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In grad school, I had this friend — let’s call him R. R and I were like two peas in a pod, especially when it came to teaming up for events and competitions on campus. We weren’t always the champions, but we sure made a mark. This one time, we ended up as runners-up in an event hosted at a different university. It was a decent accomplishment, but nothing too grand, right? Well, something interesting happened a week later.
A professor, who was from an entirely different department, reached out to us. He had an offer: he wanted us to work on a project with him. Now, this wasn’t just any professor; he was someone whose name you’d hear in the corridors with a mix of awe and mystery. So, you can imagine our surprise when his email popped up in our inboxes. We were called into his office for a discussion.
Honestly, the details of that project are a bit hazy to me now. We spent around an hour talking about it, but as I walked out of that building, my mind was swirling with questions. And funny enough, not a single one was about the project itself. What really bugged me was why he chose us. We hadn’t bagged the top prize in any recent events. Plus, our campus was like a sea of talent — hundreds of engineers, each more capable than the last walked around 24/7. He could have easily picked someone else, maybe even someone from a more prestigious university. So, why us?
My friend, who was a bit older and definitely wiser, broke it down for me. It was all about consistency…
