children are more likely to have tendencies that predispose themselves to addictions. The environment does not begin after the birth, its begins as soon as there is an environment for the fetus to stay. Abhimanyu's case from Mahabharata?

An historical example of pre-natal is the Dutch Hunger Fetus Syndrome that lead to metabolism affects in children born during the famine in the Dutch country. Another logical reason that there is a high possibility of pre-natal environmental effects is that the brain on a human fetus occurs after the birth much of that  under the effect of the child's environment. Its called Neural Darwinism.

 For example, if you were to take a a child with perfectly normal eyes  and put him in dark room for first 5 years will turn out to be blind in future as its surrounding environment in the dark room does not help in the stimulation and growth of vision-related neural circuits in the brain.

Mention is also made of infants cases where a human touch has been found to be essential for
normal child development. Infants who stay in artificial incubators only without human touch are more prone to emotional distress that get stored in their emotional memory. Scientifically, no human child ca remember the first 18 months of their experiences as the hippo-campus in their brain isn't fully developed in the first 18 months,

Te movie mentions that the most violent persons have them selves suffered abuse in their childhood. Such people were mostly the survivors themselves of some violent history. The biology of a human depends on their interaction with their  social and psychological environment in their lives. Interpersonal Neurobiology is a new term invented to explain such dependence of neurological aspects on the environment.


Our society that includes theology, metaphysical, linguistic influences, etc shapes us to whether we think life is basically about sin or basically about beauty. By definition, the more stratified a society is, the fewer people one has as peers, and consequently the a world full of people with a lot less altruism.


Human Nature:
The nature of our nature is note be constrained by our nature (wow, that's an awesome statement to come up with).  Just as a human body needs physical nutrients, the human brain demands certain forms of positive stimulus from its environment at all stages of development and the brain needs to be protected from the negative stimuli from the environment.

President's State of The College Presentation

Vision for GGC:

- Access institutuion
- Innovative use of technology
- Integrated educational experience
- Faculty engagement
- Model for innovative approach

Institutional Goals:

- Produce graduates
- Inspire graduates
- Maintain a culture

Strategic Priorities:

- Enhance student success efforts
- Enhance integrated educational experience
- improve resource base
- Enhance organizational culture

Academic Year 2012-2013:

- Reaffirmation/QEP
- facilities management
- Resources management
- Honors program/GGC
- School of Health Sciences
- pioneer spirit
- Operational efficiency
- Residence halls
- Intercollegiate atheletics
- Sustainability campus technology plan
- Scalability

Enrollment Headcount

Year: Student Count Historic/Projected
2006: 118
2007: 870
2008: 1610
2009: 3400
2010: 5750
2011: 8000
2012: 11000

Fall 2011: 7742
Fall 2012: 9878

Current facilities limit the admissions to 9500 only

Faculty Count
Fall 2012: 356 Full time
Staff count: 274 Full time

Student Diversity Statistics: Fall 2011
Hispanics: 10.6%
Asian: 8.1%
Black: 30.5%
White: around 45%

FY 2013 GGC Budget:

State Appropriation: $36.4 million
Tuition: $27.1 million
Institutional Fees: $5.4 million
Misc: $0.6 million
Total: $69.5 million
Bond package: $25.2 million (AHSB)

There is a 3% cut recently ($1.09 million)


Allied Health and Science Building (AHSB): $25 million
Construction from Feb 2013

Plant Operational Building: to be built

GGC Facilities Needs:

- Land acqusition
- Academic Bldg (FY 2015)
- Office bldg
- AHSB (Feb 2013- May 2014)

Grizzly Atheletics
- GGC Athletic Complex
- GGC Tennis Facility

Summer 2012 and Fall 2012 Schedule

Summer: May 23, 2012 to Jul 23, 2012  

Introduction to Physics I - 50345 - PHYS 1111K - 01
Class     2:00 pm - 4:45 pm     MW
Lab     2:00 pm - 4:45 pm     TR
                                     

Principles of Physics I w/Lab - 50591 - PHYS 2211K - 01
Class     6:00 pm - 8:45 pm     MW
Lab     6:00 pm - 8:45 pm     TR


--------------------------------------------------------

Fall 2012: Aug 20, 2012 - Dec 08, 2012
Introduction to Physics I - 81951 - PHYS 1111K - 07
Class     3:30 pm - 6:15 pm     TR     Building A 1280

IS-Physical Science - 80101 - ISCI 2002 - 01
Class     8:00 am - 9:45 am     MW     Building H 1140


IS-Physical Science - 80102 - ISCI 2002 - 02
Class     6:30 pm - 10:00 pm     R     Building H 1140

On the thing called Physics envy

Physics envy, this term was introduced to me while listening to the talk between D. Dawkins and Dr. Tyson during their conversation on " The Poetry of Science".

