Transcript: FO574 Raj Shamani w/ Career Counsellor Dr. Karan Gupta  

And we’ll talk about the destinations, but by default it’s going to be the US or possibly UK, Europe, because your world’s best universities are there.

Then the second type is a student who’s done their bachelor’s in India, but उनको job नहीं मिल रही है, because that is the case with a lot of students today. One way out is if we can gather the funds is to go abroad for a master’s, do it in a field where you can still possibly get a job. And then work there. That is the dream, the life, and that is the one which we question today.

Not the first one, the second one, because the second one is where my ears are open. Okay, now wait. Where is the money coming from? Are we selling mom’s jewelry? Are we taking a loan against this property that we have? Then I’m not sending you. Then don’t go. “मत जाओ abroad, किसने बोला है?” We’ll find something here. But financially, don’t bank on a policy that can change.

There are a couple of cases. I was reading this boy who went to the University of Dundee in the UK. He was from Odisha, and he did a master’s in finance, took a loan of £25,000 to pay for his education. Plan was the same. I’ll get a job, work in finance, and repay it. Didn’t get the job. He was washing vegetables outside the University of Dundee for a year, hunting for corporate jobs, which never came. Had to come back to India and find employment here. And you can imagine how long it’s going to take for him to repay the loan.

Same country, another case, a girl, Trisha, from Delhi who did her undergrad at Nottingham and master’s at Bath. And The Guardian reported that she networked with King Cobra, the House of Lords, got an amazing job in tech renewable management in the UK. 2 people, 2 different outcomes. Point is, it’s not certain. So if you’re going to risk so much to get your job, question the idea. Policies are changing.

This interesting question again where people are like, “US? No, no, numbers too are dipping in US.” Okay. Open Doors is saying that we have 1.25 million international students in America, out of which 363,000 are from India. Global mobility though is 7.5 million. So if you’re saying that international education is only not happening, that’s a completely wrong number.

Now, with the numbers which I was just telling you about U.S., this year when we surveyed 825 universities, we saw roughly a 17% decline. What we are seeing essentially happening is correction. This happened with Canada. Canada indiscriminately took anybody and everybody. Diploma programs, trade programs, P.R. “बस आजाओ Canada.”

What happened? Infrastructure couldn’t take it. Housing, they had problems with medical problems, with rent, with everything. The whole system went haywire. What did Canada do? Self-corrected. In 2024, 61% less international students. What is the visa rate as of Jan 2025 for Indians? 62%. Self-correction.

I’m seeing this cycle. I’ve been counseling kids for nearly 3 decades. I keep seeing this cycle. Suddenly some politicians will come and say, “Yes, we are welcome, please bring international kids, we want immigration, our population is dying, we need talent from India.” Then the rules change. “We don’t want— we have too many Indians, we cannot have so many.” Then again a few years later, “We welcome international students.” This is a cycle that goes up and down. You should not get caught in this cycle. Don’t get caught in this policy.

But Canada self-corrected. US is self-correcting. What I’m personally seeing is students who are going to good universities, they have a plan, they can afford to go, they’re still getting the visas and they’re going. Students who are trying to go for diplomas, community colleges, subpar programs, they’re not able to go. If that’s what’s happening, correction.

Who Should Not Go Abroad?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:11:31 – 00:11:32) Who should not go?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:11:33 – 00:12:01) So someone who’s doing a highly debt-funded master’s should probably not go right now. Because if you’re going to take such a big debt, there is no guarantee that you’re going to get a job unless you’re going to a top university and you’ve mapped out your odds. And you’re telling me that, “No, but I’ve seen the numbers, I’ve seen the recruitments, I am going to network.” I would say, yes, still go. Otherwise, if I just on the headlines see debt-funded master’s, don’t go.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:12:02 – 00:12:10) So it’s if you have to take loan to fund your studies, don’t go.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:12:10 – 00:12:35) No, take a loan. I’m saying it’s a great thing to take a loan as well, but what’s the plan? If I’m taking a loan and I’m going to be studying, let’s say, cybersecurity, and I’m going to a top university, if I have to evaluate that risk, let’s do it. But if I’m going to study marketing and I’m going to an unknown state or a private university in the middle of nowhere, and I’m like, “My jobs are going to come to me.” For God’s sake, don’t go.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:12:36 – 00:12:53) Let’s say you can be a student who was not academically great like me, who was dumb in school, and yet figure out to excel in life in some other field, then you have a chance.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:12:53 – 00:12:53) Yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:12:54 – 00:13:01) So I may be average in 500 things. I’m little less average in few things in my life, right? So I can be considered.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:13:02 – 00:13:02) Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:13:02 – 00:13:11) That I’m not talking about. I’m talking about someone who’s average, doesn’t have clarity. Just be like, “मुझे बाहर जाना है पढ़ने।” Should not come and take loan. That’s what it is.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:13:11 – 00:13:13) Hundred percent yes. Don’t send that child abroad.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:13:15 – 00:13:29) I’m talking about the kids who are actually forcing their parents that “I want to go abroad because here nobody understands me.” And deep down inside, the kid knows that you’re only going there for partying or probably just getting out of the country. I should know.

