What is it that one ideally expects from
their first job?
Opportunities for growth and learning?
Decent pay?
Cool brand name?
Employee-friendly work culture?
Suppose you get all of that on a single platter. WHAT NEXT?
Mind you, that's more than just a word. It has a whole bunch of transformations packed together. Why, it's your first job after all, and it has to be as close to perfection as possible.
There is one big hope that every recent graduate joins the industry with---to give back to it in some way memorable, to create a mark in the field, or simply speaking, to do something totally out of the box. Thankfully, for an employer like Oracle, the hopes from us aren't entirely different.
Recently, we---2013 campus hires at Oracle IDC ---got to attend a live session by Thomas Kurian. Among the various things that he talked about---ranging from the technologies that Oracle is working on, contributions to the tech world in the recent past, and current goals---one message came out particularly clear for us to note. And that is, expectations from us are high. And they aren't just expectations to work, but expectations to innovate.
World-class training---both technical and non-technical, a very employee-friendly work-environment, flexible timings, arrangements for leisure, high-end tools and technologies, expert guidance... and whatnot. I had heard that new joinees are treated like curious little kids who have to be constantly guided and helped to let them grow in the product development sector, and the past fifty days at Oracle have already given me a glimpse of that. The question for us, the new joinees, more specifically the youth, is, why is so much importance given to us?
There is a popular Zen story called 'A Cup of Tea'. In the story, the Zen Master Nan-In teaches his pupil, a learned professor, that the main ingredient for learning is unlearning. A cup needs to be empty in order to hold in it some tea, just as a fresh mind can learn easily because it has so much to learn. Coming fresh out of college, with the zeal and enthusiasm characteristic to our age and phase of life, I believe we have it in us to come up with new ideas, to think of innovative ways to do the same old things, to think out-of-the-box from inside the box, and to give to the tech world what is most valuable to it---innovation.
Yes, we are way past the time when there were no stakes on us, when our responsibilities were low if not nil, when the word 'career' meant nothing more than cracking interviews and getting employed by our 'dream companies'. More importantly, we are way past the time when we were kids always taken care of by someone or the other. Out here, you are on your own. You forge your own path through the tunnel, unaware if there is light at the end or not. Yes, it's not the same anymore.
But rather better. Bigger. When I get to know about Oracle working in almost every field of the tech sector, when I get to see its contributions to the open-source world and its constant participation in outstanding open-source projects such as the Xen, I realize that I am at a firm that values products, development, innovation. And that it is a big opportunity to start out with.
So let's make the transition: from being children to becoming developers with the curiosity of a child. So long as we have a good head on our shoulders, so long as we are ready to learn from mistakes whether ours or someone else's, so long as we are ready to commit to our goals and expectations, but most importantly, so long as the inquisitive child within us is alive, I believe we have the power to innovate, and thus the power to turn our dreams into reality.
More power to the youth. More power to innovation.