16 June 2017 – The excitement, as well as the anxiety, was sky high when I first stepped into the Xavier University Bhubaneswar Campus, the curiosity of knowing the MBA life, the fear of matching the expectations all these played their part and made the initial days a bit tougher. With butterflies in my stomach, I slowly started my MBA journey, the start was slow but eventually, I could match the pace, which reminds me of Usain Bolt,“
No matter how far you get ahead of me, I’m gonna catch you. That’s my mentality that I go there with.” Good things started happening & the best thing that happened in the first year was the summer internship where I got an opportunity to work as an intern with Ernst & Young.
Xavier University provides a great platform for building a memorable MBA experience. And yes, I must say I am fortunate & lucky enough to be a part of it.
Xavier Center of Urban Management and Governance offers the course in Urban Management and Governance which is a very niche course and has yielded positive results. I was always fascinated to work in the urban development sector, and I am thankful to XUMG for laying a platform for me to achieve my goals.
16 April 2018 – Getting into EY was not easy as I had to go through an initial shortlisting process followed by an interview round to finally make it to EY. To be very honest, I was in seventh heaven when I received the final selection mail. Finally, the journey began and I along with my two other teammates who were also selected for the program had a workshop which was held in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation on the Faecal Sludge & Septage Management which was indeed an eye opener for all of us. The next day, the orientation process was held at the EY Bhubaneswar's Client Office-OWSSB Bhubaneswar and we were briefed about our project which was on one of the ongoing projects on sewerage & septage management of Puri.
We had to report at Puri the next day where two rooms were provided for our stay for the coming eight weeks. The location was situated on the Grand Road which is in the heart of the city, and was just two kilometres away, both from the beach as well as the Jagannath Temple. We reported at the EY Client's office OWSSB Puri the next day and there was an official meet with the Project Engineer, where our work order scheduling was finalized. Our first target was increasing the sewerage connections of the city, for that we initially focused our activity on specific wards where information was collected through questionnaire and the problems that were observed were discussed and possible suggestions and solutions were arrived at. Secondly, for improving the septage system of the city we were involved in various IEC activities for raising awareness in the city. We also worked on various incentives and policy works of the government which was indeed of a great help. I could get a clear picture of how the public and private bodies work. Now, I feel that I can present the ideas from a management perspective. All this helped me grow not only personally but also professionally. On the final day, all the interns were invited on conference calls to share their experience which was a great platform to network.
All these were possible because of some collective factors like the constant support of the EY team, the honest hard work that I had put in by stepping out of my comfort zone and efficiently meeting the requirements. Although I had a prior corporate experience, the MBA life played its part- the rigorous curriculum, assignment submissions, surprise quizzes, group presentations, committee activities were add-ons which helped me a lot during my internship period. The advice that I would give to my juniors would be to act smart and make every opportunity count as they say an effort is important but knowing where to make an effort makes the difference.
Success is where preparation & opportunity meets
- Bobby Unser
These sixty days have made a big difference in my life as I've created memories which will last forever
. Yes, it was an experience to remember.
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About the Author:
Shougat Anurag
XUMG
2017-2019