The Five Removals Test

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:13:30 – 00:13:39) “मैं आपको एक टेस्ट बताऊँ?” Let’s do a teachable moment here. Okay, I want to teach you this test. It’s a very good test which I’ve developed. Let’s call it the five removals test.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:13:39 – 00:13:39) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:13:39 – 00:14:54) If your university survives these five removals, you should come. First, let’s remove the brochure. Let’s remove those glossy photographs, the student testimonials, maybe even outcomes for a minute as to what’s going to happen after the course, and let’s get down to what do you want to study? What is the content of this? Who are the faculty? Who’s going to be teaching you? Who are you going to sit with? Let’s get into those factors.

Then let’s remove the logo. So for 10 minutes, let’s just hide the brand and see, this is what I’m going to study, but you don’t know if it’s an MIT or a Harvard or a Stanford or even an NYU for that matter. Then let’s remove the people. So if nobody knew that this university existed, would you still go there?

Then let’s remove the obvious that mom went to study finance or dad expects me to go do marketing. This is what the societal expectation is of me. Let’s remove that also. Finally, let’s remove that fantasy of getting a job, that I’m going to get this amazing job in this amazing company. After we remove all 5, if this university still seduces you, then go.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:14:56 – 00:15:01) But a lot of people want to just go there, party, and then figure out some work, local work.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:15:01 – 00:15:05) “ठीक है तो फिर,” if your parents have that kind of money to spend on this fancy and expensive holiday?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:15:05 – 00:15:07) No, no, no. Parents don’t know this.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:15:07 – 00:15:09) Oh, just the kids want to do it.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:15:09 – 00:15:26) The kid is going there to probably have a life abroad, and in his or her head they have, “Oh, we will do some part-time job. We’ll work in some McDonald’s and figure out.” Because they’re like, “Nobody knows, we’ll do it. At least we’ll have a better life and party there.”

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:15:26 – 00:15:27) Better life.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:15:27 – 00:15:32) So many people go there, at least in this illusion, a better life than what they have here.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:15:33 – 00:15:43) You remember the Dundee case? So if you’re okay with that kind of money, spending that money, not getting a job, and then washing vegetables outside your university, if that sounds appealing to you, then so be it. We’re not going to stop you.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:15:44 – 00:15:45) So these kids should not go?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:15:47 – 00:15:56) No, you should not go. Look, you have to be serious about going abroad to study. It’s a big commitment.

Which Country Should You Choose? Five Student Profiles

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:15:57 – 00:16:34) Let’s make it profile-wise. Okay, let me show you 5 typical type of profiles of students, what they want, who they are, then which country should they go. Okay, let’s do it. So first test is if you are going for wrong reasons and you’re not hardworking, don’t go. If you don’t have enough money and you’re taking very heavy loan and going for an average degree, don’t go, right? That is the thing, right? If you’re going for a kick-ass degree and for that if you had to take some loan, go ahead and do it because that will repay. That’s what you said till now.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:16:34 – 00:16:35) Yeah, yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:16:35 – 00:16:53) Okay, so number 2 is which country? Okay, because there are so many countries and people usually just think about US, UK, Australia, or Canada, which is very popular for India. So let’s pick up 5 different people. Okay, so let me just put out 5 different people. I’ll show you.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:16:53 – 00:16:54) All right.

Profile 1: The Safe Bet

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:16:56 – 00:17:45) Okay, these are the 5 people. So let’s say someone who’s average academically, right? He has 70%. His budget is about ₹25 lakh. This person can spend and wants no debt, wants to be safe, and wants a stable job or probably real ROI. Even if you take 25 to 50 or whatever, this person wants very stable real job, doesn’t want to play around.

This person’s not even thinking about making millions of dollars, just wants to make sure that I get better opportunity in the world. Better than India, because India में this person would probably not even make fifty, sixty thousand or seventy thousand.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:17:46 – 00:19:17) Yeah, when you come to the Indian education and you’re doing your bachelor’s, why people run straight for MBA is because bachelor’s में you’re not going to get the kind of salary. You probably want to get twenty, twenty five, thirty thousand. With an MBA from a non-IIM, we are looking at maybe fifty, seventy, maybe a lakh of rupees. With a private institute like an ISB, we might be at 24-25 CTC a year. With an IIM, that might double.

For this candidate who wants a safe bet, that safe bet is what I’m seeing the most. I would not risk sending that child abroad at all. Find your MBA at an ISB in India and get a package of 24-25 CTC. 2 lakhs per year, that’s a safe bet for you.

Because for this candidate, for Rahul, who’s the safe bet, if I have to spend this ₹25 lakh, I could spend it on possibly a 1-year mid-level MBA in the UK, assuming he has some work experience. If he doesn’t have experience, I’ll give him a master’s in finance. Master’s in finance is a highly quant degree. He may still get opportunity, but it’s a risk. Because I’m going to an average university. What’s so special about that?

