Students' Speak: Focus areas for GD preparation
By: Prakhar Singh Chandel
The company seeks a team player in you, that doesn’t mean you should lose your individuality, it’s just that how well you persuade your team members to modify their ideas and also modify yours if they are bringing in some logic which can be used for the benefit of the company.
Group discussion, as the name suggests, is merely a discussion and not a debate. First of all, you should know the difference between a group discussion and a debate. It is the most common thing regarding which students get confused all the time. If you’re not experienced with GD, start your preparation in such a way that you keep in mind the factual difference between the two. When preparing notes or taking down points, put down all the points that you think that they will give an edge when you’re competing with your peers.
But when it comes to putting your points in front of the panel, the deciding factor is your confidence, pitch, tone and the overall way in which you picture the scenario. Or how well you discuss it, not fighting over silly points or be stubborn about your view because that turns into more of a debate.
The company seeks a team player in you, that doesn’t mean you should lose your individuality, it’s just that how well you persuade your team members to modify their ideas and also modify yours if they are bringing in some logic which can be used for the benefit of the company. It’s as simple as this.
Now how to be well prepared!!
As you guys already know that there is no strict syllabus or list of topics that can be asked in GD, so you should be aware of what’s happening in your surroundings and around the world. During my placement, I was asked to speak on “Depreciation of Jet Airways”... We were to discuss reasons that could have lead to this and what could have been done in order to prevent it. Now if you have never been interested in news, it is really possible that you would not be able to clear this round but just imagine if you are a person who is interested in these kinds of things it gives you the ultimate lead as topics like these.
But if you want to ace GDs you have to take that extra effort as there is no good book that can teach you the art of cracking a GD. It’s just the quality of content that you speak out and how confident you are while doing so. So please get serious and fill your social media with some good content and pages which can make you aware about what’s trending around the world. As far as making a good impact in GD, you just don’t need to know about the topic but you should be in a condition to analyze and fetch out quality content from it.
As far as general topics are concerned, no need to really prepare for them because they have unlimited possibilities but if you think that your verbal and analyzing skills are not that good, please do have a look on some general topics and most asked ones which you can get by googling about them or make use of shiksha.com and its discussion portals. Instead of being active on social media, try and get more active on these kinds of portals which can make you interact with your actual peers around the globe.
GD is not as difficult as it is hyped, just be prepared in a comprehensive manner, feel confident about it and you’ll come out with flying colors.
About the Author:
Prakhar Singh Chandel is a final year graduation student at VIT Vellore. Hailing from Kanpur, Chandel is successfully pursuing his dream career. He has received three regular job offers from TCS, Infosys, Cognizant and one dream job offer from Oracle.
