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1. Tell us more about your role and responsibilities at your college.
As the General Secretary of Mercatus, a big part of my job is to ensure the synchronisation of the departments. It is my responsibility to overlook the PR department and ensure that there is creative and engaging content on our feed, as well as maintaining good relations and collaborations with other colleges and their societies. As the Marketing head at TEDxJMC, I am responsible for all aspects of social media marketing, as well as offline promotions of our event.
2.How can we encourage more young students such as yourself to take up any leadership role?
I think a large part of encouragement comes from motivation, confidence, as well as getting people to have faith in themselves. Often, people seem to shy away from leadership roles, not because they don’t deserve it, but because they don’t believe in themselves. So, the first step would be to help people to believe in themselves, to help them gain conviction and get appreciation for the work they do. It is also important to provide people with a platform to speak. Being heard tends to provide self-confidence, as well as stimulates an individual to do even better. Lastly, I feel that involvement is very important. The more involved an individual is with a society/organisation, the more they learn, feel valued and motivated to do better.
3. What have been your biggest challenges and learning from what you do?
My biggest challenge so far has been trying to adapt to this virtual world of events. Initially, it was a little disappointing to realise that most of our events wouldn’t be happening. However, we decided that instead of just cancelling events, we must find virtual alternatives to them as this is the new normal and we need to learn to cope & adapt to change. At Mercatus, we have started collaborating with organisations to host webinars, and at TEDxJMC, we have launched a live series on Instagram called unediTED. The next era is that of digitisation & I’m rigorously trying to adapt & align my work with it.
4. What's your message to encourage students to do internships and attend conferences?
I know it can be hard to get out of your zone and work but if its something you’re passionate about its no longer just ‘work’, it becomes a part of your ‘zone’! Also, the kind of exposure that hands-on experience gives you is irreplaceable. Every internship, as well as every conference I have enrolled myself into has helped me grow into the independent individual that I am today. Every step along the way I’ve learnt new things, met new people & tried my hand at various domains to actually know what my passion is, what makes me happy. Internships help you explore your interests, figure out what you’re good at, and may even give you a boost to the direction you would want to head to.
5. How do you juggle academics with being the general secretary of Mercatus?
Regularly keeping up with your classes is key. Another thing that helps me a lot is making a to-do list for my self every night for the next day! Once I list out the things I need to do, it’s not hard to take out time for all of them.
- Arshi Ahluwalia
Interviewed by- Priyanshi Arora
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