If I want to play safe with that ₹25 lakh, we’re not going abroad. We’ll get you a career here. Career counseling and helping someone with their career does not always mean let’s go abroad. It can be a great career here in India.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:19:18 – 00:19:18) Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:19:19 – 00:19:21) Let’s read once again, the safe bet.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:19:22 – 00:19:26) So you’re telling me there is no country, no degree which is safe?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:19:26 – 00:19:45) No. Now he’s average. If you told me this boy was brilliant, 95%, and I’m getting him into an MIT, an NYU, I’m getting into one of the top universities of the world, then let’s take that risk. I’m with you, I support you, I have your back. I don’t have your back there.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:19:45 – 00:19:47) 70% kid should not.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:19:47 – 00:19:47) No.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:19:48 – 00:19:58) But don’t you think probably let’s say Italy, Germany, some other country, Ireland, Singapore? “तो उसके बाद क्या?” वहाँ पर भी that person won’t get a secure safe job.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:19:58 – 00:20:18) “कैसे?” When people tell me this and I understand it’s not because of any other reason, it’s because of this media hype. “H-1B visas cancel हो रहे हैं, H-1B visas नहीं मिलने वाले हैं। US is closing doors.” Please understand US is where you have the maximum amount of jobs, the maximum amount of people staying back.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:20:18 – 00:20:18) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:20:19 – 00:21:39) You want to talk about Satya Nadella or Sabeer Bhatia, you want to talk about Sundar Pichai, understand that these are, yes, different generations, different stories, different names. But end of the day, US is where the opportunity is, where you’re going to get your job.

You’re telling me UK, UK unemployment is so high. You’re telling me Germany. Now Germany is also something which students love because it’s free. Now earlier it was public universities. Teaching in German was free. Now public universities have English courses which are also free of cost. Students are going in hordes. The German ambassador had claimed, “Please come to Germany.” Student is thinking, “America is closing doors, Germany is saying welcome, bhago.”

What? And this is my prediction that Germany is also going to have to self-correct, just like how Canada did, because Germany is going to realize, “We’ve taken in so many kids, where are the jobs for them?” So if I’m going to Ireland, I’m going to Dubai, I’m going to Germany, I’m going to Eastern Europe, I’m not going to get employment. I have to come back home. That reality is there today.

Maybe if that person was brilliant, he’ll stay back. And that happens in any country. Even someone goes to Spain, they learn Spanish, they will stay back. But Rahul, Rahul, you should stay here.

Profile 2: The Risk Taker

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:21:41 – 00:21:43) Okay, let’s come to the second one. This is good.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:21:43 – 00:21:45) The risk taker, 24.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:21:46 – 00:22:24) So risk taker, she’s top 10% talent in the world. She’s probably published researches. She’s always geeking about. She can fund up to 1 crore either by taking loans or convincing family members or herself or whatever, figure a job. She’s like, “I’m ready to spend a crore on my education and I want to be in AI and ML and the next technology or robotics or EV, whatever. I want to be on top,” right? And I’m ready to take the risk, willing to go study in hope that tomorrow I will be working in some risky career and want to make top buck.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:22:25 – 00:22:36) Ananya is the kind of student that should go abroad, and this is the kind of student that I send abroad and want to send abroad. 100% yes if the answer was, should we go or not?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:22:36 – 00:22:37) Where should she go?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:22:37 – 00:23:29) Ananya should go to the US. Ananya should target her top universities, all the Ivies, which are 8 Ivies, her MIT, her Stanford, Caltech, possibly UCLA, UC Berkeley, the best universities of the world. In the US, when she’s doing 4 years, let’s assume that— oh wait, hold on, Ananya is 24. Ananya is going for her master’s, right?

She’ll go here, she’ll do her STEM degree, she’ll get 3 years of OPT. She’ll get a kick-ass job given that she’s already published research and she’s going to do research while she’s doing her master’s too. She’ll network with the professor. She’ll get a kick-ass job on OPT for 3 years, post which, if she’s lucky, she’ll get her H-1B visa. If she doesn’t, she’ll come back to India and set up something amazing, maybe a cybersecurity firm or something with prompt engineering. God knows. But she should definitely go to the US.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:23:30 – 00:23:41) But why only US? Why not, let’s say, any of the European countries or China or Singapore or Korea? Why not those countries? Because they are also popping.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:23:42 – 00:23:43) So, with—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:23:43 – 00:23:46) I know, but I meant Korea and Singapore.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:23:46 – 00:24:32) Sure, top Asian destinations for that matter. For her, she would want to be in an international environment and also at a place which is the leader of research, a place which is going to give her opportunity to be there, participate in that research, challenge things, change things. US top universities are going to give that to her.

If I put her at, let’s say, a National University of Singapore or a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, I would make her more academic. This girl has already published research. She’s already been thinking about problem solving. She wants to contribute back to her academics, and that’s why she’s published the research. I don’t think Asia would suit her as much as US would.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:24:32 – 00:24:33) Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:24:33 – 00:25:01) And what about even staying back? If she wants to stay back and do something, it’s much harder to stay back in Asia. Look at the amount of people we have in Singapore itself. You’re competing so much just with the Chinese people there. How are kids going to stay back there? How are they going to stay back in Hong Kong? I went to HKUST last year and when I visited them, almost every face was Asian. There were very few Indian faces. There were very few white faces.

