My Selection was inevitable because of CL’s PDPP – Saurabh Shubham, XLRI and SPJAIN convert

PDPP has been of immense value to me. When I cleared the written exams, CAT, XAT etc., I had no inkling regarding how to commence my preparation. There was so much to read, so much to prepare in a short span of time. I had to prepare for all the recent happenings, I also had to  remember important statistics to quote during WAT and interviews. Besides all this, I had to prepare for all the HR questions which might be asked in the interviews. To sum it up and I am not exaggerating, it is a huge task to prepare for all this in one month.

I joined PDPP of Career Launcher, as soon as my XAT was over. This programme is so comprehensive that even if you do only the minimum that this programme asks of you, you would do well in the interview process. I had to first write a comprehensive essay about myself at least of 2500 words. I also had to answer around 10 questions regarding myself in the PDPP section of the CL website. Combined, these were more than sufficient to answer almost all the HR questions. If you spend enough time and write the essay and those answers diligently and honestly, your half of the preparation is done.

We also had a telegram group where we regularly discussed the current affairs topics. Sreeni sir made us join “BodhiTree” a telegram blog(sort of) where he shared important current affairs articles from various sources. Once he shared 20 hot topics to prepare which was so important that almost nothing was asked out of it in the interview process. In fact my WAT and GD in many processes went well due to those 20 topics. PDPP also provides you with mock GDs at your local CL centres.

Then I had a personal interview on skype with Sreeni sir. Though, PDPP provides you with 2-3 interviews with mentors, but if you follow the above mentioned process diligently, one interview is sufficient for you. The interview is catered to address your personality and profile specifically. I was asked questions from my work area and general current affairs some of which were asked verbatim in the actual interviews, later. Overall, I understood the gaps in my preparation and also got to know my strengths. The mentors are extremely experienced and knowledgeable and the mock interview experience is as rich as the original ones.

After the mock interview, Sreeni sir asked me which interview is first? As I replied SPJIMR, he told me you would crack it. You have prepared well. And I got selected as he had predicted. Later I also converted XLRI.

To conclude, I would only say that the idea of preparation for MBA institutes interview processes is daunting to say the least. The interview process is extremely grueling at times and if you have not prepared well, you would suffer as a result. What PDPP does is provide a structured guidance to your preparation, boosts your confidence.

• It channelizes your time and energy towards things that are important so that you maximize your time utilization.
• It also taught me how to prepare for any interview in my life.
• It tries to make you visualize the bigger picture. What do you want from MBA, from your life?
• How would the new technologies impact the different sectors and how would you align your goals with respect to these massive changes. Trust me, this is one of the biggest differentiators between you and other candidates. While the rest of people would talk about present challenges, you would be talking about changes 10, 20 years later and how would you relate these technological changes with the present.
• The biggest change in my personality was my confidence. I was so confident during my interviews due to my preparation that I was smiling throughout. I remember that I was shivering during the interviews last year. Such was the positive impact of PDPP on me.

PDPP may not ensure that you crack the interviews on the D day but it will definitely ensure that you are one of the best candidates to be interviewed that day.

Thank you Sreeni sir for all the guidance and help. I moved my life in the direction in which I wanted to and a big part goes to PDPP and you. It would seem to many people that I got selected and thus I am praising the programme. I would like to mention that my selection was inevitable because of the preparation that PDPP provided.

Regarding written exams, I took two test series. You can take any two though I would personally suggest CL to be one of the series  because of LRDI and VARC sections. In the months of April and May I solved CL booklets for CAT which really helped me clear all the doubts. From June, I started to take mock tests and sectional tests. If you are starting now, I would suggest you devote two months for covering all the topics. From August you should take full length mocks. Till December, I took around 45-50 full mock tests. It is important to clear all the doubts however small in the initial stages so that later you can devote your time strategizing and planning time management. For VARC, I studied Economic times, The Economist and Hindu editorials daily. The Economist really helped as it covered different topics. Quant is a matter of practice and LRDI is all about patience, practicing different sets and understanding the question under time pressure. I hope it helps future aspirants in some way.

Regards
Sourabh Shubham

Converts XLRI and SPJAIN 2019

Change your actions, you will transform your life – Mukul, an IIMB convert, CLite

Hi Sreeni Sir, hope you are doing well!

