I was born and schooled in a scenic interior part of North Tamil Nadu, India.
I was an average student with a lot of interest in History, Geography, Humanities etc.,
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry was always an unsolvable puzzle for me. I always had problems with questions in mathematics such as, Simplify, expand, find ‘x’, find a, b, c, d etc.,
It’s not that I had problems with the logic, I cant proceed further without knowing why something needs to be assumed, something needs to be applied, something needs to be derived or something needs to be found.
I couldnt learn anything without knowing the history behind it or the application for it.
For teachers, it was too much to handle.
Hence, I was an average student.
At that time, Engineering was a most happening degree, where people get placed in IT companies, go for onsite and settled in the US.
My parents had a simple plan. It goes like this,
English medium Schooling- Engineering Degree - Job in an IT company - Onsite in the US - Good standard of living.
Impressive. I cant blame them.
The only problem with the plan was that I had no idea what is it to be an engineer.
I neither had interest nor had clarity about the outcome.
I barely managed to get the marks required for joining the Engineering college.
As per the plan, I joined an engineering college nearby to my town.
Disaster struck, when I encountered engineering mathematics in the first year and the second year…
I could barely understand what was happening in class.
I search for theoretical questions in Mathematics exam…ridiculous.
I found great interest in Economics and Management as it was introduced as part of the engineering curriculum.
I started reading more and more economics history in my college library.
I could identify myself more with management and business than technical coding…
After 4 years of hardship, I have passed out with a decent percentage, good enough to sit for an interview with any IT companies.
I refused to do so. I did my MBA in Marketing and Finance.
Point is, I wasted 6 years and struggled for no reason. If I could have known that my passion is towards economics and management, I could have avoided the 6 years of ordeal and anxiety during K12 and could have completely avoided Engineering.
I could have done commerce or management in K12 or chosen a simple BBA, BBM, BA economics degree to reach MBA happily.
Such a waste of money, time and mental agony…
6 years of ordeal and torture could have been avoided just by having a career counselling done spending 2 hours after my 10th Standard…
Joined the financial services industry. Offered Financial Planning Solutions to clients. Managed Multi-Million dollar portfolios.
During a discussion with my co-founder, then a colleague,
Born in a business family, He aspired to be a doctor. Wasted 2 years in various entrance exams and completed a degree in biochemistry. Completed MBA. Joined the financial services sector. However, his inherent interest is in technology. Another classic example of unplanned career indecisiveness.
“We are doing financial planning to our clients to plan their future financial goals, Why there is no education and career planning to plan career goals?”
In fact, I felt “Career planning is more important than financial planning as it is the source of financial well being”
I have wasted 6 years of my education in the wrong direction. And I am not alone. Still, 98% of Indians are untouched by any kind of career counselling to make an informed career decision.
To give a perspective, suppose on an average, every youth in India wasting 2-3 years of their education in the wrong direction.
India is having > 400 million youth population.
Wastage of 2 years by 400 million youngsters,
“800 million years of productive lifetime wastage.”
According to the Smithsonian Institution, it took only 6 million years for humans to evolve from apes.
Mentioning it as a “Gargantuan monstrous problem” is an understatement.
It was around 2009, there was no such thing called career counselling or career guidance available for whomsoever searching for it.
Few counselling centres were providing the services, but the reach was abysmally low. Still, millions and millions of Indian students and their parents were taking their education and career decisions like an “impulsive speculator in a casino”.
The problem remained un-addressed for decades.
We came up with a plan to create the solution from scratch. Assembled a team of Psychometrician, counselling psychologists and developers.
It took 4 years for research and to have a minimum viable product. In the meantime, we launched "edumilestones.com" as a Platform to address the problem.
We understood, reaching everyone through B2C in India needs lots of funding and time. We started offering our online career counselling platform to existing career counsellors.
They liked our platform and rigorously started using it. With their feedback and input, we keep on refining and upgrading our platform continuously.
They found it is saving a lot of time in assessment administration, evaluation and summarization. Moreover, they found it extremely scalable.
Career counsellors who were traditionally conducting 4–5 career counselling sessions in a month, could remarkably do 30–40 sessions in a month.
Slowly word started spreading, and we on-boarded some of the best career counsellors in India.
We found that the number of career counsellors is extremely low in India as they cant reach even a fraction of the population who need career counselling.
With the help of domain experts, we came up with the program. "Certified Career Analyst".
Fast forward to 2018, with the help of highly dedicated core team members, we have trained 1400+ career counsellors, having the presence in 80 cities in India, Middle East and Africa.
Yes, we have done the hard work. but its not enough.
I say that we have just started, 98% of the people in India are still taking random career decisions v/s informed career decisions. We have a lot of work to do to help “eradicate career indecisiveness” in this part of the world.
We are in a mission to save 800 million years.
