6 lessons College did not teach me

This may sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet. But bear with me for the next couple of lines.

 I was a topper in college. Great grades, gold medals, teachers' favourite and envy of many students. This gave me the confidence I needed when I started working. I knew I had a good grasp of concepts and started my career with that faith and belief in myself. 

I was woefully unprepared for what came my way in professional life. I am not saying that college and school was not enough. But I realised I had been proud of myself for no reason. A high GPA/ CGPA , for example. I have met a lot of colleagues and peers who had not so great scores in colleges but were doing very well for themselves in their career. I’m not dismissing organised education completely. Take the case of a doctor, for example. What they learn in college is the foundation for everything they will do moving forward.  But, the underlying truth of any professional environment is that how you work is more important than the work itself. And most educational institutions don’t do a good job of preparing you for this. 

I can think of six life lessons that I didn’t learn in college. And these are factors that are required to succeed at work. Each of these provide some foundation to the ladders of growth that I have experienced. In no particular order, they are

Scores or pedigree of college is  not the barometer for success

I was nominated as a mentor for an incoming group of new campus hires from a prestigious Indian B-school. I was expected to give them an overview of the company culture, answer their queries and get them a solid start to their stint in the company. To each of them, my advice was the same. Once you are in the organization, it doesn’t matter where you come from or what your grades are, the starting pistol is the same for everyone. Yes, you may be in the fast track and run a 400m race while someone from a less prestigious course may need to put in the extra effort and run a 1000m, but please know that they can (and will) catch up if you think just showing up is enough. I know more committed and successful people who studied in unknown institutions from Tier 3 cities than people who succeeded just because they were from a premier institute. Many a time, the former are more hungry and desperate to prove themselves.

Team playing is everything 

Anyone who has done a group project in college knows that there are  one or two people who put in the effort, while the rest do the bare minimum to ensure a participation certificate. Try that in the workplace and that’s the last project you will do. Official and unofficial information networks will know within no time that you are not professional and it's hard to turn such a perception around. Most people who reach such a point have no choice but to change jobs. It is important to be a team player and contribute to achieve recognition and success at work

In Doubt, Speak up

Indian education system places the teacher on a pedestal, more so than western education systems. Questioning the teacher or the method of teaching or the subject being taught are taboo. But, any professional working environment needs the senior-junior dynamic to be non-existent. At least as far as asking questions is concerned. Good organizations actively foster such environments, but it is upto you to make use of it. It is true that this can bruise some egos, but the bottom line is that a bruised ego in a code review or design discussion is better than shipping out a broken product or faulty implementation leading to disasters down the line. When in doubt, speak up.

Out of syllabus is the norm 

It is rare to have a project run smoothly without a hitch even for the most experienced product and project managers. It's not to say this doesn’t happen, but professionals are expected to be prepared for this. Early in my career I worked for a brief period as a reportee to a manager who was the epitome of planning to the T. She built contingency for contingencies in her overall marketing budget. Another product in the same team was crashing and burning because of budget issues, but my manager was able to take it in her stride. I asked her over lunch if she built safeguards into every plan and her answer was that everything only went to plan when taking exams in colleges. In work-life scenarios, chaos is the norm. It is important to anticipate as much as possible and when something unexpected happens, be ready for it

Respect generates authority, not the other way around 

This further expands on my point about needing to understand the importance of asking questions and not blindly deferring to authority like in school and college. Having 15 years of experience or great negotiating skills with HR while being hired may give someone positional authority, but that counts for nothing if there is no capability at an individual level. It is important in a professional environment to walk the walk before talking. Do the hard yards and generate output and the respect will follow. And when there is respect, you will become the go-to person to address key issues at the workplace 

There is no one correct answer

This was again something I saw from personal experience. One of my juniors came to me with a plan for a new product launch which was a word-for-word reproduction of a plan I had given to him as a reference. This was a plan I had prepared many years earlier. When I asked him, why he had used it, he said that he knew this had worked once and didn’t want to take chances. While this was a practical approach, to me this reflected a lack of understanding of the current realities of the market we were operating in. This was not an exam in college where 10 steps had to be followed in sequence to get full marks for a question. At work, it is expected that you will look beyond the obvious and bring in your own understanding and appreciation of the goal. If everything is achieved in the same way, there never would be innovation. Look at the end goal and use the parameters available to you to get where you need to be. There is no one right path. At work or in life.

These life lessons that I learnt at work have kept me in good stead in my career and I am sure they will help you as well. One doesn’t learn them in college. It's never too late to unlearn and re - learn. Because college is not the only place for education.