Alumni on ECLA
Joseph Ollapally, India
Attended: Project Year 2004
Currently: Entrepreneur
When I reflect on my year at ECLA the feeling that dominates is a certain sense of space. Every element of ECLA seems to carry this feel. The low-rise, spread-out architecture, the academic curriculum that bridges the gaps between multiple disciplines, the broad representation found within the student body and more abstractly the pervading philosophy of openness and exploration.
Yet, within this feeling of vastness lies a coziness. ECLA is in Berlin, but still away from it. The curriculum is broad and sweeping but based on a solid core. The student body is diverse, yet, small and intimate. And the pervading philosophy while open and experimental is based on a well-defined structure. Somehow the space at ECLA manages to capture the smallness in the largeness, to point to the distant without losing sight of the immediate.
Having come to ECLA from a university with 17,000 students and having lived in a pigeonhole in a 350-room dormitory, I relished the cozy spaciousness that a small-institution-in-a-big-city offered. For one year, ECLA provided me the shelter from within which I could make my tentative, often abortive forays into the open lands. (One such scary foray involved voice lessons culminating in a high-risk performance!)
Since ECLA I’ve continued to enjoy being in small spaces within larger ones. I have recently started a sports company with two other friends. The larger world of Indian sports is murky and disorganized but from within the small space of our little sports company, we hope to make a difference. My experience at ECLA gives me the confidence to try.
Joseph T. Ollapally passed away in Thailand on Thursday, April 1, 2010 of a head injury sustained while trekking.