Sir, since I am doing this for the first time, please ignore anything silly! I hope that I am able to convey my thoughts and my journey within the limited spectrum of words that are out there because sometimes words are not enough to express all the emotions and experiences we experience in our life and also that it inspires other aspirants to take action to achieve what they want in life!! Here it goes,

Somewhere back in May 2018, about one year ago, I read this somewhere, “We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome”

My journey, from preparing for CAT till the interview process, is a tale of self-realization and the importance of necessity in one’s lives.

It’s been a funny year for me! I was a sad and demotivated software engineer working for an unorganized IT company where politics had more role to play than software development itself. Meanwhile, a very close friend was preparing for CAT. I remember, very clearly, I was on a midnight con call with my ‘bros’, one of them was the CAT guy, the other one was GRE guy and then there was me, unsure about my own capabilities and sad with my professional life, when they said that it’s not necessary to stick to one organization and suggested that, maybe, all I was looking for was a change!

The word ‘change’ struck me. Indeed I needed a change in my life. Now the question was, what kind of change? At that time, I never knew the answer would change my life forever.

So, as all mortals do it, I googled, How can I change myself? I found this, ‘CHANGE YOUR ACTIONS, NOT YOURSELF‘. Voila!!

Yes. I was doing a lot of things the wrong way. I needed to take charge, analyze the weak areas and work on them. And, yes, stop being unkind to myself and start loving and appreciating myself more for all the things I already had. I NEEDED A MINDSET CHANGE!

I spent the next week making a list of things that were not present in my life, or I felt needed to be worked on. The list had things from both personal and professional life. One of them was how much I sucked at managing everything and my dream of becoming a top executive one day. With my current job, level of expertise and qualification, becoming a top executive seemed like an unachievable dream. So, I starting researching about how I can make that happen. I zeroed in on MBA. CAT or GMAT? CAT, because, you know, MONEY.

Since I was working full time, I needed to manage my time well in order to make time for studying. Also, there was a need to go the quicker route as CAT was just 6 months away and all I could manage was 3 hours per day for preparation. The quickest way were mocks. Mind you, at this point I was counting on my memory, that whatever I had learnt in 10 standard hadn’t been flushed out of my head. So my prep started with giving mocks right from the beginning, then taking time out to analyze them and then just revising those topics where I was committing recurrent mistakes. For this I needed the best platform where the mocks were closest to the actual CAT exam and the analysis simple and easy to understand. I gave a number of free mocks online and Career Launcher had the best mocks to offer. So, I stuck to giving mocks on CL’s platform on a daily basis and I can’t emphasize enough how much it helped me. The post mock analyses really helped me in grasping quick problem solving skills that are of utmost importance for competitive exams especially for something like CAT. Along with mocks, I also felt the need to try questions that had been asked in CAT before. Here, my friend, who had been preparing for CAT for 2 years, suggested me a book he was using. It was topic-wise and year-wise solved papers from Career Launcher. I bought that book online and gave my heart and soul to CAT prep. I used to study from 11PM to 2AM. My prep went as follows, I divided the whole CAT syllabus into 12 topics, gave one mock from each topic, and followed it up with an analysis the next day which was followed by questions from the same topic from the book I bought. Rinse and repeat!

I would also like to admit that I kind of had a mental advantage because I was already working and didn’t have much to lose except for a few hours of sleep (BTW, Sleep is bae, so it was a lot for me).

My prep also included weekly discussion with my bros on questions that were unique in some way, or needed some help.

6 months of toiling paved the way for an excellent exam. I had exceeded my own expectations and so did my friend. The next day, or should I say midnight, I was on the con call and both of us were bragging about how good we thought we had performed and how likely it was that we would get in A,B or C. This called for celebration! Isn’t it obvious?

We planned to celebrate New Year in Goa, which then shifted to Gokarna, because you know, MONEY. We were ecstatic and obviously had a blast in Gokarna. We thought that we were the best!

Sounds really good isn’t it. A happy ending. Not really! Not yet!

Maybe, if you were paying close attention, you would realize my mistake. Somewhere between the post exam period and our trip, my confidence crossed its limits and I didn’t realize that.

It was mid-January, 2019 already, and I was under the impression that interviews would be a cake walk. I was a bit disappointed after I realized that I wouldn’t get a call from A. But, you know, my confidence was at such a level, or should I say, overconfidence, that I thought it doesn’t matter because I am gonna convert B anyway.

