Former student urges graduates to embrace hard work, perseverance

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Ef­fort, char­ac­ter, and de­ter­mi­na­tion are the true mea­sures of suc­cess, Or­thopaedic Sur­geon Dr. Amir Ramharack told the grad­u­at­ing Stan­dard Five class of Mon­trose APS Vedic Pri­ma­ry School dur­ing their cer­e­mo­ny on Thurs­day.

The event, held at the NCIC Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas, marked a mile­stone for stu­dents prepar­ing to tran­si­tion to sec­ondary school.

Dr. Ramharack, him­self a Mon­trose APS alum­nus who grad­u­at­ed in 2012, now serves at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) and is at­tached to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

En­cour­ag­ing re­silience, he re­mind­ed stu­dents that chal­lenges are in­evitable but sur­mount­able.

“You will face new chal­lenges, new sub­jects and new re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. There will be days when things are dif­fi­cult, and it is on those days that you de­fine your­self,” he said.

He stressed that ob­sta­cles are part of every suc­cess sto­ry.

“What makes the dif­fer­ence is your will­ing­ness to keep go­ing,” he added.

Dr. Ramharack urged grad­u­ates to re­spect oth­ers, show grat­i­tude, work dili­gent­ly with­out con­stant su­per­vi­sion, and em­brace mis­takes as op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth.

“Nev­er be afraid to ask ques­tions, learn from your mis­takes and try again. Mis­takes are not fail­ures; they are lessons that help us grow.”

Prin­ci­pal Ranu Vish­nu al­so ad­dressed the class, warn­ing against the overuse of tech­nol­o­gy as stu­dents en­ter sec­ondary school. She high­light­ed the grow­ing in­flu­ence of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence tools such as Chat­G­PT, not­ing both their po­ten­tial and their lim­i­ta­tions.

“AI will con­tin­ue to change how you learn and ex­plore your world. It will al­so in­flu­ence the ca­reer paths you choose as the land­scape con­tin­ues to evolve rapid­ly,” Vish­nu said.

“How­ev­er, while tech­nol­o­gy can pro­vide an­swers in sec­onds, it can nev­er re­place your imag­i­na­tion, cu­rios­i­ty, kind­ness and em­pa­thy for oth­ers.”

She en­cour­aged stu­dents to bal­ance screen time with mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions.

“Don’t let your de­vices take away the pre­cious time that can be spent mak­ing mem­o­ries with those who mat­ter most.”

Vish­nu con­clud­ed by urg­ing grad­u­ates to re­main fo­cused and dis­ci­plined as they nav­i­gate the dis­trac­tions of high school.

“Be a leader, not a fol­low­er. There will be many dis­trac­tions, but I im­plore you to stay fo­cused on your stud­ies and make choic­es that will help you suc­ceed.”