Profile 3: The Nursing Aspirant on a Budget

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:25:02 – 00:25:11) Hmm. Interesting. Let’s say the third candidate, Zara. She’s 21, decent. Budget is none.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:25:11 – 00:25:18) By the way, none of my five kids are undergrads here. They’ve all finished. चलो let’s see. Zara 21, decent academics, nursing.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:25:18 – 00:25:19) Let’s make her undergrad.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:25:19 – 00:25:22) Okay, yeah. Let’s give Zara undergrad.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:25:22 – 00:25:31) Let’s make her— wait, sorry. I will do this. Okay. All right.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:25:31 – 00:25:41) Zara is 18. Decent academics. Nursing is her interest. Very good. Budget, ₹15 lakhs per year. Per year. Lovely.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:25:41 – 00:25:42) The tightest.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:25:42 – 00:25:48) High demand and a genuine path to stay and work long term.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:25:48 – 00:26:03) She only wants to go out because she knows that here she’s not going to get opportunities. So she wants to get out of the country. Work, stay long term, and she only is going to another country because she wants to stay there and never want to come back.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:26:04 – 00:26:49) What we would do for Zara is first we would apply to a mix of US, UK, and European schools because we don’t know geopolitically what’s going to be safe for Zara next year or the year after next for that matter. With the budget of 15 lakhs, what we would do is we would apply to UK universities which fit that budget without any scholarship, and we’d put in some good US universities, double that budget, assuming that we apply for need-based and merit-based scholarships.

So we can then fit that university in that budget, but with decent academics and wanting something in healthcare, because I believe that healthcare is one of our careers of the future. I would 100% back Zara to go abroad.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:26:49 – 00:26:51) But what countries?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:26:52 – 00:26:53) US, UK, and Europe.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:26:53 – 00:26:53) Why?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:26:54 – 00:26:55) Now, if I put her in UK—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:26:55 – 00:26:58) UK is at an all-time low in employment.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:26:58 – 00:27:35) So think about it this way, and this is actually a very good calculation that you’re going to do. What if I have this budget, but I want to go to one of my top US schools? How about I do 3 years in UK, earn my bachelor’s, 15 to 20 lakhs a year. So my total expense will not exceed 50 lakhs for 3 years in some schools. Then I go to US for my 1-year master’s. Ultimately, I’ve come to the US job market, but I paid for only 1 year instead of paying that 4 years or that scary 3 crore figure. So Zara can do that.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:27:37 – 00:27:41) So 15 lakh a year, she would end paying 50 lakhs and then a crore.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:27:41 – 00:27:43) Yeah, or less.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:27:44 – 00:27:54) So she’ll end up, instead of spending 3 crores, she’ll save 1.5. But then her degree will be considered and everything. She will be in the job market of US.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:27:54 – 00:28:12) Yes, but she’ll be as good as an undergrad plus master’s there. The only thing that she’d be missing is an undergrad who is smart would have started networking from day one, right after the 12th grade, whereas for her, she’s starting late. But if she’s smart enough to do this math so early on in the process, she’s a hustler. So she’s a hustler. She’s going to do great in life.

Profile 4: The PR Chaser

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:28:12 – 00:28:38) Okay. So that’s this case. Let’s say now we have Aditya, who is a PR chaser, who’ll just be like, “All I’m going there is for permanent residency. I will go there, probably drive, whatever I had to work, wherever I have to. I want to spend 5 years so that after 5, 6 years I can just apply.”

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:28:38 – 00:28:49) Now for Aditya, I would think Australia could be an option because Australia and possibly New Zealand are still countries where PR is not impossible.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:28:50 – 00:28:50) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:28:51 – 00:29:47) I mean, if he wants to even move to Canada, Canada, you can still get PR. You’re not going to get a job, right? But the boy can set up his own business and he can be in Canada. He should possibly also consider learning a nice European language like Spanish or French and then going to Spain and France. They have several entrepreneurship visas where if you can set up a business in their country, you can possibly stay back.

