In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2021-23, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out! One of those featured in today's story, Amandeep Saluja, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!
The following are Amandeep Saluja’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top 50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Amandeep's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his own words.
Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
As we all know, MBA life is hectic and it gets quite stressful at times. I realized this after joining MDI Gurgaon back in July 2021. Summer placement preparation, guest lectures and pre placement talks hit me like a truck. After surviving the hectic phase and getting a good summer placement, I was also able to crack the Maharashtra CET Examination and scored 99.96 percentile. Getting admission into JBIMS, was a bittersweet moment as it was my dream college but at the same time, I did not want to lose my peer network at MDI Gurgaon and was not inclined to go through the summer placement process again not to mention the monetary loss I would incur because of the fee payment. I consulted a lot of professionals about this but was getting a mixed reaction from each and every one of them. It was a huge decision as it was irreversible and my career depended on it. After two months of pondering and analyzing, I decided to follow my heart and pursue my dream of completing my MBA from JBIMS and dropped out of MDI Gurgaon. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I made in my life and am grateful for the opportunity to do my post-graduation from two top B-Schools in the country.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act?
Having gone through the entire summer placement process at MDI Gurgaon, I was well prepared for a similar journey at JBIMS after switching colleges inside 6 months. However at the time, I realized that my peers at JBIMS were not acquainted with this new atmosphere. A lot of students wanted to crack consulting interviews without having any idea about what they were. I was fortunate to get this exposure at my stint at MDI and wanted to pass it on to my batch mates as well. I took out time from my own summer placement preparation at JBIMS and instead focused on helping others by teaching them about different consulting frameworks and conducting mock interviews. We spent hours on this process and this went on till the very day our placements were going to begin. After successfully completing the summer placement process, all the batchmates were placed at great companies and were grateful for the peer learning experience. This also gave rise to a nickname that stuck, 'Golden-deep'.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
During my graduation in mechanical engineering from NMIMS, I worked on building a chocolate 3D printer as my final year academic projected. I collaborated with Imaginarium India Pvt. Ltd. and my three other group members in order to create one of the first chocolate 3D printers in the country. We were tasked with converting an already existing FDM printer into a chocolate printer by changing the extrusion mechanism of the current printer. Our team comprised of four group members and all of them had very different personalities. The creativity of the team along with the synergies of the team members was quite high but this also gave rise to conflicts due to the difference in opinions. One such instance was when a team member was inclined towards finding an easier way out and wanted to just submit the report on the chocolate 3D printer without demonstrating the actual printer. The group would have gotten good grades either way based on the quality of the project report. This gave rise to a conflict within the group and we had to ensure proper communication in order to resolve it. I made the team member understand the value of completing the project as planned in a proper manner and convinced him that our focus should not be on the grades but on the legacy, we would leave behind by create the printer. The team member was convinced and we went ahead with the project as planned. It also made me realize that conflicts can also be a strong driving force that may yield positive results.
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative that has led you to do deep work in that field?
While working at Futures First, I was surrounded by financial markets and was intrigued by them. My profile was that of a derivatives trader and having no background in finance, it took me a while to understand the world of finance and come to pace with the industry. After a while, my hard work started yielding positive results and I was able to make consistent profits in the energy markets. During my tenure at Futures First, the oil market was extremely volatile and I was able to witness different phases of the markets. In my first year, I saw the Brent crude price touching $86 a barrel and in 2020, I was lucky enough to witness negative oil prices. In order to adapt to such volatile markets, I had to change my mindset from that of a fundamental trader to a technical trader and focused a lot on technical analysis. With the help of technical analysis, I moved on from predicting the markets to reacting to the market activities. With proper risk and money management, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses when it came to technical analysis. I used the same patterns and analysis in the Indian stock market and have been trading for the last 9 months and have generated an overall return of greater than 20% till now. It has become a hobby that I really enjoy and helps me with making passive income on the side.
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
Out of the 10 million dollars, I would give 10% to my family to repay back whatever they have spent on my ever since my childhood and express my gratitude to them. I would give 10% each to my institutes, NMIMS and JBIMS for giving me this platform and making me who I am today. Out of the remaining 70%, I would donate 20% to charities working on Mental Health Awareness Campaigns to give back to the society.I would invest the remaining 50% in the following manner:1. 20% in large-cap stocks and index funds which would give me an average return of 12% per annum2. 15% in mid-cap stocks which would give me an average return of 15% per annum 3. 15% in fixed-income instruments which would yield around 6% per annumIn this way, my entire portfolio would generate approximately 11.1% per annum ~ 555,000 dollars per annum. I would use this income to cover my expenses and again give back to my family, society and institutes
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As per government taxpayers' data and our assessment, only about 6,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn an annual 'salaried' income of INR 30 lacs or above. And only 11,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn a 'total' income of INR 30 lacs or more.
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