I am a 51-year-old sales professional who evolved from a door-to-door salesman to a Sales head with B.Sc. Maths as my major in the early 90’s I would like to touch a bit upon my personal background before getting into what transformed me.
I had undergone brain surgery in September 2019 when I was nearing 50, which was performed on my request, and I knew my professional career had come to an end. I was unwilling to give up; hence, I planned to hone my skills further rather than wallowing in self-pity because of low self-esteem.
My options were either to go ahead with an Executive MBA from a premium institute or take up some odd jobs as a sales consultant. It was divine providence that got me reconnected with my childhood friend, a senior professional in the HR department of a premier management institute in India. (one of the top 5). He was categorical that under my current health condition and age pursuing an executive management program will not add great value to my career or needs.
He recommended I pursue a Data Science course with great lakes. My son, a software engineering student in a premium institute, also encouraged me to go ahead with the course, knowing that I am averse to coding.
It was a great risk I had taken with no savings and having coughed up most of my earnings for health and other superfluous things.
I took the bold decision of joining the PGP-DSBA course with Great Learning. I passed out as batch topper, excelling in all modules of the program. I had to skip one batch as advised by my program manager, who saw me operating more with an alarm clock as I was still recuperating from post-surgery discomforts. By then, I resigned from a corporate company and joined another small organization for a low remuneration with flexibility in work timings.
Today many asked about my career as a data scientist. My answer is I know I will get a good job, but I am not keen on pursuing that as my whole career. Instead, I took up the mission to train underprivileged kids as data scientists. I have received offers of visiting faculty tier 2 management institutes which I would love to do as I have not only a little knowledge but also 3 decades of domain experience in sales.
I can understand where this entire course can be put to use. It is imperative for an MBA to definitely have an understanding of this science. I just got ahead of the course that I wanted to do.
This course played a critical role in my life as it has catapulted my self-esteem, and my self-confidence grew multi-fold which will take care of my needs.
I have lots more to pen down, but nevertheless, my sincere thanks to great learning, which had articulated not only a great curriculum but also hired some of the most passionate faculty.
Definitely, I should never fail to mention some of the key people who played a vital role in my life, like Raghav Shaam (Faculty for Marketing and Retail Analytics), Gurumoorthy Pattabhiraman (faculty specialized in ML and Statistics), and program manager Jenlyn Jude Miranda. I will be continuing my blogs on great learning at every stage. I inch ahead more to motivate the people than any other reason.
Though the list of people to thank is a long one, I can always do in my future blogs as the association with Great Learning will continue for another 3 years to all students who pass out.
This Blog should be a motivation for all who have no clue about coding at all and looking for a transition in careers.
Students, especially the underprivileged, are free to connect with me at any time for further information.