This boy would have several options because he wants PR. He’s clear about it. There’s nothing wrong with immigration. Just be clear. What I really like about Aditya is that he’s telling me right in the beginning that, “Dr. Gupta, I want PR. Which country should I go and study?” Now, I am not going to directly send you to emigrate. I don’t do that. But if you want to upskill, that’s what I would do with Aditya. Let’s upskill and let’s put him in an environment where he would have a great chance of finding employment.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:29:48 – 00:29:51) Which is the easiest country to get permanent residency today?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:29:54 – 00:30:17) PR, it all boils down to the job market. US is easy to get, comparatively easier to get a job, but tough to get PR. Canada, easy to get PR, but tough to get the job. Europe, UK, again, there are ways to get settlement and get PR, but job becomes a question mark. So to answer your question, back to Australia, New Zealand.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:30:18 – 00:30:20) But Australia is also getting difficult for people.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:30:20 – 00:30:23) Everywhere is difficult. There is nothing like easy PR.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:30:23 – 00:30:29) Don’t you think smaller countries, let’s say, I don’t know, Portugal, is it easier to get a PR there?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:30:29 – 00:30:40) No, it’s not easier to get in. It’s not easy to get PR in any part of Europe till you don’t get a job or till you don’t get a business running. There are investment-based PRs which are completely different.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:30:40 – 00:30:41) We’re not talking about that.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:30:41 – 00:30:55) We’re talking about students who are studying and then want PR. Again, go to the basics and find the course which is going to give you a good job and through that job, try to get PR.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:30:56 – 00:30:57) New Zealand easier?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:30:58 – 00:31:22) It’s still very small. How many people can New Zealand even accommodate? There are 8 public universities which are good. I mean, how are they going to even absorb such a great number? Okay, you want to do hotel management? New Zealand, Australia is still a good option. Probably even cybersecurity, it’s a good option. But how many people? You have a billion people watching your show. They are not all going to get accommodated in New Zealand.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:31:25 – 00:31:55) Which is fair. So you would still put Australia, New Zealand. So let’s say this person who’s trying to chase permanent residency, and he’s okay and she’s okay with the courses, okay? These guys, Aditya or Aditi or whatever person is watching, they just want permanent residency. They’re okay to study anything and everything. They will figure out just to stay out of the country. They will learn hard and get the degree done.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:31:56 – 00:31:58) Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:31:58 – 00:32:05) What courses? So again, where there’s big demand of probably jobs today and they can go.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:32:05 – 00:32:14) If they’re willing to study, take something which is quant heavy, take something tech heavy, you still will have some opportunity.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:32:14 – 00:32:15) Give me 2-3 examples.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:32:16 – 00:32:48) Cybersecurity, wireless security. Then if you want to go something in healthcare, these are areas which are still evergreen. And one of the most underrated areas which no one is talking about, and again, I believe this to be a career of the future, is energy, renewable energy. You’re talking about AI, but who’s talking about where AI is getting the energy from? How much energy do we have? So if you’re going to study renewable energy, whichever country you go to, you’d be able to carve a PR for yourself.

Profile 5: The Prestige Hunter

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:32:49 – 00:33:00) Interesting. Yeah, this used to be true for oil and gas, right? Energy, same. So now renewable, let’s just turn it into energy. Okay, let’s come to Kavya.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:33:00 – 00:33:14) Kavya, 22, prestige hunter, excellent academics, budget 2 crore plus, ROI irrelevant, wants Ivy League name. See, now again 100%, and an obvious answer is US for her because your 8 Ivy Leagues are in the US.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:33:15 – 00:33:27) But apart from that, are there other prestigious institutions around the world which can give you as good prestige as your Ivy Leagues of the world?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:33:27 – 00:34:04) In my opinion, if we are getting to the UK and going to Imperial, we’re going to National University of Singapore, I think, and of course, in Spain, IE University now. “गिन चुन के” I can count three to four universities which are Ivy League status, and that’s the point I was making to you in the beginning that today if you tell me, “My child is exceptional, I’ve got one of the best profiles, which university in which country?” I am going to map out your universities by default. You’ll see the largest amount of dots being in the United States.

The 30-Plus Professional Stuck at ₹1 Lakh a Month

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:34:05 – 00:35:18) Interesting. Let’s put a unique case, okay? Last case, which is, let’s make a profile. Let’s say this guy is someone who’s 30 plus, okay? Has done their undergrad in India, probably has done master’s in India, did the degree and everything in India. Is average, it’s stuck at a job of 1 lakh per month. See, now this person wants to go abroad. Which country should this person go?

He’s 30 plus, they want to go abroad, and they only want to go for better opportunities because they’re stuck at just making ₹1 lakh or ₹2 lakh and they can’t get out of it. They want to make some money, they want to feed their family, they want to make sure that they make some good life out of themselves and they’re tired of trying to get opportunities in India.

They’re stuck and they want to do it in job. They can’t do business. They don’t want to do business. They want to do job somewhere. They’re okay to probably live alone in one country, then go to another country. This person’s okay for money. This person will do anything and everything as long as it’s legal.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:35:20 – 00:36:01) Now, this person is 30 plus. The first clue that I get is that with so many years of relevant experience, this person should consider an MBA. Because if he is looking at a master’s degree, he is going to be with people who are 21 and 22, and peer-to-peer learning is extremely important when you’re studying abroad. One is with your teachers teaching you for a limited period. Peer-to-peer is for the rest of your life.

If I put him for a master’s with people who are 22 years of age, he’s going to complain that, “What am I learning from them?” He needs to be in an MBA where people have 7 years, 10 years, 12 years experience. That’s number one.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:36:01 – 00:36:01) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:36:01 – 00:36:42) 2, so course MBA, specialization within. Since he is very motivated to earn more money, and that’s a strong motivation for him to even consider studying, within that MBA, that concentration should be something STEM related: science, tech, engineering, math. Maybe IT specialization, maybe AI specialization, maybe something STEM.

