The Story

It has been what? 4 years since my last article! I sure am not consistent and couldn’t hold up to my commitment of publishing an article, each week. And why am I writing today? Do I still want to be a writer? Yes, hell yes! So, why didn’t I write in all these years? I guess life happened in this time, so so much! Found a girl, got married, started investments, and still finding the break of my life time. When will it be? Soon!

Anyway, let’s talk about why now? Why today? And what is this story about? Well, the title “The Story” is what my good friend Jason Cirilo calls it. This story is about a person who lost his shit in the first semester at Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas at The University of Texas at Dallas as a UTD MS Finance Graduate student. It was my first time outside India, so why not? I mean, I have lived in different cities, traveled, worked in different cities and done some major stuff in India, yet getting the freedom in the United States of America was nothing like before.

You can go out every day, party hard, and when I say party, then you can imagine this – I lived in on-campus apartment that was fully furnished with all the top of the class amenities, yet I didn’t sleep in my apartment for about 2 months when I first came to the United States. I didn’t know where will I sleep or wake up, so I always carried a change of clothes, a comforter, and my toothbrush in my backpack all the time. My Indian roommate sucked honestly, so, there wasn’t much motivation to live in the apartment anyway. And believe me, getting a fully furnished apartment as a student in the US is expensive and unimaginable, but I was using my education loan money quite well. I was using it so well, that I had to repeat one of my core courses in the second semester because I failed it in the first semester. The cost of repeating the course was $4,500 at a conversion rate of INR 65 per dollar.

I was never a smart one, but I was always the one who would grab the first idea he gets and ran with it. People like me are called – “Jack of all, Master of none”. But this never bothered me, because if I look back at my career then the experience that I have is outstanding. I started my career as a Telephone Recruiter (I was like the customer service guy in a recruitment company and trying to sell the open jobs to people who may or may not be interested in that position). I then ran my startup Oyster International Trust of Model United Nations . Oh Oyster! I miss that, working with students, educational institutions, and United Nations. I also worked with a couple of Chambers of Commerce - FORTI Rajasthan and Imperial Chamber Of Commerce & Industry , quite literally I launched 1 of them. I worked with State, Cabinet, and Union Ministers, Industrialists, Ambassadors of Ghana, Gabon, and Nigeria. Later, I worked with Grofers (now known as Blinkit ). After Grofers, I ruined my mental health with sales target and toxic bosses when I worked with IndusInd Bank . And after all of this summing up in 4 years, I moved to the United States to pursue my Masters. I honestly didn’t know what is Master’s, what will be the value addition, how much would it cost, and if I really like Finance. But then I somehow maintained the image of “Jack of all”!

So, I came to the US, enjoyed, going out every day, and being one of the most popular guys in the university in the first few months (not for the right reasons!). And I took my Master’s for granted, quite literally! I signed up for 3 courses in first semester and my total GPA was 1.77 out of 4.0. I failed in one course, got a B- and a C- in the third one. So, yeah total SCREWED!

I was told by my graduate advisor that I am on probation. Probation for Master’s students who are on visa means that your overall GPA is less than 3.0 and you now only have 2 semesters to pull up your GPA to overall 3.0. Or else, your education loan will have to bear one last ticket to your country. The situation became so bad for me that I locked myself in my apartment for a month, not sleeping for 40 hours straight (a lot of times in the one month), I became anxious and depressed as I couldn’t tell this my parents for sure and I knew that I wasn’t a person who could study well. Forget studying well, I was worse than an average student in my entire academic life. I went for therapy and tried to bring some peace to myself because I only had 2 semesters to pull up my GPA. I couldn’t fail again like all my previous careers and educations. And I sure didn’t want to go back to India. So, I focused in the next semester. What kind of focus? I got 3.67 out of GPA in the next semester and I was out of probation in just 1 semester.

The above part is the most motivating for Jason, because after this crappy GPA and then pulling it off in one semester, I started working with 亚马逊 . I mean it wasn’t my first company right after grad school, I worked with OYO USA and I loved it there. But, I realized that building a career in the US is a lot more than getting good grades or applying for jobs. It was about how much you know about your own self, your own work, how good you are with people.

With all this experience of working in India, bad grades, then good grades, then didn’t landing an internship because I was constantly trying to keep up my grades, not having a full-time offer before graduation, and of-course getting laid off at my first job due to pandemic, MADE ME TRY EVERYTHING!

And now I’m using all those trial and errors experience and giving my services as a Career Development Coach. I don’t have a certification as a Coach, nor I plan to get one any time soon. My story, being a JACK, and more so, an ordinary guy makes me help my students and clients. And my wife also said, that I have too much #Gyaan, so why not put it to some good use.

I wrote this story today as Jason told me that I should start my services by sharing this story. I made an official services page on Linkedin - https://www.dhirubhai.net/services/page/00271432a32b369524/ only a few weeks back, but I was guiding students and giving these lectures, guidance, and sessions for almost 5 years now.

The purpose of this story is to help everyone to learn about my background, promote my services page, and obviously a message to the LOT -

Your experience is everything, it makes you who you are and defines your life. If you faced uncertainties in life, then it’s not gonna be easy, but if you make it then it will be one hell of story to rant and boast about! That’s all this story is about!

Please reach out if you need #CareerCoaching, #Mentorship, #MentalHealthCoaching, #ResumeReview, #InterviewPreparation - https://www.dhirubhai.net/services/page/00271432a32b369524/

I’m here! ??