Mystory@Ambreen Fatma: How I made my career – Challenges and successes

Before starting to talk about my approach to course selection and career journey, I would like to give an idea about my family background as it did play some role in my decisions. I am the youngest of three siblings. My sister is a medical professional and my brother works in the IT industry. My father was a government employee in Lucknow.

My sister always knew that she wanted to become a doctor and my brother always knew that he wanted to study computers. On the other hand, I was never ever clear about what I wanted to pursue as my career. From the first time I learnt to perform addition and subtraction, I have enjoyed Mathematics. Though it was pretty much decided for me that I would select Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in class XI, my extended family always believed that medical profession is more suitable for girls (probably the reason my sister took it up).

After seeing her struggle and hard work to get into AMU Medical College, I realized that my interest in Biology was not so strong that I could give my heart and soul for the medical entrance exams. My parents, especially my father always supported me in my decisions and never forced me to choose any specific stream or career; but he really wanted me to pursue my XI-XII from AMU just like both my siblings so that it could get easier for me to get into higher studies (as I was eligible for internal quota in professional entrance exams). But as destiny would have it, I could not clear the entrance exams and continued in the same school to complete my XII.

Unfortunately, the pressure of choosing the right career path for myself was so intense that I could not take it anymore and started facing serious health issues. With the support of my family and some close friends, I revived and managed to complete my board exams with decent marks. Then came the various entrance exams! I had neither enrolled into any of the coaching classes nor done much effort in self-study as my peers had. As a result, I qualified only for counselling from UPTU, which is now Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University. I was indecisive at first but later went ahead and took admission into IPEC (Indraprashtha Engineering College) in Applied Electronics and Instrumentation, which I had stated as my first preference in the online counselling session. I was extremely sure that I did not want to drop a year to join coaching classes.

When I started my engineering degree, I realised that I did not enjoy Electronics much and decided to change to either Computer Science or IT in the second year. Also, my below average performance in the subject of Engineering Mathematics came as a shock to me as I had always enjoyed Mathematics. Again as destiny had its way, the top 4 students from my branch shifted to other branches and as I was the 5th one, I got stuck and could not change my stream. Again I started questioning my luck and abilities. But then, I recollected myself and started taking my studies a bit more seriously and ended up among the toppers of my branch coincidentally (as there were hardly any studious students in my class).

During my sixth semester, companies started visiting the college for campus recruitment. The first company was Infosys and I really wanted to get that job (because my brother was already working in Infosys and always praised its work culture). Again this time, all my friends got through and I couldn’t even clear the written test. To be precise, I was among the only three students in the hostel who could not clear the written test. Disappointed with my performance, I decided to continue my studies and join coaching classes for this. There were many other factors as well and one of the most important was to avoid the topic of marriage. I also believed that the coaching classes would help me improve on my quantitative aptitude for placements as well.

So I joined IMS Coaching Center in February and it was only after 2 weeks of coaching that I got placed with Accenture. Now the question was whether to continue the coaching classes. Finally, I decided to try my luck at CAT but my fear for Quant kept on increasing with every trick and formula I learnt. Also observing how the rest of the class was able to solve the questions within seconds, while I struggled with the formulae, got me even more restless. I would like to mention here that the test series proved to be a great help as I could actually practice and know where I stood. I took the CAT exam but was able to manage 92 percentile, which left me feeling a bit ok. I also took various other exams including XAT, MICAT and SNAP (not very keen on the last one though). My Reasoning faculty at IMS advised me to try for FORE School of Management as that seemed to be a good option with my scores. I appeared for the interview and was offered admission.

Again I faced a tricky situation when I was unable to decide whether to wait for my joining letter from Accenture or to go ahead with my MBA (it was 2009, a year after the recession had hit the economy). I tried to approach Accenture through various channels to confirm whether the placement offer was still valid but got no response.

Finally, I along with my family decided that going ahead with the MBA degree was a better option as I did not want to waste a year.

Now here is another twist in the tale. I missed the fee deposit deadline due to the delay in decision making, my final year final exams and bank holidays. After a lot of correspondence with the administration and student coordinator, I was given a second chance in the last waiting list. Finally, I got admission and my PGDM journey began. Coming from an engineering background, I learnt a whole new set of things, both academically and personally and the MBA did broaden my horizons in every aspect. It was a good exposure, though a better infrastructure and a campus hostel would have been added advantages. Overall, it was an amazing and life changing experience which improved my overall persona and perspective towards a lot of things. I was struggling with Economics and Finance but I was falling in love with Marketing, especially Marketing of Services, Human Resource, and Consumer Behaviour. Hence, I chose to take up a double specialization in Marketing as well as HR.

I underwent my summer internship in HR with an IT company where I worked as a Consultant and that was when I got convinced that I wanted to pursue my career in HR only. During final placements, I did not appear in any company’s placement drives with marketing profile. Then Balmer Lawrie visited our campus and the buzz was that there was an opening in the HR department. Thinking that I could be a government employee like my father really excited me, but unfortunately, the interview panel said that there were no HR openings then. Now I had to take a call and thus decided to go with the flow. I took the job offer and joined the company in 2011. I got posted in Lucknow and received a great learning experience under an amazing boss Mr Manjul Khare.

After some time, I got married and transferred to Delhi. I then entered a new phase of life when my daughter was born. I had to take this very difficult decision of leaving my job to take care of my beloved daughter.

I have always been grateful to God and destiny that I never have had to really struggle for anything. But my thought process changed slightly when I tried finding a government job after a 2-year break, as I wanted to create a balance between my work and family. I took exams for IOCL, GAIL, HPCL, NFL, AAI, LIC, SIDBI and IIT Delhi. I even tried my hand at IBPS-Specialist Officer but got rejections everywhere. Eventually, I decided to take NET and get into institutional teaching. In the meanwhile, I started exploring the corporate sector and even appeared for a few interviews but my over 3-year gap kept getting in my way.

Finally, here I am! I have always wanted to be involved in a job which eventually helps the masses and here, I am working for a platform which aims to help thousands of confused minds in choosing their careers wisely. When I look back today, I realize that I have come a long way but I fail to understand why a woman can’t have the best of both the worlds – personal and professional. What saddens me is that she ultimately has to compromise one or the other. I so wish I had planned my career keeping this problem in mind!

Despite all the struggles and social dilemma, I am at a place where I am happy with my life. I am able to balance my work life, personal space as well as philanthropically oriented callings. I would like to highlight that one should never give up as perseverance is one of the important key steps to succeed in life. During school/college one’s aim is to study hard and get a good job eventually, but life is not so simple always and our journey teaches us to face all the challenges that come our way and perform our level best in all the exams of life.

About the Author:

At present, I am working with Shiksha and responsible for formulating strategies aimed at encouraging active participation from our Campus Representatives and eventually turning Campus Connect Program into a huge success among college students. I possess around two and half years of experience in the Tourism industry where I have dealt with institutional clients across India in a public sector enterprise.

Mystory is a new Shiksha initiative to provide students a unique platform to share their experiences right from college admission to career selection. Here’s your chance to get published on India’s leading education portal. We’ll be happy to publish your story.   Write in to us at: mystory@shiksha.com