Mystory@Aneeket Barua: How I chose my course and career path – Challenges and learnings

Mystory@Aneeket Barua

Let’s begin this story in a different way. Instead of starting with my educational achievements, I would want to take this opportunity to boast of my overall achievements. Yes, I did achieve 50% of what I always wanted to be but failed to achieve the remaining half and my education has absolutely nothing to do with it. Ever since I turned into a teenager, all I aspired back then was to become a footballer. Yes! That’s right, I wanted to play and play it well. I have been playing this beautiful game from the tender age of nine and successfully represented my school, college and Delhi state. And that was all that I could achieve because, beyond this, the dream started to become hazy and eventually disappeared. You will get to know more about my dream and how and why I had to give it up later in this story.

Now let me share with you a bit of my journey with respect to my education and career. To begin with, I had always been an outstanding student, by outstanding, I mean literally 'outstanding' as most of my teachers would ask me to stand outside because my football practice would always make me late for class. So, this clearly shows how studious I was. Honestly speaking, I was actually one of the backbenchers who was never sure about what he will do if he failed a class to make it big in a sport that was already failing in the country!

My Class 10 score was average and I opted for humanities in 10+2. My best friend (also my fierce football competitor) tried to put some sense in me and enlightened me to choose my +2 subjects carefully so that I am able to make something out of my life in case I failed to make it big in football. I opted for History, Entrepreneurship and Economics in 10+2.

My 12^th result was no different but I didn’t care much. By that time I had made my name in football and was considered one of the finest goalkeepers of the state. Now, my only target was to get into a decent college in Delhi University, especially North Campus, where I would be able to play a lot of football, hang around in Kamla Nagar market, and would just need to clear my exams. Course selection was simple. Go for any course except BA Pass, History honors, and Political Science Honors. English honors and Hindi honors seemed very boring and Maths was out of syllabus, whereas Commerce was not an option. Thus, Economics was the only option available to me.

College Selection

I applied in all top colleges of DU North Campus under sports quota. Then came the climax of my life; the day I had to participate in sports trials in some of the most reputed colleges under DU. Most colleges conducted their trials on the same date to make sure that players don’t go to any other college for trials. I had to choose between this college and Hans Raj college. Though, both the colleges were equally good, I decided to drop Hans Raj and give my trials for this college. Everything was going in my favor; I was performing at my peak; all the selectors, officials and in fact parents of other aspirants were applauding my performance. To my surprise, the captain of that college called me in a corner for an important discussion. It was about donation. Yes! I was told that people were willing to pay huge sum of money to get a seat in this college and the question was – 'how much are you willing to pay?' I was left heartbroken and destroyed.

I got so demotivated that I ended up tearing off most of my certificates crying (though I tried putting them back with a cellotape later that night). Never had I imagined that even after achieving so much with the game, I would end up in this situation. My future looked blur to me now. What will I do if I don’t manage to get admission anywhere? What will I become? Most of my friends had secured admission in some professional course and many of them were giving entrance exams. I was totally devastated. But God had other plans for me. The very next day, while being consoled by my father (who also taunted me that I should have also paid some attention to studies), I received a call from my senior team member asking if I had secured admission anywhere and if I still wanted to join his college. Finally, I had a ray of hope and rest, as they say, is history.

Course Selection

At Hans Raj, again I was in the same situation of selecting my mains. But unlike my school days (as wisdom had hit my head hard), I made it clear to myself even though I love playing, I will put my leg on the ground and my head in the books. I had to take two language courses along with my mains. I had Creative English, Functional English, and Hindi as language courses and opted for Economics, Industrial Relations, and Personnel Management (IRPM) as my mains. Why Economics? Because it was my only strong point in 10+2. I don’t know how, but Economics was the only subject that I liked and did well in my boards as well. IRPM was more of a gamble that paid off. The subject was more related to organizational behavior, HR policy making, marketing, branding, and promotion. To sum it up, it was everything a person needs to know to understand the corporate society.  

