Gauri Sreekumar

MY JOURNEY FROM NLU TO IIM Many of you might be wondering about my transition from law to the management field, so I thought I could help clarify that with this post. If you have been following me, I have revealed that I wasn't sure what to choose between law and management till very recently. So, I divided my drop year into 2 parts. In my first phase, I would be targeting CLAT and NLUs And in the second phase, I would be targeting IPMAT and IIMs After CLAT, I secured admission to a National Law University, and like everyone I had around 7 months of free time. I have been a person who always looks forward to staying as busy as possible. So, in January, I started with IPMAT prep. But, I didn't realize that I had been exhausted by then. I decided to not study further. I had switched to LinkedIn by then. ROLE OF LINKEDIN My mother is a lawyer so, I had exposure to the legal circle since a young age, so I decided to pursue an internship in something else. Honestly, I started with the Campus Ambassador program, then to recruitment, and then to other management-related internships, it is then that I realized that I would enjoy a career in management more. Meanwhile, I had to deal with some personal issues till May 1st and after realizing management is my call, I had 20 days for IIM Rohtak IPM. It still feels incredible that I cracked the exam and will elaborate on that in further posts. However, the thing is life can be full of surprises and twists that give its complete picture over time. Recently, I have received a lot of DMs on this shift and some guidance, so if you have a similar situation to me and seeking some help, I would be glad to help.

I'm excited to share that I am provisionally offered admission to an IIM I have made it to the Integrated Program in Management at IIM Rohtak. This is a major milestone in my drop year. I have also converted IIM Jammu and IIM Bodh Gaya for their IPM Programs as well...The drop year taught me what I had to finally choose between law and management. And, right now, I can confirm that management aligns with my overall personal interests. The last one year was filled with a lot of challenges and self-doubts and right now here I am resolving them. It took time but was worth it. I will further write more about my experience in subsequent posts.

Exposing the new college scams—fake internships and courses! Recently LinkedIn has been flooded with summer internship opportunities and must-do courses, but few are aware of the scams lurking around. Being someone who did multiple reputable internships and is aware of these scams, even I was not an exception. But how did I fall prey to this? Well, I would say that's the power of manipulation, the MLM strategy. How do they work? First, they recruit interns in bulk, especially college students (assuming they are naive and desperate for internships). Then they establish a channel with the college through the recruited students - let's say internship programs or certificate courses. Since someone in the batch is promoting them, more students get attracted. They then reach out in bulk, conduct interviews for the namesake, and boom! everyone gets selected. Their only motive is to sell their services. Then they roll out their biggest scam - 'Performance-based pay' --> Not getting more into that, as most of us are already aware. Now, narrating my own experience. I was called for an internship, they got me selected. Then their HR reached out to me and explained their course structure (it was a course-selling company) and their company policies. Then she moved on to explaining my roles and responsibilities. I was cool till she asked me to sell their courses (min. 1) by evening. I applied for an HR internship and here I was selling their course. Thus I enquired further, and her reply "See, we receive several applications for an internship, as a previous HR manager at some XYZ company, you know it for yourself. This is just done to segregate the serious aspirants from bulk" Honestly, that sounded genuine and I had a tight deadline to complete the task. I decided to move forward but reaching out to my seniors to verify the legitimacy to finally learn the internship was a scam. I am grateful I didn't invest a lot of time in that internship but the experience was really scary. I request the companies not to exploit the students for the sake of LORs and certificates. We might be confused, but that doesn't call for exploitation! PS - Since many have commented on some company names, and if anyone finds it defamatory, kindly get in touch with the ones commented. Any direct/indirect reach out to me would not be entertained as my post implicitly/explicitly does not point out to any organisation/firm.