It was a warm day in March 2020, Covid hit the world, the stock market in India had taken a serious hit, the world’s supply chain had gone haywire, and the entire world was indoors. I was stuck at home too, contemplating my future for the first time. I was struggling to find a path just as scientists around the world were struggling to prevent the dissemination of covid.
A little background on myself, I have the mindset to be creative; one of the first professions I wanted to pursue was architecture, but I could not because of a back subject in 12th grade. I decided to take up civil engineering to stay close to the architecture profession but alas, I had a lot of backlogs, my CGPA wasn’t the best, and I had already taken a year off by 2020. Failure in academics was not unusual for me, and I was not surprised when I received backlogs in engineering, as I previously stated, I was no stranger to academic failure.
On that warm March evening, I decided to abandon engineering in favour of business administration and pursue what I was good at; MARKETING. With the marks card along with the academic history I had, I knew no good college would give me a seat, but I never gave up and began applying to all reputed colleges across Bengaluru, which is how I applied to Acharya Bangalore B-School.
After a lengthy discussion with the admissions office, I received a call on May 20, 2020, stating that they see potential in me that did not reflected in my existing mark sheets and that they were looking for passion-driven students, they advised me to enrol as soon as possible. They also offered me a scholarship, which surprised me. I blocked my seat on May 24, 2020, thinking I was just another student at Acharya Bangalore B-School. Little did I know, I was part of a very large family. During my first year, I met a lot of like-minded students, some from different states while some were dropouts like myself. The lecturers here nurtured, guided, and taught me academic as well as non-academic lessons.
Various opportunities were presented to me based on my qualities, such as being a class representative, volunteering for clubs such as the literary club, being a student co-ordinator for NSS, and so on. Looking at the work I did during my first year and my first-year scores (yes, I scored a first class with distinction) I was provided with better opportunities in the pre-final and final years. My classmate and I pursued our interest in entrepreneurship and launched our own start-up, and the entire team at ABBS supported us. We were given the opportunity to lead the sponsorship team and serve on the core committee of REGALIA-2022, an intercollegiate fest hosted by ABBS, based on our skill sets.
Today, I consider myself to be a more successful student than ever before. I have consistently achieved good and consistent grades in each semester. I have volunteered, coordinated, and organised multiple events in college, I have interned at 6 companies, I have taken multiple value-added courses, some provided by the college, some on my own, I have volunteered for organisations such as NSS as well as TEDxABBS, and I have attended multiple conferences.
You ABBS, have rekindled the fighter in me and have imparted great life’s lessons at your portals. To quote Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani ‘ The success of the young Entrepreneur will be the key to India’s transformation in the new millennium’…. I stand today tall, confident and identify myself as the brand to make my country and college proud! and thanks ABBS for helping me discover the new ‘ME’ Before I sign off, here are some non-academic lessons I learned in college that would like to share with you:
- Loyalty is rewarded; learn to be loyal to others.
- Opportunities abound; just learn to look for them.
- Manifestation is a powerful tool; share it with the right people to make it a reality.
- Share your goals with your mentors, lecturers, and friends, and they will push you to achieve them.
- Learn to respect others’ values, belief systems, and abilities.
If you ever want to connect with me, here is my LinkedIn ID: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumukh-m-shetty/
Sumukh M S
