SP Jain’s Advance Student Ambassador Program (ASAP) Experience – Ayush Singh of NIT Rourkela Shares

This is what Ayush Singh of NIT Rourkela had to say after his recent participation in SP Jain’s ASAP (Advance Student Admission Program) conducted in Jan 2015. It is prudent to note that students from premier technical and non-technical institutions across India are invited to sit for a competitive aptitude test on campus. The top 20% are then shortlisted and put through a second round of written test and rigorous interviews before one or two deserving students from the colleges are selected as brand ambassadors to participate in this prestigious and highly coveted program.

Ayush was ecstatic after being selected as a SP Jain student ambassador from a group of 88 aspirants from all streams of engineering belonging to the final year at NIT Rourkela. He had never been to Dubai before and he was excited to experience the culture of the city and immerse in a truly intellectual experience with SP Jain’s world-renowned faculty. He still ruminates on the lecture by Prof. Arindam Banerjee on the influence of oil economies on global and local politics. The visit to the cultural centre gave him a fair idea of the food and clothing habits, business practices, and common beliefs and rituals of the local people, known as the Emiratis. The practical experiences got Ayush thinking about how perceptions can vary from people to people and from culture to culture, and helped him understand how eventually, all of this can affect business relationships – especially when one is dealing with people from a different social background.

The one thing that Ayush wishes were different during the program were the number of topics covered. “Within the 2-day agenda, the professors covered a lot of topic and themes, and I wish I’d got a bit more time to savour the different experiences and be actively involved in more intellectual discourses,” he shared. However, he was certainly able to sample SP Jain’s unique curriculum of Business Education 2.0 through brief exposures to activities that brought home the importance of global intelligence and real world skills in the grooming process of becoming a global business manager with credibility to work in multi-national work cultures and deal with persons from diverse backgrounds.

“All in all, this experience was incredible and awesome! While it is very difficult to get this opportunity to participate in SP Jain’s ASAP, if you are one of the chosen ones who gets selected, you definitely need to be part of this eye opening and thought-provoking program,” he commented.

We wish Ayush all the very best in making the right choices for his future and success in his global career.