Mystory@Mudit Pandey: How I made the most of my college years

Mystory@Mudit Pandey

If I get a chance, I would have attended more lectures rather than focusing on part time jobs while studying. This is a very basic problem of students going from Asian region to study abroad.

I was studying MSc Management and International Business from Birmingham City University in West Midlands. As I belong to a middle class family and had taken an education loan, my focus shifted from studies towards work and repayment of my loan amount due to which I started bunking my lectures. I lost focus on my studies and its value. As a result, I was pushed back from top 15 students in my Bachelor’s to the last 15 in my Master’s. I failed in two subjects: Strategic Management and International Business. I was called by the Extra Extenuating Circumstances (EEC) Committee to submit the reason of my failure and told that I would be allowed to resubmit my papers only if they found the reason convincing enough. Also, I realized that even if I resubmitted my papers, my overall score would remain low. As per the UK education system, if a student fails once, they are granted the minimum pass marks irrespective of the score that they achieve later.

I was called by committee members, Prof Shiv Choudhary and Prof Graham Cooper. I told them straight away that I got lured towards part time jobs rather than my studies due to my financial condition. Following this, they were sympathetic and explained to me why I should always focus on my studies rather than part time jobs and that the purpose of allowing students to work part time is to help them with experience rather than money.

All it requires is a little mathematical calculation: Every student going abroad needs to understand the value of every lecture missed. I use the same calculation while counselling students now and share my experience with them so that they focus on studies rather than work.

My fees for MSc Management and International business was 10500 pounds and hour of studies were 1600 for 160 credits of study. So if we divide our fees in hours of study, the per hour lecture costs comes around to be 6.56 pound which was 1 pound more than the minimum wage earned hourly (5.50 pounds). So, the committee members explained to me that by working part time during lectures, I am losing a pound an hour. I was also losing out on my knowledge and was creating a problem for visa extension as students are only allowed to work for 20 hours in a week.

I completely understood what he explained to me and started concentrating on my studies. I finally completed my Master’s and got distinction scored in Strategic Management. My regret is that had I given more time to my studies, I would have scored 76 marks rather than just 40, which is the minimum pass score.

About the Author

Mudit is currently working in Shiksha.com as Sr. Manager - Communities and counselling. He did his Masters in Management and International business from BCU – UK, and also holds an Engineering degree in Biotechnology. He started his career with BCU as a Course adviser for South East Asia region, and then represented University of Ulster and Amity University - London, Dubai campuses in India. Having almost a decade’s experience in developing new market, innovative revenue stream and long term professional network, he has counselled about 2500+ students across India. He was awarded as the most ethical education counsellor for the year 2012 by ASSOCHAM.