Mystory@Punit Shetty: How I chose my college and career path – Practical insights

Mystory@Punit Shetty

I just thought that I was good at sports and handling various school assignments along with being decent in my academics till Class 9. That’s when one of my school teachers identified my potential in Science and Mathematics and I started thinking about pursuing a course in Science stream. In a discussion with close family friends about my further education, I learnt about the booming IT sector and its rising career scope. And I thought that was the best option I had at that point of time. Secondly, I also wanted to continue pursuing my interest in sports. So after my 10th results were out, I started applying to those colleges which had a Computer Science course and emphasis on sports.

A few more aspects I was looking out for were the location of the college and the dynamics of other students. Since the course I was looking for was a specialised one and not a lot of colleges had this course, I was left with few colleges to choose from. Besides, the seats available for this course were also lesser than regular Science courses. After a lot of running around and waiting for my name to be on the merit lists of the colleges I had applied to, I did crack a couple of colleges. As per my criteria, I shortlisted SM Shetty Jr. College located within the vicinity of a township in Powai close to my residence. This junior college was relatively new but the facilities provided were at par with the other colleges. During that time, the college attracted students mostly from high class schools in the neighbourhood covering international, central and state boards, which contributed to a varied knowledge pool and good standard of student crowd in this institute. All these were factors which contributed in my decision making process of selecting a particular course and college.

How I cracked MBA admission: Exam prep tips

My preparation to enroll myself into an MBA program started a year before I got into SIESCOMS. Since I was never a fan of going to a coaching class, I relied on books and internet for my entrance test preparations. Due to some family requirement, I wanted to pursue this course in my hometown Mumbai itself. So I focused on two major exams CAT and CMAT (Note: CMAT was a replacement to Maharashtra CET when I was applying, later they again changed it to CET).

According to me there is no common guideline to prepare for exams, however I’ll mention a few ways which can help you be well prepared for scoring well in these tests. Before you start preparing for an entrance test, I strongly recommend you to get a feel of the actual exam since there is no limitation on number of attempts you can give for such test. This will help you understand the ground realities that you will have to encounter during the exam. Next, you can either go for a coaching class or prepare on your own. If you think you are a self-starter and don’t require anyone to push you and you understand concepts at a fast pace then self-study will suffice. Select learning material which is easy for you to understand and covers everything that is usually asked in these entrances (some research work on your side will be needed). Your fundamentals should be clear and you should prepare yourself to utilise these concepts to solve a particular question.

From my experience, most questions in these tests never have straight forward solutions, however, with lot of practice you can crack these with lesser effort. Even while understanding concepts you should attempt mock tests so that you keep tracking the progress of your preparation.

Tips on college selection

Now many will tell you target the best college of India etc. I suggest you to have two set of target colleges, one should be dream colleges and the other set can be more realistic. Let me explain with my example; your list would vary as per your own criteria. For me, couple of my dream options were SP Jain and JBIMS and the colleges in my realistic set were Welingkar and SIESCOMS.  For the ambitious set of colleges where a majority of candidates would apply, the probability of getting selected is lesser than in colleges which are also good but the probability of cracking admission is much higher because of lesser applications as compared to the top most colleges. You get the picture right!

Once you know your target colleges, you can start aligning your efforts accordingly as every college may have a different selection procedure. One should always be prepared to attend a group discussion or personal interview round.

Assuming that you get selected in your dream college, that’s just the beginning of your journey. At any point of time you cannot be satisfied that you got into your dream college, because no one remembers or asks the entrance test scores once you are in college. It’s what you do during these two years of your course that will define your career in the long term. Be it a common class project or an internship or competitions or a college appointment you should be participative and proactive in utilising every opportunity which you think is important for you.  These things will not be the same for everyone so don’t base your decision on other people’s preferences. These are few things you can keep in mind to make the most of your college life.

How I made the most of my college life

‘Awesome’ is the word that I will use to define my life at SIESCOMS. I always used to read about articles from IIM students mentioning about rigorous routines in college and I always wanted a college which can give me that rigor. SIESCOMS didn’t disappoint me at all. We had daylong lecture sessions, tight deadlines to submit our projects, assignments, etc, case studies, surprise tests. In short, I remember only sleeping 2-3 hours on a daily basis. But I never felt tired or bored because the entire batch used to have a good time doing all of this on campus from 8am to 10pm and the discussion continued on virtual platforms also till we completed our planned assignments for the day.

The sheer enthusiasm of not just my batch-mates but also the faculty members was more than enough to infuse energy and rejuvenate us in such an exhaustive routine. I was already conditioned to this kind of rigor during my cadet training in the past but I was amazed the way the others coped to this new way of life. During the course of time, I engaged myself in not just academics but also live projects, competitions, student committees which helped me in my overall professional development.

How my college education impacted my career

The day I realised I have a knack for management, especially marketing, I started aligning all my efforts towards this. Starting with my marketing research experience at Packt Publishing, social management experience at Nivara and sales stint at Gulf Oil, I have been enjoying it thoroughly. My college education has helped me elevate the standard of my career in terms of position and finances as well. The knowledge that I gained during my course has helped me gain meaningful insights from various industries and I have been successfully implementing them to continuously grow the organization that I work for.

During my course, I was introduced to various proven methods of conducting business. Various talks from industry experts helped me broaden my horizon to approach a problem and come up with implementable solutions to the same. I have got the right orientation towards sensing various opportunities for my professional growth too. Now that I look back I think the efforts that I took to understand the concepts through practical exposure are what have been helping me in my work life a lot. Because there are a lot of management graduates out there with the same certification as me but what differentiates me is the way I deliver the desired results at work.

Career selection can be a complicated task. Firstly, I suggest you understand the difference between a job and a career. Once you have done this you need to ask few questions to yourself. What is your purpose in life, what are you trying to accomplish, what kind of life you want to live, what all do you want in this lifetime and how can you work towards achieving all of this. For example, if you exist in this world to help underprivileged children, You may decide that you will help them by providing quality education. You can set a goal that in the next 20 years you will help 10,000 underprivileged kids with their education. Now to do this you can either do it on your own or by joining some organization that is already doing this. You will have to train yourself in such a way that you are able to achieve your goal and thereby accomplish the purpose of your life in helping these children. In this case, social work or teaching becomes a career path for you.

The only way to understand which career to select is to find the answer of ‘WHY you exist?’ Rest will follow.

About the Author:

I’m a socially responsible business professional with competence in channel sales, BTL, market research, branding to name a few and have worked in the field of Publishing, Lubricants, Social sector, Real estate, Food & Beverages and Logistics. After completing BSc from Mumbai University, I completed my PGDM course from SIESCOMS. Being an ex-Air Cadet from the National Cadet Corps (India), I have always had an interest in aviation, trekking and social work. My management style and work culture is largely influenced by the defense forces of India. I personally like helping people who are striving towards developing India in a holistic manner.