Hi, my name is Akshat Goel, and I am a BBA Graduate from SP Jain School of Global Management. I have been born in Delhi and have been brought up in Delhi, India, however, I can say with certainty that I have been brought about by my undergraduate experiences at SP Jain.

I always knew that I have to go abroad and study because everyone in my family did so and their experiences motivated me a lot. I got admitted to many colleges - UCL, Warwick University, SP Jain, UNSW, University of Melbourne to name some of the more renowned ones. While deciding which one to choose, I just asked myself one question, kind of like a key to everything – What am I looking for from my college? It can be a different number of things, for me personally it was networking, job after grad and budget friendliness (scope of scholarships). This is where SP Jain stood out the most because I was getting a scholarship which can be increased subject to scoring better grades in colleges, Australia is looking for many skilled employees, and the kind of networking opportunities – within college (different business background kids from different parts of India) and outside college (key players in three finance capitals of the APEC and EMEA Region).

After choosing SP Jain, I found it quite difficult to cope up initially as the method of teaching and testing were very different from what I had been exposed to for my whole life. But I can safely say that once you catch on, it is an amazing method as there are marks rewarded for class participation, presentations and reports, quizzes and exams as opposed to just exams. This in my opinion shaped me as a kid in the most holistic way as the metric relates to each of the ability I could improve upon – discipline, curiosity, attentiveness, soft and technical skills. Not just this, I even got a lot of exposure from the guest lectures that were given in class by reputable persons belonging to different aspects of a business. Some of these guest lecturers even ended up offering internships to student so that was a big plus point. Not limited to this, we even got help in rewriting our CVs and learning business etiquettes from the EPSS course mandated by SP Jain and taken on by the most skilled professors.

I would also like to highlight two of the most important aspects of SP Jain – they know that since we are moving between 3 cities in a span of 4 years, it is important to balance work with breaks full of sports and excursions activities. Secondly, over the 4 years each and every friend of yours will move with you so you can solve problems together instead of being completely alone. I can tell you this personally – parents sitting thousands of miles away might not be able to help you as much as your fellow SP Jain friend might and thankfully, I found not just 1 but at least 20 such friends with whom I can share everything and anything. Coming back to the point I made earlier about networking within college – amongst the group of 20-25 of us, we cover entire India geographically in terms of our business operations and residences which is a big plus point if you want to know about the different markets within India.

One of the biggest learning of my life at SP Jain, which even helped me bag the two most important internships – one of them in a Fortune 500 companies is that if you think you cannot do it, that is the moment you lose the battle. If I could handle living in three countries in four years, I could handle anything with persistence. One thing I did was buy LinkedIn Premium and cold message the key recruiters/employees that are working there for help. This is how I was able to bag the internship at Fortune 500. For the second one, I just got 50 copies of my one-pager CV I made with the help of mentors/professors at SP Jain and visited offices of every company that I was aiming for and thankfully one of them responded, but what is more important is that most of them remembered which will definitely be of help in the future if I am looking to switch. Honestly speaking, my mentor told me this trick by saying “what is stopping you from actually just going out there and seeing where you stand?” So today, I ask you the same.

About the Author-

Akshat Goel is a BBA graduate from SP Jain Global. In the last two years, he has interned at a leading Portfolio Management Scheme (PMS) and Mutual Fund in India and a reputed Forex Broking firm in Australia. He has also explored the Real Estate market in India by conducting market research, financial modelling, and presentation development.