Mystory@Suneet Padhy: How my chosen course and college experience shaped my career path

Mystory@Suneet Padhy

In 2010, I shifted from Calcutta to Ludhiana (Punjab). Since I was interested in Robotics at that point, it did not take me much time to choose Science as my branch in Class XI. The initial few months were rough due to the accent change but I adjusted to it and started to do average or sometimes more than average in my class tests.

After class XII ended, I gave quite a few entrance exams, no less than 10 in fact. I hoped to ace the exam conducted by ISRO but nope, I did not do well. It took me a month to finally choose my branch with which I

ultimately finished my graduation. It was Electronics & Electrical Engineering. The best part about this course was that it allowed me the freedom to work on Robotics, which was my interest area. I managed three years of robotics with a few college participations and also my final project.

Since I had done a training from a company where I interacted with HR employees for the first time, it somehow gave me a new way and direction of following a new path for my career. One thing led to another and now I am in an MBA college studying HR.

How I prepared for entrance exams and cracked my college admission

I joined TIME for CAT coaching when I was in 2nd year of engineering. After attending their classes for almost six months, I realised that going to classes was not helping me much. I was struggling and realised that I

needed to find my own feet and decide how to proceed for entrance exams. I stopped attending coaching classes in favor of self-study. I used to collect all my TIME study material but formulate my own tricks. I solved old question papers and focused on topics where I knew I needed to prepare well. During that time my Mock CAT scores were not very good. Key part of the preparation was to not get disheartened and instead focus on achieving new heights. I registered for quite a few exams so as to stay in touch with the pattern.

First, I took the MAT exam in which I scored 98 percentile. Then came CAT, which for me was sandwiched between my 7th term college papers. I got 91.2 percentile in that, followed by IIFT (82 percentile), IBSAT, SNAP and finally XAT (74 percentile). XAT was not a good score but just okay. I had applied to very few colleges – the new IIMs, IMT Ghaziabad, IMI Delhi, XIMB and LIBA Chennai.

My college experience and how it changed me as a person

When I joined my MBA program, it was a reality shock. Everyone was better than me in studies and I felt intimidated at first. To compete against these people I had to be better and be unique. After being shy and boring during my graduation days, I decided to open up. And that I did. I made acquaintances with most people right from the start. I still make poor jokes and I’m a troll king. For me XIMB was a place where I finally opened up to people and discovered my passion of writing short stories and blogs.

Don’t know why but to me being in the interviewer’s seat sounds and looks very interesting.

For me, the topic and class that I liked the most was Employment Relations and Recruitment, Selection.  Don’t know why but to me being in the interviewer’s seat sounds and looks very interesting. We have had programs and activities and I always select the position of interviewer. Till date, it is one of my favorite subjects and I do have fond memories of how I managed to make my internship interview focus on why I want to be in Recruitment.

I wanted to be part of a senior committee in college and with that mindset I joined as a shadow member of the Alumni Committee of XIMB. First year was hectic with a lot of work managing databases and organising our annual work. But it was nice in the sense that you get to work and interact with the college alumni and get their feedback about the college. Right now, I have made it to the Core Team which means I will be part of the team that would be in charge of important activities for the next one year.

Given a chance, I don’t think I would like to change much. I have developed more as a person now and I am very happy about it. My advice to people would be to not follow the traditional path and take the direction they think is right or just follow their heart. That is one way of staying happy with your decisions and not regret them later. Be flexible in your decisions but stay firm about what is correct and what is best for you.

About the Author:

I am doing my MBA in HR from Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (XIMB), Xavier University. I passed my graduation in 2016 and have got an internship as a Research Specialist.

I like to read novels and write my own stories. I have participated in National Level Karate competitions and love to do backpack travel.