However, the game changer in my case was Creative English. To my surprise, it was a total bouncer for me when it came to my understanding of the course. It seemed that the course will be all about writing stories and essays and more of marks earning subject than learning. But, eventually, it turned out to be a course related to communication and language. It taught everything from the origin of language to its evolution. It focused on the importance of communication and how to communicate creatively. Some of the projects which I had to do was to write a poem, a short story, an advertisement communication and a research study.

The first year of my college went very well as I was playing well and performing equally well in my studies. But then came the catastrophe. I severely injured my left knee and was advised to quit football for at least 6 months. The injury was so bad that I was in bed for approximately 3 months. What's worse, I failed in two subjects (Economics and Hindi). I was somehow conditionally promoted to 3^rd year. It was then that it struck me how I need to be more focused towards what I want to be, apart from being a footballer.

The answer came from my professor who was then evaluating my creative English project. He suggested that I have a creative thought process and probably should get into Advertising and Marketing. And, it was then that I realised I was interested in the Media industry. I discussed the same with my best friends who were BJMC students and motivated me to go for it. As a result, I opted for several entrance examinations that included XIC, IIMC, and Jamia. MICA was always out of the picture (If you know what I mean)! The preparation included reading about brands, their ambassadors, their taglines followed by general awareness.

By the time I was about to complete my graduation, I did few internships with small media houses, was part of crowd management, event management, and was offered to dress up as Shera (the mascot of CWG-India) for a TV show (which I obviously refused). I was doing all this as I knew that I need to have a strong portfolio to get into a good media institute. However, everything failed as most of the premiere institutes were looking for candidates who had good internship projects and fire in their belly.

Even today, I thank my stars for giving me a second opportunity to get admission in Hans Raj. However, I feel that I could have done much better if I knew what lied ahead of me. But I feel immensely proud of what I have been able to achieve till now and not regret much for what all I couldn’t. And Yes, football remains a part of it but a very small one. A professional degree such as a BBA or BJMC would have been a better option at that time.

Did I choose the right career

Well, it’ll be a lie if I say that I failed to choose the right career path for myself, but it will be a bigger lie if I say that I should have chosen something else over football as I simply can't resist playing that sport. But yes, a wiser decision would have been to opt for a course that would have helped me get closer to becoming a communication professional.

The only mistake that I made during my teenage was that I never thought of an alternate career option. Even if I loved football, which I still do, I could have opted for sports journalism, sports management or any other option that would have kept me closer to the game. But, because of lack of awareness and self-realisation, I didn’t know about these opportunities back then.

As a result, after completing my graduation and all the failed attempts to get into a premier media school, I finally I decided to go for the next best opportunity that would come my way. The year was 2010 and the month was August. I got an interview call from Info Edge India (Naukri.com) for the profile of community manager for Shiksha. Community management at that time was something unheard of or in other words, a jargon to many which included my parents. For me, it was a door of opportunity and my stepping stone to the ever growing world of online community management, product management, and product marketing.

In addition to this, joining Shiksha was a blessing in disguise as I realised the value of higher education and how important it is to do your MBA/PG/Masters from a reputed institute to climb up the corporate ladder.

It is Shiksha that provided me with the opportunity to exploit my creative abilities, especially my communication and convincing skills. I realised how communication, marketing, and PR are not only restricted to the media industry but are an inevitable part of any business. Even though my profile is more of product operations, I learned about marketing and product management through friends, colleagues, and seniors.

Tips on career selection

As many say, on-the-job training is the best way to learn and that is what has kept me going through the years. As far as career selection is concerned, I believe in suggesting and not advising. Life is a learning curve, you may not always end up doing what you want, but you will surely end up doing what you love. I love speaking and communicating and my job profile makes sure that I am doing it honestly.

About the Author:

I have close to 6 years of community management, operations management and transformation strategy implementation experience in Education Industry. As a Product Manager (Operations) at Shiksha, I have been involved in the formulation as well execution of strategies around Student Connect and Community Building for new project development and steady state product operations for business growth.