The lockdown period meant different things for different people. For some, it took a toll on them, physically, mentally or emotionally. For some, it was a time to unwind. For Shafi Vikraman, it meant taking up the opportunity to learn online.
During the lockdown, Shafi enrolled himself in online courses offered by various sites like Coursera and WHO’s learning portal. He completed over 145 courses and most of them dealt with the medical sector.
All of the courses were from overseas universities like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Wharton, etc. In an interview with The New Indian Express, he said:
I preferred to do courses in marketing but ended up with a lot of medical courses. A university like Yale is a dream for us. Now I have certifications from those universities. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have studied all these subjects. It threw open a huge world for me.
The Thiruvananthapuram resident simultaneously did 20 courses at a time, ranging from two days to two months, and ended up learning diverse subjects like finance, robotics, AI, psychology, food and beverage management and so on. Talk about multitasking!
Sleep was nowhere in the picture for this man in his mid-fifties. He would study from 6 PM to 4 AM. Soon, he quit his job as a deputy general manager to focus on his studies. (This is the dedication my parents expected for me.) He said:
The change in time zone was the only issue and I couldn’t get proper sleep. There were months when I slept for barely two hours.
He has received certification from 16 countries and is still pursuing 22 courses. Well, this information better not reach my parents.
This is the inspiration we need and deserve.