Guest Speakers in School, Mr. Ajay Chaturvedi & Mr. Tapan Goel

On 15th October 2015, Grades 9 &10 had the honor of engaging with the founder and chairman of HarVa (Indian BPO) and social entrepreneur, Mr. Ajay Chaturvedi. Many of us claim to have decided our future careers, even our retirement plans. Yet, others are still bombarded with new ideas every single day that lead them to a state of confusion. After all, each and every human being needs to keep an open mind and whether one has chosen his or her career path or not, a brand new gateway leading to a brand new calling shouldn’t be something to hide from.

Mr. Chaturvedi did just that, starting his interactive session with a simple question, “Who do you want to become”? As straightforward as that sounds, even I, somebody who has a clear cut idea of future aspirations, was taken aback. Do I want to be rich, successful, famous? No, I want to be happy. Mr Chaturvedi encouraged us to pursue a career that we are passionate about, not one that is attached with any personal emotions because true passion is what is ultimately going to result in happiness and contentment.

What I admire most about him is his ability to connect with the audience, even young teenagers like ourselves. He didn’t go on and on speaking about his achievements but rather his inspiration to start entrepreneurship. I have a strong passion towards women empowerment and I could see clearly in his eyes that he did too. HarVa is an organization set up in rural India which employs only women. He told us that while setting up the organization, he faced several challenges that came from all directions. But his passion and love for innovation pushed him to move past these obstacles and we all can laud him for where he has reached now.

An avid reader and believer in philosophy himself, Mr. Chaturvedi introduced us to the main symbol of wisdom; the swastika. Some might link the swastika with the Nazis, others with Hinduism. However he presented us the true meaning, wisdom. His book is about just this: how the swastika represents wisdom in all shapes and forms. Personally, I feel blessed to be able to interact with a man with such immense drive and talent. Even though this session didn’t exactly motivate me to change my career choice completely, it did open up my horizons.

Katyani Mehra, Grade 10B

As we, the IB DP students, prepare for college admissions and explore our future career ambit, it is easy to find ourselves in a quandary about career choices. On October 15th, the Economics

and the Business Management students of forms 11 and 12 were opened to the future opportunities involved in retail and investment banking through a guest session with Mr. Tapan Goel, the Head of HR at Barclays Shared Services Pvt. Ltd., Noida. In this session, Mr. Goel talked about the history of banking, distinguished between the types of banking and introduced the field as a career option on a whole. With a focus on the banking sector, he also shared his life experiences and emphasized on the need of having holistic growth and the right attitude towards life. He later answered the various questions we had related to his stream and profession. Overall the session was quite useful in opening the possibility of a career path.

Divya Tyagi Gr 11