A decade back I was a confused
teenager not sure about the choices I was supposed to make in life and where it
would all lead me to. Adding onto it the fact that I was the only black sheep
of the family who wanted to go the unconventional way rather than try venturing
onto the tried and tested methods.
Before you kill me for beating
around the bush some background – I belong to a very conservative South Indian
family where every second person is either a doctor (Not the medicine wala
doctor but a Ph D holder) or an engineer. And here I was a mediocre student who
detested the alphabet S purely for it spelt science. They all are either are in
government jobs or are professionals having their own practice. So now tell me
what kind of advice will they give to a 17 year old who has opted for commerce
(while she wanted to do BCA) and is wondering what kind of job to take?
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Bank jobs, government sector etc
were the obvious options that came my way. And all I could do as frown and say
BORING! I wanted a job which would make me look forward to it each day and not
something that would make feel dreary. I could not picture myself being pushed
to work just like I had been to the school all these years.
I started working at a call
centre; exciting, thrilling and completely my kinda job with all the jabbering
that I was supposed to do. Very soon I was handling 600 calls a day and that
too with highest quality – call it inborn talent ;)
It is there when I realized that
only a graduation degree won’t suffice for further growth and my dreams of
proving myself to everyone would end up being stifled. That is when distance
education came to my rescue. I pursued my masters through distance education
from one of the premier institutes and attended evening classes. It not only
widened my learning but also helped me meet many like-minded people there
helping me evolve more.
Today there are more options
available and when I look back I feel we had very limited choices to make from.
As the options are varied I am spoilt for choices. Today we have Edukart,
Coursera , Khan Academy , FLIP academy and I am constantly undergoing a course
at any one of these for they have such wonderful options available. And I
strongly believe learning as a process is constant in life for that helps us
keep evolving from time to time and stay abreast about the developments in the
world. At the click of a button the whole world with its plethora of opportunities seems to come at my doorstep beckoning me with open arms to come and explore all that it has in store for me.
Luckily for me I have finally
found a job I am immensely in love with (touchwood!!) and would not trade it
for anything. They also encourage learning constantly through various trainings
and courses for us. But yes nothing beats the On-the-job learning. I love it so
much that a leave is a pain for me!!