I was a bit reluctant initially, but on my friend’s aggressive insistence, I started searching for interview prep classes. I attended a few trial classes at various places in Connaught Place, finally zeroing in on CL. I got enrolled in the Personality Development Program Personalized at CL. I was seriously late because the classes were already in full swing (the batch starts in December and I got there in late Jan). But I was on cloud nine, and thought I was gonna rock it anyway. Idiotic me.

My first shock came in my first class itself because everybody were 99+%ilers in CL. Like everybody! And these people were freaking awesome. I was shocked. There were A, B, C call getters who had been preparing for interviews since Dec. I was no-where close to them. The kind of preparation tools CL had been giving them so far were excellent and they had made the most of it. And here I was! Lost in my own world! But I had done one good thing. I had joined CL and was put under GP sir’s mentorship. Words are not enough to tell how thankful I am to sir! My first mock was with sir. I was already late for the mock and was nervous. Sir suggested we start with the mock first and then we will do the analysis. Mock lasted for 15 minutes and I had bombed it. Now when I look back, I realize, I had it coming. I couldn’t even answer the basic questions. I remember it very clearly, after the mock, sir said, “Tumne toh puri tyaari kar rakhi hai apni calls waste karni ki, kahan the itne dino se?” I couldn’t have told sir that I was enjoying booz in Gokarna because my overconfidence took the better of me. Sir then made a complete timeline of all my life events and then he taught me a very important thing, “Each one of us has a unique story to tell and the ability to speak about it honestly and sincerely is what an interview is all about”. This advice changed everything for me. I took that sheet and started my prep. I took 20 days leave from office with a sole focus of getting to IIMB. Day in, day out, I used to stare at that sheet and make sample interview pitches. I then used to identify areas where I could be questioned, and I prepared for them. Interview after interview I kept on improving and by the time my IIMB interview was about to happen, I had knowledge of every domain that had a link to my life in some way or the other. This is what I got from CL. A strong foundation!

Now, here, I am, an IIMB convert, waiting to take on MBA with full power hoping that I am able to make my family and mentors proud. What did I learn? Never celebrate too early and remember to have an awesome mentor like GP sir! Thank you sir!

My advice to future aspirants, work hard, dream, make friends that force you to level up and most importantly never stop improving yourself. Your life is a story, make sure to make it the best one!

Sinerely,

Mukul Bagre,

IIMB Convert.

PGDM 2019-2021

“Thanks CL. You made me a person capable of knowing Myself” – Ankit, XLRI Convert

A few days back in college, a couple of juniors asked me, “Which institute or site would you suggest for MBA entrance preparations?”

 

“If your aim is to just crack the entrance exams, many institutes can make you do that, but if your vision of success involves getting into a dream B-School and have a thrilling lifelong journey even after that, then join Career Launcher because at the end, its all about how better you know yourself and CL enables you to do that” I answered.

This advice of mine is based on the stellar learning experience I had with CL. The beauty of my journey with CL has been the individuality which I have felt during the guidance right from the starting of entrance preparations to getting into one of the top B-Schools of India. And this is going to continue beyond that also, owing to the continued guidance I expect to get from my CL Gurus.

After getting the results for CAT & XAT, the next big question was how to prepare for the Group Discussions, Writing Ability Tests and (of course) the Interviews! I turned to Shreya Jain (Ex-CLite; IIM-C 2018-20; Mentored at CL CP centre) for advice, the person who provided me an amazing guidance throughout my preparation. Her exact words were “Just join CL PDP and attend the first two orientation classes including Introduction to PDP and Goal Setting (more than once if you can). Everything will itself be taken care for afterwards.”

I was a bit shocked at the second sentence, but I understood why she said that after first day of PDP. I was a bit confused till then regarding the interview preparation. It was like I knew what I had to do but didn’t know how to do that. I knew a bit about my strengths and weaknesses but didn’t know whether they were enough to overcome the challenge. I knew I was passionate about doing an MBA but was doubtful of my potential. What goes in an exam preparation is not just hard work and studies, its about the emotional sentiments which take toll on an otherwise calm mind. And it is these moments which are considered make-or-break. So of course there is a pressure (from your own expectations, family, friends and of course other candidates) in these conditions and at the same time, few fears also.

