May the force be with you!

Dear Graduating Class of 2021,

Congratulations and welcome to the "real" world!?We know that you have had a tumultuous final year in college – the grand finale of your educational journey was lost adapting to the new norms of distance-learning, often at the mercy of your internet provider and your little brother hogging all the bandwidth.?We know that, much to your reluctance, you will be forever known as the “Covid batch” and doubts will be cast on your learning outcomes over video calls. We also know that you carry tremendous insecurities and apprehensions about yourself and if, at all, you are equipped to take on challenges of the real world.??

Rest easy, my dear friends, because the good news (and perhaps, also the bad news in a way) is that it simply does NOT matter.?Fortunately, and UNLESS you get into a profession that requires foundational skills taught in undergrad courses (for e.g., doctors), there is an extremely high likelihood that you will never put to use what you learned.?Your first employer will probably be the first and the last to ask for or take your grades into consideration. Forget about grades and who scored what in microeconomics mid-terms, consider yourself a "tabula rasa", i.e., a clean state. What grades you got, what batch you are in, which college you attended - these things do not matter anymore.

So, what now??

Pull up your socks and get to work. Teach yourself new things and good professional techniques.?Sample a few here;

Learn to think

For what is probably the most important aspect in shaping successful careers, it is a pity that a university fails to, or rather, does not even attempt to, inculcate in you is critical thinking. It is a common assumption that a set of related activities and assignments push you to develop and hone your thinking capabilities by default. Unfortunately, this method has an associated incentive model called “grades” which acts as a deterrent in developing independent and reasonable thinking or the skills needed to that effect.

Learn to take a pause.?Examine a problem from various different angles. Think about how different actors will interact with and within the situation. Formulate relevant hypotheses ("what if" scenarios). Discover and explore reliable sources of additional information. Structure your ideas cogently so that they can be conveyed and comprehended efficiently. Thinking is a craft, just like any other. Learn what these tools or frameworks are and use them in everyday decision making.??

Raise your hand

At its core, this is the simplest of all techniques that you must attempt to master. Do you remember the students in your class who sat in the first row and would raise their hand to every question asked??Their answers were probably not correct all the time but they raised their hand, nonetheless. Well, those frontbenchers some of you may have wholeheartedly disliked (if you were a frontbencher yourself, I have good news for you!) have an added advantage at the workplace. Managers love those who raise their hand to take initiative. It follows a simple logic – people like to shirk away from work and would love to offload it onto someone else.??

Taking initiative is the best possible method to fast-track positive shifts in your learning curve. Take on additional work on your plate (but not more than you can chew!). Allow yourself in increasingly uncomfortable situations. Do not be afraid to pitch new ideas to your manager and seek permission to make attempts to bring them to fruition. Meet people and network outside your team and even ask them for work. True, as you already know and I could not agree more, life definitely is not a race. We all have our respective pace of learning. However, unless you allow yourself to experience the various paces you can subject yourself to and push your limits, you shall never leave your comfortable cozy cocoons. Experiment with your pace and then settle on a choice that jives with you.?

Find your personal bar and maintain it, always

Through the duration of your career spanning over decades, you will most likely change employers. You will take on new roles and challenging assignments.?You may even move from one country to another. Your teams, your field of impact, and even your own ideologies and values may change.?However, as a professional, there is only one thing that you truly own and nurture – your own personal bar of quality ("bar" as in a yardstick and not a drinking establishment!).?Remember, this bar that you set for yourself lays the foundation of your professional success.?

The bar needs to be high. High enough that you are pushed to work harder to live up to it every time but also not so high that it adversely impacts your wellbeing or the delivery of your work product. The bar should reflect in every aspect of the development of your work product, in thinking, in arguments, in structure, and in presentation. What should be a measure to determine if you have set your bar right? You will know it when your manager starts giving you more work than others in your team and your peers start asking for advice.???

Nurture your intuition

Social media is teeming with wisdom on how data is the new oil and how critical it is to make evidence-informed decisions. Most organizations do not made decisions without proper analysis and valuation of options. While it may be true, the spectrum of decision-making stretches beyond data-driven decisions. Often, there is not enough data to make accurate predictions. In fact, disruption rarely happens, or new technology rarely gets built just because someone can see a dollar-laden link into future success. Great leaders often make decisions using their intuition and instincts. Data gives you options, but a well-nurtured intuition can guide you to the most feasible option when trade-offs are similar, or ranges are wide.?How you choose to justify your decisions is a different matter altogether.

It is highly critical to start nurturing your gut early in your career.?Make bets with your peers on the options in your project.?Spar with your manager on how to evaluate those options.?Have your counter-arguments prepared.?Take a futurist’s view – see how your choice will play out.?Work your way backwards to bring it to play in the present. Draw analogies from other industries, sectors and countries. Feed the contrarian in you.

Forge your own path

Society teaches you to "invest" time and effort in creating options for yourselves. If you get acceptance from college X, a wide array of opportunities shall be at your disposal, or if you begin your career in company Y, you shall be destined for a path of greatness and unmitigated success.?Optionality was a great career strategy in a bygone era which had fewer opportunities and discouraged individualism.

But times have changed. You have a number of choices today, many of them are relatively new and untraveled. However, to tread on those lesser known choices requires a commitment to journey long and deep because you cannot predict today when, where, or how avenues may open for you. That's the dilemma - play safe or tread into the new. The choices you make today will not only define your career trajectory but will also define your own personal growth. Choose wisely!

Whether you feel prepared to take on the real world or not, it is here now, staring you right in the eyes.?You have the feather of graduation in your hat and have joined or are about to join the workforce. What matters now is how quickly you can learn to adapt to the new environment, how resilient you are under pressure and how fast you learn and apply new things.?But aren’t these the qualities you have already mastered in the last 15 months?

Go forth and conquer!