It is interesting to note that Dr. Dawkins mentions this term at the outset of their talk.  Let me have the current wikipedia entry of this term pasted here for reference:

"Physics envy essentially refers to the envy (perceived or real) of scholars in other disciplines for the mathematical precision of fundamental concepts obtained by physicists. It is an accusation raised against disciplines (typically against soft sciences and liberal arts such as literature, philosophy, psychology, social sciences, and some areas of biology) when these academic areas try to express their fundamental concepts in terms of mathematics, which is seen as an unwarranted push for reductionism." 

From Wiki, Reductionism: can mean either (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.

I am attempting to document the talk between these two scientist one belonging to evolutionary biology and the other one being an astrophysicist. There is more to be naive about knowing the subject of Physics or is it? why?

"One needs not believe about things that one has been told", this is the first sentence spoken by Dr. Dawkins (about universe's homogeneity) and was supplemented by Dr. Tyson that one believes things depending on how the evidence (supporting that thing) is convincing to oneself.

Scientists in Physics (or a mathematically founded science) are trained to abandon their senses, use the scientific tools to do the measurements, then use the mathematical models/analysis to develop mathematical models to predict/manipulate logically to make new discoveries about the world. One needs to get used to the predictions made by such a logical way, it might take some time to get used to this process (as understood by all the scientists). Maths allows us to take incremental steps in our logical understanding beyond those possible by using our senses and perhaps the capacity of our human mind too. If one looks at the process of making a mathematically helped discoveries, one might think that it was our human mind that does the discoveries but one must remember that our human mind did not do that discovery (prediction) of the unknown by it self, it had to use an additional tools called mathematics and other scientific equipment.

A discovery might have the capacity to demote a sense of the self (before the discovery was made). Awesome talk-out-thought of deGrasse. Human race is currently interested in discovering the existence of other "intelligent" life. The question is we have coined the term intelligence in such a way that no other creature (at lease) on earth can rival such a definition.

Ending with a quote from  Eugene Wigner "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve." deserve....who are we to question that appropriateness/coincidence? not all coincidences can be explained by our current understanding of things.

SRK: Failure is your fiendish friend

After watching half of the movie A Dangerous Method, and listening to some of the interesting conversations of Freud and Jung's characters I wanted to collect some of their talks have have them recorded here for reference. As the day began today, I as usual on internet, spent time seeing some news and unrelated things and came across, the transcripts of Shahrukh Khan's (SRK) talk at Yale during his acceptance of Chubb Fellowship for 2011-2012. I haven't ,uch heard of this fellowship in contrast to knowing about the person in context here.

I seem to like the oratory skills of Shahrukh and like the way he puts his thoughts together before others. Its definitely a skills that gets honed by practice (just like acting) and observing the world around. After reading though the transcripts, I felt its worth some time to jot down his thought here instead. Here it goes, taken from this place.

SRK mentioned a apparently unrelated story about a dying man:

A dying man, gasping for breath, desperately gestured to the priest by his side for a piece of paper. With great effort, he then wrote a few words on it, handed it to the priest and passed away. The priest kept the paper in his pocket and forgot all about it until the final service. Here he suddenly recalled the dead man's last scribble. Unfolding the paper, he told the funereal congregation that he was about to read great words of inspiration to them. The piece of paper had these words on it....

"You are standing on my oxygen tube...fool..."

From the context of the story its not apparent how this story is connected to the inspirational talk that SRK plans to deliver in his fellowship acceptance speech. It just takes a few more minutes to understand the relevance of this story to the people living and encountering real world and lastly helping the listener to survive this life. And if one can do that... to survive... other things like happiness, creativity, and success follows on its own... AND if life seems to offer lemons at least one tries to live this live nevertheless rather than not recognizing that it is one's life that might have gotten spent without even recognizing.

The seemingly irrelevant story was meant to give an enough insight that one can tell the world (if necessary)... "hey guys you are standing on my oxygen tube... move over and let me breathe".

Talking about destinations of a journey called life: It perhaps is very certainly uncertain but certainly very interesting and exhilarating (at the end, perhaps) to have a life experience without knowing even one predisposed destination. One walk and runs to ones wishes, in the direction of their dreams (at that phase of life-journey). Accepting the certainty of the fact that: exterior (out of self control) things change along the way, people change, self changes, the world changes, even ones aspiration and dreams change. One need not have to think ( a milder way of putting "worry) about not arriving at an already decided destination as one does not have a place to arrive (at the beginning of journey), one just keeps doing what one knows and learns about how to do the best that one can do it. And probably picks up new skills about things that one never knew before the journey began. Life is always interesting and teaches you a lot of things and enriches the journey. Whats the point in being the same person after the journey ends. What did such a journey achieve for the self? apart from reaching a pre-decided place. Proving the tenet that a person can achieve what was carefully planned and executed. At the end, ending up a deluded vintage in a wheelchair, waiting for ones flight out of this world. In this talk SRK sums up that he seems to have understood that the measure of his life lies in the expanse of his heart's experience and nothing else matters.

I was reading a book by James Higgins, "101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques" that mentions that US economy is being transformed from an industrial economy to one based on knowledge and information. I would add that this statement is valid for the entire world and it is an information age that we live in. By information I also include the knowledge base developed by us. The same thoughts were mentioned during one of the visits of Dr. Kalam to my alma mater SSSIHL. It all does make sense that I look back at the common thread that proposes human knowledge as a precious resource rather than material things that occur as a consequence of using this knowledge. In this talk, SRK also seems to be of the same thought as he mentions that his life has centered around creativity and he appreciates that the world through his creative expression. The world will always uphold creativity as the most honest feeling possible. SRK further dwells on why one uses creativity as a means to express one self? why does on do that...? Because sometimes it allows us to feel better than the creator (if there is one, I am not sure if SRK refers to the creator from his subjective conviction or his need for creator's existence) and sometimes, it fills a void within us that comes about by being in awe of the creation. In either way, ones creativity enables us to quantify one's engagement with the surrounding world.

Learn to laugh at yourselves too. Never become cynical about yourself and your life. Becoming cynical about your life is the single most destructive thing you can do to it.

I did not want to dilute the spirit of the talk and instead decided to paste some of his speech transcripts instead.

For you have to remember.... Creativity is your gift to the world. It was never meant to be barter for anything, not even appreciation. You have to dig deep, I do it while drinking vodka after vodka... listening to self pitying, loser songs... you should find a less destructive way... however you do it... but you have to believe... that you create only because this is the biggest gift you have to give to your world. Maybe that's we even say God is a creator.

It's not about the cars or houses...it never was... those are peripherals. They never come about because of your talent or your creative outpourings... they come out of a business that people around you do. Those people are in the business of barter -- not you. Yours is the business of giving and learning. Your work of art may never be complete in your lifetime. Your fulfillment will always lie in your creative expression not in its products.

You always have a choice between barter and creation. Life as a creator will always be a tight rope. So...

• Do not try to feed your stomach with creativity, it is food for your soul, not your stomach.
• Do not be afraid to defy conventions.
• Do not be afraid to destroy systems that kill art and your souls.
• Do not be afraid to be hungry.
• Do not be afraid to walk alone if necessary. Because on a tightrope we all walk alone.
  
• Remember....if you are a creator you are a artist and not very many people know that word...let alone be it.
  

If you are smart, if you want to survive life's relentless onslaught of challenges, you will sooner or later understand that the things that made you happy ten years ago will end up being the ones that make you happy when you hit the geriatric superhero stage. Kids...start collecting your action figures, now! Happiness, in other words, lies in the things you will never be able to count.

• Firstly, it's not the absence of failure that makes you a success...it is your response to failure that actually helps to buffer the reverses that you experience. I personally have one response to failure... pragmatism... a recognition and belief that if one approach does not work...then the other will or might.
• Failure also gives me an incentive to greater exertion... harder work...which invariably leads to later success in most cases.
• Repeated failure has taught me to stop pretending I am someone else. Its given me the clarity to stick to the things that really matter to me instead of distracting me from my core...
• Failure also gets you to find...who your real friends are. The true strength of your relationships only gets tested in the face of strong adversity.
• Overcoming some of my failures has made me discover that I have a strong will...and more discipline than I suspected. It has helped me have confidence in my ability to survive.

You have to know and learn that life is a not just a check list of acquisitions, attainments and fulfillments, your qualifications and CVs don't really matter. Instead life is difficult and complicated... and beyond anyone's control. The humility to know this will help you survive its vicissitudes.

My hope for all of you is that you retain a lifelong love of learning, that you never cease to dream exciting and inspiring dreams, and when you fail, you fail well enough to succeed the next time. Don't be afraid of being afraid, be afraid of not facing your fears and failures.