Your big opportunity may be right where you are now!
This is something that I realized when in between exams and looking for jobs I got a chance to attend a NASSCOM event as a delegate and leader. Every student has a point in his life where he is standing at a threshold and has to make a choice that would alter the course of his career and the unforeseeable future.
I believed that in our dynamic, modern and fast-paced the two most challenging fields were politics or business.
Unclear of what lay ahead, I chose the latter for myself.
It all started when I was in my final year of engineering. Confused, looking for a job I suddenly got a chance to enroll for a six months training course on ‘Basic Managerial skills’ at XIMB. Management is a whole different field for me, I was intrigued. After completion of that course, I landed a great opportunity to work with Infosys and I was there for the next 3.5 years as a system engineer.
During my stint in Infy, I kept looking for ways to implement the skills that I had learned from the course and solve real-life problems. Finally, I got to be a part of a couple of startups. The first one being Mykrafts.com - an E-commerce platform dealing with handicrafts.
The second one Mywatercan.in, an E-commerce platform, was a bigger breakthrough as I co-founded the company which delivered water cans in the city of Magarpatta in Pune. It gave me insights into the problems of people and motivated me to find solutions for the same.
Being a systems engineer, my biggest stint was attending the conference on Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) concept and benefits in association with K-PAC Mumbai as a delegate/ corporate manager. NASSCOM, WTC-Pune, was an insightful and incredible experience to observe quite closely how the real-world problems are solved.
The learning I got from that experience was significant and made me realize the importance of working in a team, communicating efficiently and being patient even when things don’t go your way. I believe that these qualities are very important to succeed in life.
To reiterate, the challenge is not the field one chooses per se, but pushing oneself to continuously move forward, overcome obstacles and make the best of the opportunities life brings to you.
Amiya Prava Das
Class of 2020
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar