Ever wondered how some people can do it all? Excel at your academics, extra-curricular, and help others while doing all this? Today’s story features Shloak Chopra, from IIM Kozhikode, whose story is bound to motivate you to do more. Be it academics, social service, or extracurriculars, Shloak has worked hard to excel in all of it. This is probably why he was placed amongst India’s 50 Most Employable Graduates of the Class of 2020.
The following is Shloak Chopra's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 most employable MBA graduates of the Class of 2020. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated by the Founder of InsideIIM-Kampus Konversations, Shloak’s story and profile stood out. Here's a little about him, in his own words.
“I’m a recipient of the IIM Kozhikode's Gold Medal for Best All-Round Performance in PGP22 (Batch of 2018-20) and have joined JPMorgan’s Investment Banking team after securing a PPO. I was a Placements Committee Member and an Analyst at Alumni Angel Fund at IIM-K. I was awarded the merit scholarship for being ranked amongst the top ten students at IIM-K for both years. I was amongst the national toppers in ICSE, have coordinated international events and festivals, and am an active social worker and an internationally published scholar. I have an interest in social psychology, technology, automobiles, and poker.”
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.
To both those questions, the answer shall be the same. Always driven by purposes larger than myself, as I joined IIM Kozhikode, I wanted to be a part of the Placements Committee. I wanted to work for the college and create an impact but at the same time, it was one of the most daunting challenges I ever faced. Most of the responsibilities that I had shouldered to date required diligent efforts, but this held you accountable for all actions. It really pushed you to the edge. Being an academically oriented individual, a person who you wouldn’t really ascribe to the traits of a Placecommer, it was out of my comfort zone, but at the same time, it delivered an opportunity to develop a starkly complimentary set of skills. Finally, I applied and successively joined the committee. Needless to say, the next two years gave me an unparalleled experience building sheer grit, confidence, and communicational prowess, ending up as one of my best decisions at IIM Kozhikode. It was one of the biggest risks I took which paid out dividends.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
I was associated with an NGO named Juvenile Care in my time at VIT Vellore. We worked against child-abuse, aiming to protect children and teenagers by educating and helping them. At a small orphanage in the district, an NGO was overlooking an initiative to teach English and Mathematics to children, and our university chapter took up the responsibility. I visited the orphanage weekly and formed a deep connection with the children quite quickly. Though we did take classes planned as per a small curriculum for these students every weekend, I could sense that our efforts weren’t coming to fruition. To create an actual impact on-ground, I decided to work towards providing them hand-crafted books to work on specific portions on the subjects to help them not only learn in-class but also practice it at their pace. With a couple of my colleagues, we set up a donation drive to raise money for the purpose, I created the content from scratch with certain exercises and we distributed print-outs and booklets formalising our efforts. Over a period of eight months, we were able to complete the program, and to date, I regard it as one of my biggest contributions.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
During my time at VIT Vellore, I was one of the coordinators for the cultural fest, Riviera which comprises 150+ events across a period of 4 days. As a volunteer the year before, I was able to understand that the competition between various clubs to get prime time slots and areas for their events was a big issue. Managing the itinerary took over 4 weeks with dissatisfaction and a lack of transparency at the end. 3 of the 8 coordinators wanted to follow the status quo outrightly as they wanted to focus on outward initiatives, but I pitched to my team a well-jotted out plan to put in place a system where each clubhead pitches for their event outlining their requirement and all clubs vote for their pitch, thus improving transparency and fairness in the process. Putting the system in place took a week and within another weekend we could finalize the itinerary saving over 3 weeks of our time and improving relations helping in the smooth coordination of the entire event. A keen mind applied systematically to solve the crux of the problem helped me put in place a system that still helps every coordinating team today.
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 which has led you to do deep work in that field?
A budding interest to understand human behaviour nudged me towards social psychology as a subject. Having followed the subject as a hobby for six years now and have done a few courses, following certain blogs and reading books has led me to deeply appreciate the subject. Though I have so far pursued it as a hobby only, it has helped me view the world in a different light. In the future, I plan to work with a professional to evaluate how the application of social psychology can help aid the thought process in different fields in management, as in the last few years I have observed how the learnings from the subject can benefit leaders and managers alike.
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?
A cause that I deeply believe in is education for all. However, even with the above sum, I believe such a cause cannot be pursued. But, instead of direct deployment to charity if these funds are deployed strategically to drive the efforts of a team which can develop and support policy framework and does ground-level research to direct and create policy at a national level, a much larger sum can be better channeled to create a long-lasting impact. I truly understand that an overwhelming amount of funds may be needed for the cause, but if a sustainable model creating impact can be delivered in the Indian landscape, perhaps raising successive funds wouldn’t be as big an issue as it may be today.
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