'You Don’t Win The Silver, You Miss Out On Gold' - Suryaansh Makked – Best 50 – Class of 2016

Suryaansh has been chosen as one of the top 50 most employable candidates across schools and programmes in India for the Class of 2016. He has one of the best 50 profiles among the candidates who participated in the Best50 competition.

About Me

You don’t win the silver, you miss out on gold’. Ever since my childhood, I had a firm belief in this philosophy and this has instilled in me a passion for striving for excellence and giving hundred percent to any task at hand. School Life at Delhi Public School R.K. Puram played an important role in grooming my talents. Apart from sound academic performance, I represented my school at various inter-school quizzes and Olympiads and brought numerous laurels to the school while doing the same. This was the time I ventured into English poetry and started collecting quotes which now forms a crucial part of who I really am. After school, I pursued Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee, where I graduated as the Class Topper. Currently, I am a final year management student at IIM Bangalore and am amongst the top 20 students academically in the entire batch of 400+ students. In a nutshell, I consider myself as an honest, ambitious and a self-motivated person who wishes to apply his engineering and management skills to solve real world problems. I feel that my sound academic record and a stellar set of achievements affirmed my selection for this program.

What have you done at your Post-Grad/Business School/Undergrad level that makes you stand out from the crowd?

Business School: Two years at IIMB have been a blissful experience with exceptional classroom learning from well-renowned faculty. At IIM Bangalore, I am currently ranked amongst the top 20 out of 400+ students academically in the entire batch. I was one of the first students to get placed in the batch during the Annual Summer Placements when I got an offer in Equities Trading from UBS AG, Hong Kong. I was also one of the top students to be selected for an exchange program to HEC Paris for Grand Ecole program. Keeping in line with my interest towards entrepreneurship, I was also a part of the Entrepreneurship Cell and MaSh, the marketing club during my first year. The strive towards excellence continued, and I was a part of the winning team of six students for the highly reputed IIMB-Sauder (University of British Columbia) Annual Case Challenge 2015 on Malnutrition. I was also a National Finalist at the YES Bank Transformation Series, a nation-wide financial innovation competition. Thus, academic excellence along with extra-curricular prowess made me stand out from the crowd.

Undergrad: I did my graduation in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee. Here too, the zeal and vigor to beat the odds and come out victorious only enhanced. I was the sole student in my batch to have international pursuits in US and Germany for a summer internship during my sophomore. I was also a recipient of the prestigious DAAD WISE Scholarship for a fully funded research stint in Germany. There also came a chance to represent IITR at the 11th Indo-German Winter Academy held during December 2012. The Goddess of Fortune further smiled, and I was also able to co-author a research paper that was published in the Computers & OR journal. Besides that, I was actively involved in various competitions, projects and activities related to design and fabrication. Moreover, I also held positions of responsibility in various clubs and societies on numerous occasions such as ASME-IIT Roorkee and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Students Society. Ultimately, the four-year journey ended with me being the Department Topper for the class of Mechanical Engineering, winner of the IIT Roorkee Heritage Excellence Award and the prestigious Institute Silver Medal along with placement offers from McKinsey & Company (Knowledge Center) and Axtria India Pvt Ltd.

What have you done in your life that you are the proudest of?

Here I would like to list down two achievements - One professional and one personal; I am really proud of: Professional Achievement: At the end of my first year of engineering at IIT Roorkee, owing to my academic performance, I earned an opportunity to upgrade my branch to any stream of my choice. Now, the rule ruling the roost is to go for Computer Science & Engineering (given high incentive packages and growth opportunities). However, my huge passion for Mechanical Engineering prevented me from making the shift and I have never regretted this decision ever since. I guess this was one instance which highlighted my determination and perseverance to not succumb to worldly desires and short-term benefits.

Personal Achievement: During my teenage, I was diagnosed with a peculiar Hyper-Thyroid condition, which meant that my height will be stagnated and might not increase in future. I was around 4 feet 11 inches tall at that time. Generally, people lose hope after hearing the experts’ verdict. However, both I and my parents didn't give up and I continued with height building exercises such as swimming, Yoga, cycling etc., fully aware that there was little scope for success. As luck would have it, our efforts bore fruit and I was able to increase my height by almost a feet. Currently, I am 5 feet 9.5 inches tall. This may not be an achievement to boast about, but is something extremely close to my heart. It depicts that there is nothing called handicap and help is given by Almighty to those who deserve it. Meet the rest of India’s 50 Most Employable Management Graduates from the Class of 2016 here.