Classically Trained

In 1983, at the Welcoming Convocation for Freshman Students at Bowdoin College, Anil Jethmal recalls, in great detail, a conversation that he had with the college's President.

As an entering freshman, it was customary to sign one's name into a thick leather-bound book.
When informed that every student who ever attended Bowdoin College had also signed, Anil Jethmal asked President Greason if alums, and literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had also signed the book as incoming freshman.

Beaming with almost a sense of parental pride, President Greason retrieved a much older, thick leather-bound book and showed Anil original signatures of Hawthorne, and a few pages later, Longfellow.

Noting that the signatures were just a few pages apart,  Anil Jethmal asked Greason if those two legends of American literature attended Bowdoin simultaneously,  He informed Anil that both were of the class of 1825.   Both were English majors and were goods friends.  Furthermore, he emphasized, legend had it that both were obsessed with perfecting their crafts.

Anil quipped that he would hate to be in an English class with those two....and to be graded in that class on a curve.  Smiling enigmatically, Greason said something that Anil Jethmal says that he carries to the present day.  In order to be great at anything, he proclaimed, one must practice whatever that is obsessively.  He stated that over the next fours years at Bowdoin, Anil, as with all incoming students, would write and submit over a thousand pages of papers to his professors.  Four years later, Anil calculated that number as a very conservative estimate.

More importantly,  what Anil Jethmal took from that conversation was that to be exceptional at most anything worthwhile in life, one must spend hundreds or even thousands of hours working at it.

And when life inevitably has presented its opportunities and challenges, Anil Jethmal often thinks back to that conversation he had as a wide-eyed freshman...and more often than not, it has buoyed him to keep moving forward.

Are Student Loans Worth It?

Six months after graduating from Bowdoin College in 1987, Anil Jethmal received in the mail his student loan installment plan.  Only twenty-two years old and with an entry level financial advisor job with its associated entry level salary, reality began to set in for Anil that he had to start paying back tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

Was it all worth it?  Of course, it was.  Anil knew all the statistics.  For every dollar invested on an education at Bowdoin, the lifetime financial returns are considerably higher.  True to form, Anil was able to pay back every penny of his student loans with interest well before the 10-year allotted schedule. 

Anil Jethmal is well aware that his financial successes in life, including his being featured in The Winner’s Circle II: How 10 Stockbrokers Became the Best in the Business, can largely be attributed to his education.  However, he has since learned to appreciate his education in a much broader sense.

In a time where racial tensions in society have reached a boiling point, Anil recalls a conspicuous absence of racism during his entire 4 years at Bowdoin College.  Anil was aware that Bowdoin College is perennially ranked in the top 1% of all colleges in the U.S and, therefore, only accepts the best, the brightest and hardest working students. However, it wasn’t until he got there that he realized the wonderful by-product of Bowdoin’s vetting process.

Anil Jethmal, in a conversation with famed author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, discussed the relative, if not total, lack of racism at Bowdoin.  Maya Angelou theorized that it was due to an abundance of “intellectual curiosity” on campus.

She held firmly that those with an “intellectual curiosity” don’t fear people who are different.  They want to know more about what and why others are different.  Those with an “intellectual curiosity” have healthy self-esteem—they don’t need to put down others to feel better about themselves.  

Through the years, Anil has found that his education has bettered him and broadened his own scope of interests in countless other ways. 

His studies of history, for example, inspire Anil often to choose vacations where he may explore new and exciting world cultures.  He feels that those who exclusively spend their vacations at the golf course or at the beach are bypassing some of the best that life has to offer.  Even with something as simple as food, Anil Jethmal finds, those with eclectic interests (inspired by intellectual curiosity) discover many wonderful ethnic cuisines that others may never know and enjoy.  

His enjoyment of the fine arts and for the symphony can be directly traced back to his incredibly engaging professors and the stunning facilities at Bowdoin.  The list goes on and on.

While so many may analyze the monetary benefits of an elite education in terms of financial returns, Anil feels that education has enriched his life in so many other ways.  And that, as the saying goes, is priceless.

An Oasis in Time

A native of New York and of Indian heritage, Anil Jethmal was used to hearing ethnic "jokes", comments and innuendos from far too many of his native New Yorkers. He often heard that the cultural diversity of New York actually made the city a much more tolerant and accepting place than other parts of the country.

So when Anil Jethmal attended Bowdoin College in Maine, it marked the first time that he would be living away from his New York home.  He read that Bowdoin College was mostly comprised of a somewhat homogenous "white" student body.  It was Anil's full expectation that the jokes and comments would come more fast and furiously than anything he had experienced prior to the point.

In reality, quite the opposite turned out to be the case.  In Anil's four years at Bowdoin, he does not recall a single slight towards him because of his nationality.  Yet, when Anil would return to New York for summer and winter break every year for four consecutive years, he felt each time as if he were journeying not just back to New York, but back to America's intolerant past.

In a period of time, where so many feel emboldened to express their intolerance and racist tendencies, Anil Jethmal often wonders exactly what it was about Bowdoin that made its constituents break down racial divides.  The most obvious answer is that Bowdoin College is known to be one of the best, if not the best, college in the United States.  It accepts only those students whose academic achievements rank them at the top of their class.

So, when Anil would inform his fellow students of his ethnicity, he would brace for an all too familiar negative response. Instead, much to his surprise and delight, he encountered a very different attitude. He found that his fellow students had an intellectual curiosity about India, and of Anil's experiences as an American of Indian heritage living in the US.

Given the recent social climate in the US, Anil is convinced more than ever that quality education is the most effective antidote to racism.  And, as he fondly remembers those four wonderful years, he is jolted back to the realization of how far away we, as a country, are from that utopia.  How to get there, of course, remains the million dollar question.

An Education in Mindfulness

Anil Jethmal graduated from Bowdoin College in 1987 with a degree in Economics.  While he feels fortunate to receive his education from an institution that perennially ranks as one of the top ten in U.S News and World Report’s Best College Report, Anil wishes there was one class offered back then that is offered now.

During a recent summer vacation in Maine with his family, Anil Jethmal decided to visit his alma mater.  During his tour of the campus, Anil noticed a “new” building.  The Peter Buck Center for Health and Wellness had opened and been available to students starting in September of 2009.  It was a stunning facility, to be sure.  However, what really caught Anil Jethmal’s attention was the fact that it was also where a course titled Mindfulness in Education was taught.  The course, Anil was told, focuses on the ancient eastern arts of mindful wellness through activities such as yoga, meditation and mindful eating.

At first blush, one might surmise that the course is a “gut” (college term for easy class), especially when one considers that Bowdoin College is an institution that is known to have a rigorous curriculum.  Anil Jethmal asked his tour guide that very question.  He was told that quite the opposite is the case.  Bowdoin College students are used to digesting large amounts of information and writing hundreds of pages of term papers on a regular basis.  And while “Mindfulness in Education” does require a lesser degree of those demands, Anil Jethmal was told, it focuses on a mindful awareness and rewiring of personal habits….a much more difficult endeavor to learn and master for those who have not had any prior experience or training.

As an individual steeped in the world of high finance and all of its pressures, Anil Jethmal discovered many years ago the value of mindfulness.  Anil’s particular brand of mindfulness was self-taught due to an occupational hazard of constant pressure and stress. During his Bowdoin tour, Anil couldn’t help but envy those who have the opportunity to study this art under much more idyllic conditions.  However, more overwhelming, was a sense of pride that his alma mater, Bowdoin College, widely recognized as among the best, if not the best, had taken it up a notch.