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.
The biggest risk that I have taken thus far in my life, as well as the instance where I went out of my comfort zone to achieve something that I have always sub-consciously wanted, is leaving the comfort of a cushy, well-paying corporate job to venture into some non-mainstream work in the non-profit horizon. In retrospect, that plunge has been transformative, rewarding, and is one of the primary reasons behind my pursuing MBA currently.Fresh out of my undergrad in 2017, I had gotten a campus placement in one of the most talked about startup in the SaaS space in Chennai. The pay was good, the role was great, and the job offered enormous personal time since I was working for the Australia - New Zealand - Asia-Pacific regions (the day used to start pretty early at around 5 am IST, and came to a close at 2 pm IST).However, after the sixth month mark, things seemed monotonous. Having done my fair bit of volunteering and quote-unquote 'social service' earlier, I wanted to foray into the social sector at least for a brief while. Having shrugged off the thought thinking it was just a momentary impulse initially, it became self-evident that deep down, I wanted to explore out. Hence, nine months into my first corporate job, I transitioned out and joined the Teach For India Fellowship.This was clearly a risk in terms of more than one aspect.1. First of all, I was not an expert in teaching, and was unsure whether I was totally prepared for teaching in a public school for a bunch of first-generation learners (81 in number, to be precise)2. The salary that was being offered (or Fellowship stipend, rather) was easily half of what I was earning pre-Fellowship3. The post-Fellowship prospects - in terms of job, higher education, etc. - were also very vague and ambiguous for meHowever, boy did I end up enjoying it so much! The foray into Teach For India led me to Balasubramanian Jeyaraman, who not only became my mentor during my time with TFI, and later with Vasippu Trust, but has become a life coach and well-wisher for life ever since.The learnings and experiences during the Fellowship and at Vasippu Trust changed my perspective and gave me a mental model of what I will probably have to do sometime down the lane in life. It also guided my thoughts around wealth, philanthropy, effective altruism, and more. Though these are bigger topics that would take up so much space beyond the confines of a single answer, in a nutshell, they paved the way for my pursuing MBA now (as opposed to the usual narrative of "Hey, you worked at an NGO so that your profile would look cool during the MBA interviews, right?").
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act?
My Teach For India Fellowship started towards the end of April 2018. After a six-week long bootcamp/induction/training at Pune, I was posted as a ninth-grade teacher of English and Social Sciences at a public school at a public school in the North Chennai region. Little did I know that at the end of that academic year, I would have to make a job transition again.The Fellowship model works in such a way that when a Fellow completes Year 1 of their Fellowship, they would teach the same set of students during Year 2 (Example: If they taught Class 7 in Year 1, they would teach Class 8 in Year 2; the Fellow progresses along with the students). However, in my case, there was a complexity; since I taught Class 9 during my Year 1, I was supposed to teach Class 10 during Year 2. The governmental regulations, though, did not allow a non-profit teacher to teach a group of tenth-graders, since the stakes were high with the impending Board Examinations at the end of the academic year.This clearly meant that I had to take a call from among the two options.1. Continue with Teach For India - this would mean that I would be posted in some other school or class, eventually meaning I had to part ways with the students with whom I had formed a personal connect; professionally also, I wanted to be a part of their accomplishments in the Board Examinations - in Class 10, and possibly beyond2. Quit Teach For India - this would mean that I could join Vasippu Trust, a non-profit operating for the benefit of the same set of students, but I would lose several perks - (i) I would not be offered a Teach For India Fellowship Completion Certificate, (ii) I would potentially lose out on being a part of the TFI Alumni Network, (iii) Vasippu Trust was not a 'brand' that was popular enough (understandably so)In the end, it boiled down to whether or not I wanted to continue teaching the same set of students, even when it meant there would be a further potential drop in the pay scale. I chose the second option, and transitioned out of Teach For India, and into Vasippu Trust. Although there was a bit of selfishness involved in that decision - in the sense that I was mentally at peace, having made the conscionable decision - the decision was rather whimsical and a bit impulsive, and was not centered around what I would gain tangibly out of the move, but if there would even be a marginal value-add to the students if I made the jump.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