 

While all these thoughts were going in my mind I entered the CP centre for my first PDP interaction and the next three hours were extremely inspiring. It was taken by Sreeni sir and truly stays till now the class in which I have enjoyed the most and learned the most. Till then I had fears- some rational, some irrational. After that class, irrational ones disappeared and in their place in my mind came the solution to the rational ones. Three hours went like a breeze. When the class ended and I came out, I saw the transition of 70+ faces from confusion and anxiety to calmness and excitation! And it was a surprise that he did all that without talking about the need or the challenge of making it to the top B-Schools, instead he talked about various things like the concept of IKIGAI, Circle of Concern and Influence, Disruptions in different fields, etc ( and what inspired me the most was his friendship story and how they started CL together ). The result was that instead of thinking about how I will get into a good MBA college, I started planning for how I will achieve my overall goals in my life and it really made me again think about the positive opportunities I had instead of the imaginary challenges. I was inspired.

Next day turned out to be equally fascinating. The class was taken by GP sir. What happened at the end of his class was that the 70+ faces turned from calmness and excitation to confidence and happiness. The knowledge he imparted to all of us was not regarding what to tell the interviewer to get selected but what to do, to know ourselves so well that we could be at ease with ourselves and be natural (an advice which would be of great help entire life). The ease with which all students were able to connect with what he was saying was inspiring. “Our potential can be a great motivation to us if we put it in the right direction with clarity of thought” was my main lesson from his class.

The next couple of weeks of PDP programme were truly awesome and the chill morning weather of the CP made that even more special. Enlightening Group Discussions with great minds from diverse backgrounds under the guidance of passed outs from reputed B-Schools, WATs practice, everything improved my perspective by great measures. I never imagined that preparations could also be so enjoyable. The ease with which the whole programme was designed, the booking system for classes, slot bookings for interview and general discussions with mentor- was truly phenomenal. I felt CL was like a mini trailer of what life at a B-School would be. Exciting and full of Opportunities.

The mock interview and discussions with GP sir remain the most special moments of PDP programme. I still remember when after the end of my first interview, we were discussing about my story till then and my mock interview, he said, “What you are right now creates more impact than what you were during the interview. You need to be completely truthful regarding yourself.” And after that he listened to all my concerns patiently and gave great advices. When I came out of his cabin, I felt like I was re-introduced to myself in those 45 minutes. The thing for which I congratulate the CL most is that they don’t pick students and then tell them who they are, instead CL makes a person capable of knowing the “SELF” and understanding their true potential. The simplicity with which CL gurus do that is what makes all the difference and is the secret recipe for success of Clites. As the time is limited between results and Interview preparation, one needs a very customized guidance to bring out his/her best qualities forward and CL did exactly that for me as well as my friends.

So the conversion of XLRI call is not what I have achieved but what my family, friends and CL motivated me to achieve. A great mind is not great till it is focused in the right direction and that is what CL PDP does with its students. The best part of the CL is that in an era when most of the people see you as competition, it was the warmth in the atmosphere of the Career Launcher which made me truly happy.

Now about me- Wanted to do Economics Hons but ended up with a B.Tech in ECE. Passionate about Economics. Interested in Human Psychology. Reading newspaper since 10 years. XLRI’te HRM soon. A proud CLite. Looking forward to continue learning experience at XLRI and make the institute proud.

Ankit Thakur

XLRI convert – 2019-21

“CL Prepared me for Life, beyond B-School” – Dishant, an IIMA convert, DTU Alum

My CAT journey with CL:

My name is Dishant and I am a final year student at Delhi Technological University (batch of 2019). Since the beginning of my curriculum in my institute I had an affinity towards doing an MBA after completing my UG degree. The reason for the decision can be owed to my hobbies of reading about great leaders and kings and also to my natural aptitude and proclivity towards the working of the world and the pursuit for reason.

I decided to focus on building my profile during my first two years and also exploring different fields to get a wider glance at each of them. I found interest in subjects like engineering maths and economics and got a chance to pursue research in the respective field under the tutelage of very able professors of my college. It was during the end of my sixth semester that I enrolled for the Premium batch for CAT-2018 in Career Launcher CP centre, the decision can be attributed to my interactions with the various representatives as well as mentors from the institute who instilled a new confidence within me to pursue my desire.

The journey within CL was a memorable experience, the classes especially the verbal ones were pretty informative and descriptive. The pedagogy was quite efficient and the sense of humour of the trainers was noteworthy. I cherished every moment spent within the class, which included interaction with top students from the best colleges across Delhi NCR. Apart from the curriculum, I also found the online resources quite useful, the Test Gym became my gym for the next couple of months, the presentation of questions and their segregation based on topics and difficulty never made me feel the need of a hard book.