And if he says, “Yeah, I just can’t do STEM and STEM is not my scene.” All right, then let’s consider going into finance because at least there’s the M part of STEM, the math part, right? I want him to become more quant heavy. I want him to become more tech heavy.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:36:42 – 00:36:44) Marketing we will not do.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:36:44 – 00:36:56) “Marketing की तो बात ही नहीं हो रही है।” Marketing, then you got to be happy. Now okay, listen, whoever is listening, I love marketing. I love HR. I’m a humanities student.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:36:56 – 00:36:57) We can clearly see.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:36:58 – 00:37:22) I’m a humanities student. But what I’m saying is do marketing analytics. Make it marketable. If you understand marketing, do a career that’s going to sell. So do marketing analytics or finance or computational finance, mathematical finance. Now, once we have sorted you, making sure that priority—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:37:22 – 00:37:32) Sorry, this is number 2 and this is 3. If you can’t do this, then do this. If you can’t do this, then do that.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:37:32 – 00:38:56) Correct. Now, once we have sorted this for you and we have said, okay, we’ve upped your skill set, we’re upskilling. Now, the second is I would want to put him into an MBA program where I’m seeing that 90% of the class, 3 months within graduation, are working in these type of companies. In fact, after this, I’ll tell you exactly about this placement part. They’re working in, let’s say, consulting companies, or they’re working in roles that this person is interested in.

I would not even think about the country right now. I am going to target specific universities. For him, I’m going to look at London Business School, INSEAD in France, IE in Spain. I’m going to look at NYU in New York. I’m going to look at UCLA in LA. I’m going to look at Northwestern near Chicago. Maybe if his GMAT and GRE do really well, I’d put a Cornell and a Columbia, and I’d put a Harvard as well.

So if you notice, I have given you France, Spain, England, US. Because this is where your top universities got concentrated. So I didn’t really go to country. Country came last for me. I started with course. After course, I went on to specialization. After specialization, I went on to the university name because I was studying the career reports of each of the universities.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:38:58 – 00:39:02) But then these are the prestigious universities. Not everybody can get in.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:39:02 – 00:39:59) Okay. So now assuming that all the same logic applies, I’m just going to bring my list lower because one of the variables which I gave you here was his GRE or his GMAT. In addition, the story. Today, what did he learn from his experience? Why does he want an MBA? What is he going to contribute to the school he’s applying to? That’s a narrative. So we would help build that narrative so that a top school takes him.

So let’s assume I’m not getting support from a GRE or a GMAT. Some of the schools I named have their own admission tests. Maybe I do one of those tests. Let’s say the student still doesn’t crack it, then I have to come a notch lower.

Today, let’s assume I take City University of New York, which by no means is considered in your top 30 or 40. If I put him for an MBA there and he follows this kind of a course structure, I’ll still give this person a 90% chance of finding employment there. And this ₹1 lakh per month is at least ₹10 lakhs a month.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:01 – 00:40:02) Is that possible today?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:03 – 00:40:03) Yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:04 – 00:40:11) How much this person will need to invest? This person study in, let’s say, a university which is not in top 30, top 40.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:11 – 00:40:22) Specifically the one I mentioned, that’s a state school and therefore the fees are lower. This person would probably invest about 1.5 crores for the MBA.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:23 – 00:40:23) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:23 – 00:40:37) And if he was good and got scholarship, then that number would be lower. But assume it’s not, it would be 1.5 crores. His starting salary in a city like New York would still be approximately two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:38 – 00:40:39) That’s a lot.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:39 – 00:40:41) That’s what starting salaries in New York are because remember—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:41 – 00:40:41) Are you sure?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:42 – 00:40:44) Okay, now let’s—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:44 – 00:40:45) I find it difficult to digest.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:45 – 00:40:47) Okay, let me explain. Even if—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:40:47 – 00:40:50) Forty K is a lot of money even from U.S. standards.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:40:50 – 00:41:32) Arre, ढाई करोड़ रुपए की बात करें हम साल के। “तो सुनो तो सही ना, कैसे explanation है?” ढाई करोड़ pocket में नहीं आ रहा है। सुनो, $250,000, however the breakdown would be, is most likely you would have a salary of about $180,000 and $70,000 is going to be your bonus. I’m assuming once again that you’re coming in from a field that I’ve told you, which is STEM and quant heavy.

Okay. Let’s assume you did your finance specialization. This $250,000 could be $350,000 and $450,000 also, by the way. I’ve been quite conservative by telling you $250,000. Out of $250,000, living in a city like New York, how much do you think you’re going to save after you have spent on taxes and living? What comes in your hand is probably less than fifty percent. So maybe hundred K.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:41:32 – 00:41:33) But that’s still a lot of money.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:41:33 – 00:41:34) It is.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:41:34 – 00:41:36) But the person, eight lakh rupees if they’re saving a month.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:41:36 – 00:41:45) “हाँ, but ठीक है ना?” He invested also, no? He put in his crore and a half for his MBA. He put in his time. He put in his opportunity cost, which is losing the salary for the two years.