During my time at Fermat Education - my last pre-MBA stint - I voluntarily took charge of the Business Partnerships initiative - it was a 15-member team, which clearly meant people could take up responsibilities and fail at it without getting embarrassed - which had not taken shape previously, albeit a few attempts to formalize the same.The fundamental aspect of the partnerships were how we would tie up with B-schools, what would be the terms of agreement, to what extent would promotional content be allowed, and most importantly, whether or not we would share personal data of the students of the ed-tech platform with the partnering B-schools.Initially, it was easily agreed that the terms would be dictated by us, and that we would present a branding opportunity with beneficial knowledge dissemination sessions in collaboration with the partnering B-schools on the official social media handles of the organization. However, when I started reaching out to the B-schools, it became apparent that the data-sharing model was what was being expected, since the other ed-tech players in the market did offer those 'partnership' models.This put us in a spot of business as well as ethical dilemma. Again, it boiled down to two things - we could either bend according to the most popular terms put forth by the B-schools and create a new revenue stream for the organization, OR stay true to what we had initially decided, in-line with the core values of the org and lose out on potential partnerships (and revenue). The majority of the organization was in favour of diluting our terms to fit the requirements of what the prospects asked us for, so that we could create the much-needed revenue opportunity in an otherwise stagnant market segment. I, and a few others, did not want to tread down that path - at least not in the initial phase of the initiative itself.Fortunately for us, there were a couple of B-schools that agreed to come on board in agreement to our terms. We worked round the clock to ensure those initial engagements became successful. Thanks to those efforts, our offerings became one of the standard models; though the prospective partners still ended up asking us about the data sharing model, it became clear to them that we would not offer data-sharing revenue/commission schemes.I am glad that even though the crowd that did not want the data-sharing model was minority in terms of its headcount, the organization was kind enough to give that thought a start; I am also proud that I stood at that side of the crowd which did not immediately target revenues, but laid emphasis on sustainable brand associations and long-term value.
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?
I would like to believe that I know quite a bit of South Indian classical music, and non-profits especially in the school education space. The former has become a habit rather than a hobby, so to speak, but that is not something that I am mostly proud about. The latter is something that I could claim to have done 'deep work' on.My tryst with the school education-related interventions started during my involvement with the Leo Club of CEG between 2013 and 2017, my undergrad years. One of the most impactful projects that the Club had undertaken over the years was to take responsibility of the academic improvement of the children of Surya Nagar, an underprivileged community situated right behind our college campus premises.Having seen the 'flashy', photo-op sort of 'interventions' all through my life, the grueling, on-ground work that the Club members volunteered to do, in terms of going into the intricacies of how the learning levels of a particular student can be improved in English and Mathematics, what could be some of the specific teaching - learning materials that would help the student(s), etc., fascinated me. Thanks to the Club's generosity, I was also a part of the efforts in a very incremental manner. That experience, I would learn later, gave me the sort of structural thinking around how bigger academic goals - quantitative and qualitative - can be broken down into smaller chunks - learning objectives and tangible interventions - for the benefit of the student(s).This came in handy in the following two aspects during my time at Teach For India and later at Vasippu Trust - two of the non-profits I have been involved with in some capacity full-time:1. I was able to differentiate the aspirations of an idealistic policy document from the actual, on-ground realities2. It helped me adapt to the contextual necessities around the students whom I taught between 2018 and 2020Later, when I moved out of my full-time role at Vasippu Trust in June 2020 - and became an intern/volunteer - and into my new job at Fermat Education, an ed-tech startup based out of Chennai (known popularly by one of its brands - 2IIM), the knowledge helped me make a four-part video series on the National Education Policy, 2020, covering the entirety of the policy in simple and understandable terms over the course of 3 hours.In addition, I continue to work with Vasippu Trust till date, in whatever little capacity I can, with the aim that I would be able to anchor one such long-gestation academic intervention whose outcome would be realized over the course of a decade-and-a-half sometime in my life.
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?
Undoubtedly, I would immediately stop everything else going on in my life and start working on building the long-term academic intervention project, modelled around the principles of similar such existing initiatives, such as the Shanti Bhavan Children's Project, Vasippu Trust, and so on.(In hindsight, Vasippu Trust could have been a much bigger project with better scale, had this quantum of corpus been available back in 2015 or even in 2018.)After all, the whole career trajectory around doing an MBA, maximizing the network and connections, ensuring that there is a safety net of privilege around the self, and possibly a great-paying job are all aimed at somehow ending up doing a project of that kind. If money is already available, in addition to the fact that the people whom I have been in touch with since the TFI and Vasippu Trust days are still in contact, that would be a great combination helping the foundational aspects of the Project.
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