Moving on to the months of June and July, I had to juggle between my internship schedule in Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) and the classes, however I always found time to revise the concepts taught in class through the Smart CAT Cracker (SCC) resource which provided video lectures on demand taught by top CL faculties. With the beginning of the Mock CAT season we used to have a proctored mock every two weeks with an unproctored one in between, Mocks are an absolute necessity to cracking CAT and hence were not taken lightly, each mock result followed a percentile figure along with a detailed drill down analysis. The analysis part of the mock is the most crucial part for any aspirant, with the provision of section wise detailed performance indicators as well as comparative timings for each and every question I was able to gauge my performance along with my peers and identify any shortcomings in the particular test. The mocks were of varying difficulty level and each one of it provided me a new insight into the ways to approach a problem, the mocks for XAT and IIFT were also quite helpful. The only downside I found in the entire mock series was the predicted percentile which used past performance to come up with a range of percentile one can expect in CAT. I had a predicted percentile of 99.08 which was way below my expectations, however the teachers motivated me to overlook the figure and prove it wrong. Then came the D-Day 25 November CAT, I had the morning slot for the exam and it was surprisingly cold, during the frisking we were asked to remove our jackets, footwear including socks which had quite a numbing effect to the body owing to the cold temperature, then the exam began at exactly the scheduled time. The English section was surprisingly easy with a slight change in pattern, followed by a similar DILR section where I made a grave mistake of copying wrong info from a set, the quant section was the terminal section which I found to be a mixed bag contrary to the general opinion of difficulty and ended in a high note for me. Overall CAT-18 was a pleasant experience and I was confident of scoring enough to manage a call from at least one of the holy trinity, ABC. Next followed up exam was XAT and with the brimming confidence from CAT I was able to make the best of the exam.

The CAT results were declared in a month and half and I scored a 99.73 with a relatively higher score in the Quant section, while I had hoped of securing a 99.9+ the result was still satisfying for me. In the following days I received calls from all IIMs except for Bangalore which I missed by a minuscule margin. The XAT results were declared soon after and I had the biggest surprise of the year when the scorecard revealed a 99.992 figure, and a call from the XLRI BM program which was the only program I had applied for.

Next up was the CL Personality Development Program which was aimed at converting the secured calls through mock interview practice and personality sessions. Mr. Sujit Bhattacharya was allotted as my mentor for the program, I had almost 5 interviews with various mentors including GP sir, Arks sir and Shivku sir who guided me through the entire interview process. The program was not only focused on preparing for the interview but also focused towards the overall development and creation of a personality fit for the esteemed institutes. At the end of the season I was able to convert all of my top institute calls including- IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Calcutta, XLRI-BM and so on.

Summing it all up the best part of the entire journey was the PDP program with several information, practice session and the one to one interaction with the mentors. The mentors with a special note for Shivku Sir, Arks Sir, Sujit Sir and GP Sir were very helpful to me during the entire interview season, they not only helped me during interaction but were always available on call even during the oddest of hours. I still remember the time when I had a self doubt over my IIM-A interview and felt that I had missed the chance, I used to call Shivku sir and Arks Sir almost twice a day to pour out my emotions, they however always pushed the fact that I will make it no matter what perception of the experience I had in my mind, and alas their words came out to be true at the end. The interview sessions with Sujit Sir were an eye opener with his reasoning and sheer honest reactions to any answer. I was able to push myself to think deep over the questions like why MBA, and what after MBA, this opened up another dimension of thinking would stay with me forever. GP Sir with his everlasting optimism and Sreeni Sir with his multifaceted personality were always a source of motivation and inspiration.

It was with the help and support of all the mentors that I had been able to achieve the success of cracking my dream B-school and they truly deserve a commendation as one of the best teachers and mentors. Hence I would like to conclude by saying that CL not only prepared me for the B-School but for the life beyond it through traits of undying optimism, vision and worldly wisdom.

Now I know – who am I, what I want to be and how to get there – Happy Kukreja, XLRI entrant

How has the personalized mentoring in PDPP facilitated you ? How did that impact you, in what all ways?

Has it enabled you to create a compelling vision for life? Have you got reasonable amount of clarity of the path?

As all lost souls in pursuit of a guide, I knocked on the doors of Career Launcher, three months back, when I needed guidance and counsel for business school interviews. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical at first, and rightly so, I was entrusting my future, in the hands of strangers. Three months later, I can comfortably say, it was a good decision.

The scope of PDP personalised, as a programme, is too broad to simply write it off as an interview preparation tool. It allowed me to understand the ins and outs of my individuality. It started with the 10 questions, every PDPP student has to answer. They included simple, yet stimulating questions, like, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What is your biggest achievement in life?’. These questions required a lot of introspection and contemplation on my end, as a result I was able to fully understand my individuality, my strengths, and my areas of improvement.

Now, this is something that one could do himself, how did PDPP help in this, one might wonder. Well, it was the gurus at Career Launcher, that enabled me to turn these strengths and weaknesses into instruments of impact in the B-school interviews.

How an ability to write a book can be turned into convincing evidence of superior leadership and management skills? Ask a CL guru, and prepared to be awed! This is indeed the best part. I wasn’t treated as just another student. I was treated as an individual, with unique strengths and weaknesses, and trained to turn my qualities into ammunition, to convince the interviewers.

Next, we come to the story. Every B-school interviewer looks for commitment towards a specific career in the aspirants. This is where all the interviewees need to have a story, a perfect chain of events, that point to the reason of going for MBA, and the specialisation one prefers. This is another area where a personalised story, based on my work ex, courses, certifications and academic record, was curated by CL gurus.

Another aspect of b-school interviews is the group discussions. A lot of top institutes across India, make GDs a part of the selection process. At PDPP, I got a chance to taste the cut throat competition beforehand by participating in over 10 GD workshops.

Another part of the selection process is the writing aptitude test. In the PDPP, I was able to take mock WATs and understood, what the business schools are looking for.

Apart from all this, I always had a mentor just a phone call away. Every doubt, query, was resolved within minutes. It is indeed an overwhelming privilege to be mentored by IIM alums on your way to IIMs.

In a nutshell, PDPP provided me a 360° view of business school selection process. From the story to interview etiquette to GDs and WATs to highlighting strengths and using weaknesses to further improve the chances of selection, I got great insights into everything.

But above all, it helped me, understand the different spheres of my personality. An in-depth understanding of my passions, interests, values, strengths and weaknesses, allowed me to fulfil the very purpose of the existence of knowledge and education, understanding thyself, and designing your life accordingly.

This has become a pragmatic reality because of the numerous interactions I had with CL gurus, who themselves, have a huge body of experience and expertise. In the personal interactions, I had with them, I was introduced to a world of possibilities, and different paths that lie ahead in life for me, the pros and cons of each, and most importantly, I was equipped with the knowledge and wisdom to decide, which path to venture upon in the journey of life.

I now have an understanding of the kind of person I am, both personally and professionally, and kind of person I want to be and how to get there!

Happy Kukreja

XLRI convert, 2019-21

Architecting Successful Career – Dr. Nomesh Bolia, Prof IITD

Prof. Nomesh bolia, IIT Delhi

Areas of Interest:

Operations Research, Stochastic Modeling, Application of MDP to various control problems, Application of OR to logistics and Economics

Education

• Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Aug 2005-Aug 2009
• B.Tech. , IIT Bombay

Winner of multiple awards in the areas of his interests and research; Nomesh has also been involved in the areas of policy making, especially initiated the movements of Vision India foundation, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan

——————————————————

It was refreshing to see a young, 35+ something young gentleman who rose to address the parents and youth who are stepping into class XI at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya. Indeed, Nomesh, as he introduced himself humorously, he looked more like a fellow youth than a Professor at IIT D.  But, I must tell you, he is awe inspiring, by his vision, outlook and thoughts towards life.

Nomesh started by saying that it is very important to go by your instincts and not to follow any one else. It may be a struggle initially, to understand self, to figure out, but go through it to

– Get your fundamentals of life clear
– have a colorful, enjoyable journey of life
– Appreciate the diversity within and without

Pyramid
———–

Kindly look at your career and life as a pyramid, working from bottom to the top to have a meaningful and purposeful life.

– What ever you pick up, the following are must

• Be Focused and give everything
• Put in your hard yards of work
• Be analytical
• Think out of the box

Nomesh went on to share the stories of youth, who discovered their calling, irrespective of where they started. I have known a few of them. I tried finding their talks and works on youtube to add some flavour to Nomesh’s sharing. Here they are. Will add the rest as soon as I find them.

– Pranav misery – Sixth sense, working in the R&D of Samsung. An alum of an engineering college from Gujarat, goes on to work in cutting edge research and evolved sixth sense.

– khurshed Batliwala – art of living

– Lekh Bajaj – managing stress, IITM

– nikhil raj – artificial intelligence, rest of life need not work

– Nitin dhakad – jhabua – agriculture market

– k subham – policy professionals, govt programs
– Hamsa/Bhav – fighting elections
– Ankit/me – Vision India – policy decisions related

So tell yourselves

– I do what I want to do
– you choose your pace and place

Nomesh went on to take a few questions from the parents towards the end

Q. What does one go for, if one wants to get into policy making?

Almost all the policy makers emerge from humanities. They understand the contexts and humanity
Economics and subjects from humanities in Class XI will be an ideal choice

Q. How do I find the Aptitude of my child ?
What they like and don’t like
Kindly observe and be aware
Read, read

Nomesh can be reached at nomesh@iitd.ac.in

Humanities gives skills to face the new world : Dr. Kranti Saran, Ashoka University

Prof Kranti Saran was one of the speakers of eminence to address the students who are stepping into class XI at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, and their parents. Here I tried to reproduce his inspiring talk, to the best of my abilities.

Kranti Saran, currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ashoka University and a Research Associate at Harvard University, also a visiting faculty in JNU.

His research interests trace a progression of questions about the nature of bodily sensations and bodily spatiality to the nature of introspection of them. From introspection, his interests generalize to the nature of attention. Finally, he is interested in how practices of attention to bodily and mental states can school a subject’s affect in a morally salutary direction.

———————————————- My Journey —————————–
What does a philosopher do?
Most people talk about being super successful
Most of us are not, but still will lead a happy life.

I had scored a 70% in my school, never like today’s 95%+
In school, I was never interested in what we were studying, because of the way we were studying.
I used to read a lot; though disconnected with contextual reality, I always felt thing will work

I had to get into a college. what to do? Never got what I wanted.
Accident happened….philosophy happened.
This was what I was waiting for the whole life.
I fell in love with.
I started liking and doing well in acads
It was a wonderful feeling, but disconcerting too as I was doing well.
….went to Harvard and a few other places too..
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Three things I want to share from my learnings.

1. Be prepared to be surprised – in class x, I would have never imagined what I am doing today. Acads? I ran away from it then. It is now rich and rewarding

2. Play to your strengths
A. In our school, if you were smart you did science. I discovered, I had no aptitude for science. 52% in class XII. DO NOT PUSH THE CHILD INTO AN AREA THAT YOU FEEL THEY OUGHT TO BE.

3. what special talent do you have? What is that one thing that you are disproportionately blessed with. Nurture and develop. Disproportionate rewards will come your way.

CAREERS OF FUTURE

careers different from undergrad training? How many here? About 30 odd parents stood up.

When the concept of car was introduced they were called horseless carriages. Now we see Teslas of the world bring in rapid changes

What do we need now?

We need to be flexible to bring the skills to the market place
We need to be adaptable, agile and nimble in the market place

Once upon a time Music industry – was worried about piracy etc. Napster etc happened then.
Apple introduced music service and the music industry has never been the same again.

We do not have models of the world, that the world will change to. Everything is abstract.
Have skills that are nimble, and help you to adapt quickly.

Skill set to have – How Humanities equip you.

What are the particular skills that you learn in classroom?

• Reasoning and analysis – how do you put the argument
• Communication to get your ideas and thoughts across
  You are with people all the time, how do you use persuasiveness is the key
• Feeds into capacity of being a team member, building a team

All these three will help you connect the dots. Helps to think out of the box.

How does it translate into a real world?

1. Jeff bozos of AMAZON

• Asks subordinates to write a detailed memo In advance and share
• Everyone reads, be prepared before they come to the meeting

Why?
– clear writing shows clarity of thought
– well thought-out ideas emerge

2. Have you ever read any IPO document?

• IPO document of Twitter will tell you details
• Founders are not techies in under grad
• Almost all of them are from arts, humanities,…

So, select Class XI subjects such a way that they make you flexible and adaptable.

You can get in touch with Kranti Saran at Saran@ashoka.edu.in
Thanks to the web for photograph of Kranti Saran. The rights belongs to the owner.