Is Any Country Predictable?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:41:45 – 00:42:29) See, when you go abroad, the bigger question is also, there’s so much unpredictability that these countries change rules left, right, center. You can choose one country to go to and then they change the entire policy. US, what’s going on, we are all seeing it. Canada introduced study caps. Australia, you were saying it’s comparatively easy, they have changed 9 times the policy, right, in last, I think, just 1 year or 2. Correction, 9 different corrections. So they do, yeah. 9 times they’ve changed.

It’s not predictable. I go in a country with some hope, and then they change. As a student, I am then gone. So which are the most predictable countries which you feel in next 3-4 years they’re going to stay like that?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:42:31 – 00:43:19) First, I think the point which you’re making, which is very important, is don’t make your decisions based on a visa policy. Visa policies are going to keep changing. There is no predictable country. There is no country I can tell you right now.

As I was giving you the Germany example, Germany has opened doors and saying, “Please come, we are happy to take you.” My prediction is this policy is going to change. They will not be able to handle these many international students, not so many from India, and they’re not going to be able to generate as many jobs as they are predicting to. So this policy will change.

I cannot tell you a single country where this is stable. “Please go here, you will have a great future.” There is always an element of risk involved. What we’ve been doing is just measuring risk across different profiles.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:43:19 – 00:43:20) What do you feel about Middle East?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:43:22 – 00:43:27) Middle East is great. I mean, the only thing is the lack of well-known international institutes.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:43:27 – 00:43:32) So all these international institutes are opening their second campuses, just like in Singapore.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:43:32 – 00:43:44) So Australian and UK schools are, if I have to talk about Dubai, you’ve got the NYU Abu Dhabi campus close to Dubai, and then you have a University of Birmingham from the UK which has a campus in Dubai.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:43:44 – 00:43:47) Wollongong, Manchester, I don’t know, but so many.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:43:47 – 00:44:18) Wollongong, Manchester only has certain specific master programs, no undergrad programs. They’re just 2 or 3 names that I can give you there because there is nothing else. India also, people ask me the same question, “But India, I’ve heard a lot of foreign universities are coming here.” Where? Which ones? Please give me a list. I would love to know which ones, because end of the day, as of today, and even if I look in the next 3 years, I don’t have a single top university name to give you. If you want to go to a top university, you have to go study abroad.

The Course Test: Marry Your Field With Data and AI

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:44:18 – 00:45:21) Okay, so the next test is the course test. Okay, everybody keeps going for probably 2 or 3 same kind of courses. Okay, it’s either you have to go for STEM. Not STEM is not even that popular. Let’s say computer science, that’s a buzzword. Second is finance, third is marketing. These are the top 3 where people end up landing whenever they go abroad. They usually choose one of the 3 courses, and we all know that finance is high paying, marketing is less paying.

Usually a lot of marketing people come back and they’re clueless what to do. They’re like headless chicken. Computer science, it was a dream, but recently it has become a nightmare. It’s not that hot as it used to be. So what are the courses today that people can actually choose which help them secure a great job, make some money, and probably increase their chances that they will get some ROI on the investment they’re going to do when they go to study abroad?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:45:22 – 00:46:56) I used to tell people, “Learn Python.” Python is one of the most important computer languages. And I used to tell people, “Learn Python, learn how to code.” Of course, that’s completely outdated because AI can code better than us. Yeah, but learning Python has not changed. Learning Python still helps you debug software. It helps you debug what AI is creating. It helps you understand what AI is creating. Machine learning, you still need to know Python.

Today, if you take any field, let’s take economics, learn behavioral economics, learn econometrics. If you are taking health, bioinformatics. If you’re taking law, law data science, data science itself. If you’re doing psychology, human-computer interaction. There’s a degree, HCI. What are we doing? All we are doing is putting data with your field, which could be any basic field, and you can be secure that even 10 years from now, you’re going to have value.

Because when you go into any job today, you go into any job interview, talk to anyone you want to talk, if you tell them how you are using AI with your work and this is what you can produce, you’ll be valuable. 10 years later also, high chance you’ll still be valuable. When you won’t be valuable is your basic skill, what you were coming with, that has been replaced. It’s probably already gone.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:46:58 – 00:47:08) So you’re telling me that no matter what you’re going to study, add data, computer, AI, tech, even in your basic arts degree?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:47:09 – 00:47:28) Absolutely. Absolutely. If you’re going to be doing graphic designing, and in graphic designing also, you’re going to add AI to it and you’re going to tell me why you are creating a better logo for me than just my Claude can. You still have a job, you still have a contract from me, but show me how you are better than AI or how you can use AI to a minimum.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:47:28 – 00:47:40) So any course is good, or are there specific courses which are high paying when you add certain layers of data and tech to it? It becomes even more interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:47:40 – 00:48:05) Number one, as cliché as it sounds, you have to still follow your passion and enjoy what you do. That advice is evergreen and will never change. What I’m saying is try to see how your skill, what you’re doing, is going to be valuable in the future. Whether it’s going to be behavioral economics, you’re going to enjoy what you’re doing, but is it relevant?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:48:05 – 00:48:08) How do I find relevant? Every year things change.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:48:09 – 00:48:39) Look at what’s happening again in the future. Just go a few years, think 5 years into the future and think, okay, what changed 5 years ago? See what’s moving. For example, you know that comp sci and AI, you know that AI machine learning, you know these fields are taking over. How is your field going to marry that field? Marry both of them together. What is human-computer interaction? It’s understanding today how human beings are going to interact with technology. That field is going on. It’s an ongoing process. It’s not over.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:48:41 – 00:48:42) Interesting. Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:48:42 – 00:49:31) Today, people who want to set up businesses, I have so many kids who come to me for entrepreneurship. And they’re like, “Well, I’m a business student. Why should I learn Python? Why should I learn about ML/AI?” I said, “You need to understand how AI is going to impact your business. Your business would become better if you incorporate AI in it.”

