Mystory@Shruti Maheshwari: How I chose my course and career

Did I always know what I wanted to become when I grow up? Yes. Did I become that? No.

In school, right up till class XII, I was convinced I wanted to become a professional artist. Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali and Paul Gaugain were my ideals and I often fancied leading a turbulent and angst ridden life myself, as if this was a mandatory precursor to produce art of any greatness at all.

At the plus two level, however, I was jostling with Business Studies, Accounts and Maths primarily because there was no stream as such for the fine arts. Why commerce? I had the marks to opt for Science. Since I had been amid the top 5% of my class all through school, both my teachers and parents counselled that I should opt for the latter since “options will be open” after school as well and one could always drift back into commerce at the undergraduate level in case it was desired. But I settled for Commerce less because of my love for Maths and Accounts and more because of my lack of appreciation for Physics and Chemistry. In hindsight, Maths at the class XII level helped me significantly in preparing for GMAT and my MBA programme in the later years (although statistics was the proverbial Achilles heel even then).

Eyes were firmly set on B.Com or a BBA post class XII. Plan B was Economics, since this was one of my core subjects at the plus two level. But then, that was the plan. As all students going through the CBSE class XII board system know rather cruelly, that all the hard labour that the student puts in is merely one side of the argument. The marks and the final percentages awarded are the other side and the verdict all rolled into one. While I managed to score the highest grade in my school in commerce section, I lost out by a decimal to Sri Ram College of Commerce, my first priority for the B.Com programme. Thankfully, I was being offered B.Com (Hons) in its sibling college, Lady Sri Ram College (LSR).

Purely, on a whim though, I decided to also enroll for an entrance test to the newly introduced BA Journalism Hons course in LSR. The course had a fascinating structure and curriculum. Papers in reporting, editing, Political Science, Economics formed the core of the course. Topping this up was communication theory, newspaper production, Internet and new media, advertising and film studies. There were papers on the Indian Constitution and one would be expected to do field assignments on a weekly basis. Good bye rote learning. Since the course had just been introduced, the faculty comprised of as many in house as well as guest teachers and all these were from the media industry operating in fully fleshed out capacities. There were also some star guest faculty, T.N. Seshan, the then Chief Election Commissioner is a quotable example. In comparison, the B.Com option appeared rather lack lustre.

The BA Journalism entrance test was taken by a few hundred students, I don’t recall the exact numbers, but there were enough to make one feel rather proud at having made it to the shortlisted 20 list. The test itself was mostly opinionated writing-nothing out of any syllabus or text book. It was free flowing thoughts and ideas and one simply had to be aware to be able to do a good job of this. There was also an interview round-this was more of a screening, a get to know session rather than an elimination round with the objective of understanding the orientation of the student. Although the teachers can grill you at this stage, and they do if they so fancy, one can think about how badly they botched up the interview and have a good laugh later on and it would not have spoiled your admission prospects. Thank God for small mercies.

As the three years of graduation played themselves out, I was more convinced by the end that Journalism would indeed pack a punch as a career option. It had just the right mix of intellectual challenge, was fraught with a sense of suspense-you could never tell what you would be doing the next day, it was people oriented-anyone would be cultivated as a source of information right from a peon to a top-level bureaucrat and the last thing that you were expected to do was vegetate in an office with a laptop to give you company.

Another advantage at having been exposed to the plethora of options in those three years in college was that you discover what kind of work you enjoy. This gives you a chance to systematically go about shortlisting your options-eliminating those that do not appeal to your area of skill or interest. I tried my hand at advertising as well-utilising one of my summer vacations to do an internship with McCann Erickson, just to be doubly sure. I interviewed both for copywriting as well as illustration as I had a sizeable portfolio for both roles (thereby only adding to the confusion in my head). In the end, copywriting it was.

I was writing copy for Perfetti, a then client of McCann, right from posters to banner ads. I enjoyed the three months of internship thoroughly and had secured a PPO primarily because of some interesting promotional material that I had made for them, but job timings and unpredictability of hours became a serious concern for my parents, leading me to drop the offer.

After close to a decade and a half as a journalist, I’m glad I did not go the predicted way. The evolution of media from old school print to online has interestingly coincided with my journey as a media professional. The long and short of this story is that you don’t always become what you aspired to become in the first place, but as long as you are aware of your interest areas and skillsets and don’t drift too far from these, you are most likely to land up with something that will give you fulfillment and keep you charged for years to come.

About the Author:

Shruti works with Shiksha in the capacity of Senior Vice President, Content. She has graduated in journalism from Lady Sri Ram College. She went on to do her MBA from Indian School of Business-Hyderabad. She has worked with Hindustan Times, India Today  and Times Internet Limited in the past.