These success mantras can help you encash a PGDM opportunity: Siddhant Khera

Apeejay School of Management

The PGDM program was a 2 year thrilling experience for me. The journey started with lot of hopes, ambitions and expectations. Slowly those hopes got replaced with reality and there was a chance to continue stepping in the direction of my ambitions. 

The purpose of PGDM journey

I joined PGDM with a motive to explore my strengths and areas of development; surprisingly studies happened on its own. It is true that we all desire a good job with a well-known organisation post MBA, and I was no different. But things were a tad challenging for me as I said above and self-exploration was my main motive. 

Sufficient time spent with faculty mentors help you discover answers that you might be looking for and help in defining your own ideas of success and happiness. 

Reflections

For the first time ever in my life I tried to see if I could face the audience on stage, and I took part in Fresher’s competition. I had problems with my communication and speech.  Also, I had tremendous stage fear which I wanted to conquer and I did it! I would call it my achievement # 1 when I was awarded Mr. Fresher’s for my on-stage performance. That moment was a great booster for me, and then things just started moving in the right direction from that moment onwards. 

I had a lot of assumptions and misnomers regarding PGDM when I started off with this journey at Apeejay School of Management, Dwarka. Things like it is one tough professional degree, one does not get luxurious time to study, hence time management from day one becomes critical to be at the top of the race were constantly on my mind. Though some of the thoughts were true, this was also an opportunity to work on my overall development. 

The trimester system pushes one to study maximum subjects in a limited time. Along with classroom studies, we got a lot of assignments, case study discussions, projects, presentations and so on.  Students are provided a glance of the corporate during the summer internship, industrial visit and numerous guest lectures by industry stalwarts.  With every presentation I had during my tenure, I gained only one thing, and that is confidence. Series of presentations continue in corporate as well but the ground level training and accumulation of all required competencies happens during PGDM.

I tried improving myself, and saw tremendous changes in myself, the one who did use to speak much, doesn’t stop without speaking much now. It was a transition phase from a mute box to a chatter box, and I would call it my achievement # 2.  I also started socialising because I started loving interacting with people. 

There are a lot of curricular and co-curricular events organised at college level which also includes the annual Cultural festival. I was given the responsibility to head the sports volunteers and conduct all the sports games. This was a test to my managerial skills – How I managed multiple tasks at once and how smoothly could I carry the assigned task in specified time. That was again a tremendous learning experience for me. I am considered as a good manager by my existing firm; all thanks to that sports event which helped me explore my managerial skills. Deploying the right person at the right place and at the right time before the event started was challenging, but I learnt and delivered. I was an active volunteer in almost all the events, and managed my studies side by side. In addition to acquiring managerial skill set, I managed and utilised the time to the fullest. I was pretty overwhelmed to see that what so ever I did in college was noticed and rewarded – this was my third achievement. I would suggest all PGDM aspirants to keep doing the best and leave anxiety of placements or results to rest. So to sum up my life from being Mr. Freshers’ to Mr. Institute was thrilling, and this experience is unforgettable. 

Implementing colleges learnings at Workplace

Today, I hold large group presentations with Clients like Asian Paints, NTPC, Coca Cola and the list goes on. PGDM was just a preparation of what I am implementing today. I recommend that one should be optimistic to every lecture/assignment one gets and trust on your faculty because they know how to bring you out of the shell. 

One thing I want to add on to whatever is said above is that if you keep on worrying about your job from day 1, it will be really difficult to achieve the same before anyone else. Just live in the present without worrying much about the future. 

Nothing is impossible! If a person who used to stammer can work hard on himself and evolve and handle the most crucial sales post for a reputed company, I am sure you all can! 

About the Author

I am Siddhant Khera, and I did my PGDM from Apeejay School of Management, Dwarka (Batch of 2015-17.) Presently, he is working as a Territory Sales Manager in a Gurgaon Based MNC – Groz Engineering Tools.