We are on a long ride since school to be engaged in a recognized profession. We learned different subjects in various fields according to our desires and potentials. But did we gather what the corporate world really need? Do we have the mindset to deal with a profession? Each one who wants to be a future employee needs to realize their outstanding contender.

Hence, with the intention improving technical and soft skills of the Rotaractors of RACUOK, the Professional Development Avenue of the Rotaract Club of University of Kelaniya presented the project-“Overcome”. This was planned to be executed as four distinct sessions.

‘Motivation to Succeed’ was the first session of the project.

This valuable session was based on soft skills which are more important to develop a professional career. The session was conducted by Mr. Vidusha Nathavitharana, HR Consultant, Leadership Trainer and Author and the Founder of Luminary Learning Solutions.

The session flowed as a conversation with the enthusiastic moderating of Rtr. Samadi Perera. Mr. Nathavitharana started the session by mentioning that there are three things that cause to succeed in real world. Moreover, he stated that, “If you need to succeed, you need to be disciplined. Discipline trumps motivation any day”. Following that, he told the audience to keep higher purposes because they make us disciplined. “Motivation is your ability to put sustain effort over a prolonged period towards the objective that you want to achieve” was the impactful answer to a question by him, which was presented by the audience. Furthermore, he mentioned the three tips to keep focusing. They are to do only one thing at a time and don’t get up until you finish, focus on what you do and take a break after every 45 minutes. He further stated that physical and mental wellbeing is very significant to be focused. He told us to step back from being stressed out, stop worrying about what you can’t control and do what you can and do it to your optimum. After a compelling discussion which indeed motivated the fellow Rotaractors to strive towards success, the first session of ‘Overcome’ concluded with profuse compliments.

‘Boost Camp for Email Drafting and Excel’ was the second session of the project.

This informative session successfully covered aspects related to e-mail drafting and functions of excel, which are often applied in corporate environment. The session was presented by the Managing Director of WideAwake Solutions Private Limited, Senior lecturer, Mr.Chathura Palliyaguru, while Rtr. Rahma Zuhri moderated the event by syncing with the audience and the speaker in a perfect manner.

During the first half of the session, Mr. Palliyaguruge shared his insights related to ‘Excel’ and how to apply its tools. The speaker gradually covered all the areas of ‘absolute and relative cell addresses’, ‘data validation’, ‘conditional formatting’, ‘IF / IFS function’ ‘with AND / OR logic’, working with pivot tables and VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP functions. The session was very interactive since the participants were well engaged with the session while engaging in the tasks which were assigned by Mr.Palliyaguru. Furthermore, the speaker’s answers were able to provide clear solutions for the questions raised by the audience. After that, he continued the session by discussing Email and its usage. It included, the parts of an Email, settings in Gmail and Cloud computing.

At the end of the session there was a quiz, which was a fun-filled learning recap. This was indeed a fabulous opportunity for the audience to win amazing prizes. With this, the second session of ‘Overcome’ was concluded.

The project ‘Overcome’, organized by the Professional Development Avenue of the Rotaract Club of University of Kelaniya marked the conclusion of its first two sessions by inviting the fellow enthusiasts to join hands with the remaining sessions to empower themselves with the knowledge shared in these timely discussions.