A couple of years ago, no one could have imagined living in the kind of world we are living in right now. No amount of education, advertisement, abolishment could bring virtualization as quickly as COVID 19 did. But the question was were we ready for the scale of digitization that came upon us? 10% of employees even in developed countries such as the USA face internet issues. For countries such as India, the figures are gory.
When COVID struck I was a first-year student at IIM Rohtak and the quick lockdown pushed everything into virtual mode. Some businesses boomed, some just managed to survive, others succumbed. Due to COVID, I lost my paid internship therefore in the interest of time I had to take a couple of unpaid internships. Very soon our virtual classes started and some of the students faced no problem in switching to virtual mode but I did.
Unfortunately, many villages in our country are treated like villages. I mean, there may be redundancy of resources at several cities in our country but not even bare minimum resources at several villages including the one I was living in. For the next 3 months, I had no choice but to face the insurmountable task of undergoing a virtual MBA. I would write several emails to management just in case I would miss a class and I would miss a lot of classes. There was no internet in my village so I would attend the classes sitting on the roof or by going to the open farms outside my village (under the scorching sun, or in the nights).
During exams, I would sit at my house and write the exam and then rush outside the village to get enough internet to submit my answer sheets. Sometimes I would be lucky to have my answer sheets submitted in time.
After the end of one term, I knew I couldn't continue like this anymore and I had to move out to a better city altogether. So I, along with a few courageous friends, decided to live in Gurugram for the remaining period of our curriculum. My internships were unpaid therefore all the money I had were those lent to me by my father and in the first month of our stay, I realized that staying in Gurugram was becoming an expensive affair.
I decided to take a paid internship and while I was searching for an internship I found that an Edtech startup was hiring for a full time role. I was pursuing my MBA therefore a full time was something I couldn't imagine to take but a second thought came to me that there is nothing to lose in taking the interview. I applied for the role and I got selected after a week-long recruitment process. They offered a great package for the role, although less than what they promised, and I accepted the offer thinking that I would leave the job if it would be cumbersome. After a month I realized I could do both my MBA and the job.
Fast forward 6 months, I resigned from my job only after completing my MBA. The time in between, used to get tough, especially during exams and campus placements, but there were several things I learned such as being efficient, and a few things I mastered such as time management. Also during my work, I always had the feeling of being rich, self-sufficient, and self-dependent. A couple of most important things which some of you would be curious to know are- I managed to get college placement and my grades never slipped (Athough they were already abysmally low).
