The time has come when the only mails that I see in my Asian Institute of Management (AIM) mail box are those to say Goodbye... People writing a number of lines talking about how this phase of their lives have changed them for the good or better... Or how they would miss the people etc. If you ask me, the most important thing for us (The graduating batch - Cohort 3) to do would be to hold the name of our school very high. I understand many of us do have an issue with some of the things that happen in school (specially with regards to campus placement) but at the end of the day, nothing will ever change if we don't go out being proud of AIM. When we're out - we are the ambassadors of the school.
Never once, have I ever put my school down. Even today, when I met some folks from Megalink, they looked up to us AIM students. They were truly in awe of the school. The issue here becomes that we intimidate them and hence they feel that it would be impossible for them to have an AIM student as their intern or hire. They automatically feel that we would be way too expensive for them! What they don't realise is that we aren't as difficult to handle monetarily. Specially when it comes to internships. When I did tell them that it would be possible to have interns in AIM for a monthly stipend of around P30,000, they showed a lot of interest. I promised them that I would get them through to the Career Management Services (CMS) so that they could have interns.
The internship program should be given more importance than it is given right now. It is all the more important for foreign students. Foreign students at AIM should understand that local companies should value their talents even more because we expats cost more to the company to retain - one on a monetary front as they need to pay for our expat visa and two they need to give decent reasoning to the government as to why they hired an expat instead of a local. Thus, its during the internship that one should be interested in selling oneself. If true value is seen in a person, I doubt any company would have any issues with hiring that person - no matter what the cost is and no matter what hurdles they would have to deal with. Good talent is a huge challenge for all companies today. Will elaborate more on what I feel the CMS needs to do over time in a different post.
I just hope that each and every one of us would take the name and fame of our school to a whole different high and let the world know that a new batch of leaders have just been nurtured and let into the world.
Saying Goodbye is never easy... in fact.. I hate saying Goodbye... More often than not, I try to avoid goodbyes... as they make me feel uncomfortable! I just look aside and tell myself that this aint a goodbye... rather a stepping stone to meet elsewhere.... I hope to keep my school and my batch proud... I look forward to any reunion days down where people look up to me and say "This guy made it"!
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