Mst. Alden D’Souza
My name is Alden D’Souza and I am an alumnus of Ryan International School, Yelahanka, Bangalore. I had the honour of studying at the school for 12 long years and I am currently pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in law at School of Law, Christ(Deemed to be) University, Bangalore. An interesting quote that I came across, summarises my schooling at Ryan Yelahanka and that is, “What we learn becomes a part of who we are”. My 12 years at Ryan has shaped the kind of person I am today. The skills I picked along the way define who I am. I owe a lot to the school because of the exposure I was able to get while studying in Ryan. Some of my interests today that have allowed me to choose my career path or excel in other activities that I took up are thanks to what I did at Ryan. One of the defining aspects about me is my flair for public speaking. I had the opportunity to attend Indian Model United Nations as a part of a delegation and there started my endeavour in public speaking. Today, I've had the opportunity to not just participate in over 40 conferences and also had the opportunity to chair a conference in Jakarta as well as in Dubai. I also owe this to the opportunity I got at teen camp where the various activities gave me a platform to hone these skills. The other pertinent skill that I learned was leadership. In school I never understood the importance of the position of Prime Minister in the Student Council. It was merely a position that I held and to do the duties prescribed to me. But being able to carry out the initiatives in that position has made me a person who works well in teams and later on I was able to take those experiences and host major events in the future. Today I run a student platform that makes podcasts and I wouldn’t have been able to handle this responsibility had I not been given such an opportunity before. There are a lot of things that I can thank the school for, but that would take a while. Lon Watters once said, “School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside” and that was what Ryan Yelahanka was to me.