Today, the guy who made Uber or who came up with the concept of disruptive technology for transportation, if he didn’t think that Python can understand surge pricing, and that’s how we make money in this app because of surge pricing, how would he come up with this business idea? Maybe he never coded. Maybe he got 10 coders at that time to code for him, “Code this for me,” but he understood what Python could do for him. Understand today what data, machine learning and AI can do for you, no matter what your business is. And then you would be thinking into the future. That’s the answer.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:49:33 – 00:49:50) Interesting take. So the test to take on a course is, A, is it somewhere related to data or tech or AI? No matter what field you’re studying, you need to marry those.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:49:50 – 00:49:52) If you want to stay relevant, yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:49:52 – 00:49:54) Yes. That’s the number one thing.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:49:54 – 00:50:51) That’s number one. And this is not something I’m saying because I like tech or I like data or I like AI. I set up my website, I set up my entire CRM of leads, of students, of managing processes all on my own. I’m not a CS guy. I don’t have an engineering degree, but it took me just maybe 2 weeks because I had the vision. I knew what to build.

I’m like, “Okay, I want to build this crazy system that can track every student.” A student comes to me, talks to me, a parent talks to me. I have AI listening to every conversation, transcribing every word, feeding it into my own data, giving me insights which maybe I missed. And every student I have, I have one AI agent working for that student. I created this myself. I didn’t need to have any computer science or engineering knowledge. But a field like counseling, psychology, I married data to my own field.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:50:53 – 00:50:59) And someone who could have done this for you or can probably do it better than you, you will be ready to hire them?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:51:00 – 00:51:13) Yes. Come to me with a proposal and show me what better you can do. If you have that vision that I can think of this futuristic thing for your work which could make you even more efficient and help even more kids, I would take that on.

Are Foreign Degrees Portable?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:51:14 – 00:51:16) Will these degrees be portable?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:51:17 – 00:51:17) Portable?

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:51:18 – 00:51:34) How portable degrees are. For example, if somebody is studying in UK, can the same person get job in US? If somebody is studying in Australia, can the same person get job in Europe? Are these degrees global if you pick it up from different, different countries?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:51:34 – 00:51:39) It’s very difficult to study in one country and work in another.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:51:39 – 00:51:42) Even if you study in US, you can’t get jobs in other countries?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:51:43 – 00:52:05) If that US company that you’re thinking of has a branch in those countries, you can still market your degree to those particular companies. End of the day, you need to still get past the visa regulations of the country where you want to work in. Out of all the countries, the US degree does have a little bit more global recognition and global appeal as opposed to other degrees.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:52:05 – 00:52:06) Not even UK or anything?

GCCs: The Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:52:07 – 00:53:11) Not as much. There are hubs: Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai. These hubs are hubs of international companies. You can work there. Let me give you a very, very interesting concept which most people are not aware of. GCCs, the Global Capability Centers.

You remember in the late ’90s, we had BPOs and call centers? What were they? We were just outsourcing manual stuff from developed countries. And it made a lot of financial sense for those companies. That industry exploded quite a bit at that time.

GCCs is basically top companies around the world who are outsourcing intelligent things to India. For example, R&D, AI, products, design, intelligent things. We have 2,100 GCCs in India with a revenue of $100 billion. Employing more than 2.36 million people. That’s an opportunity right now. Right now. That’s a great opportunity.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:53:11 – 00:53:12) Is it predicted or it’s having a big impact?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:53:12 – 00:53:23) It exists right now. You can go online, search for them, and you’d get all the different listings. They’re centered around Bengaluru. They’re centered around Hyderabad, Mumbai, everywhere.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:53:23 – 00:53:24) Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:53:24 – 00:53:43) But this is it. People have to have that drive to go find it. This is such a big opportunity. This is great if you’ve studied abroad, you’ve come back and you’re like, “Well, let me look at what companies are here in India hiring.” They pay well, better than the average employer in India. So your course has to link back to what the GCCs have outsourced.

University Rankings vs Reality

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:53:45 – 00:54:01) Nice. And what universities to study? Because we talked about universities right in the middle a little bit, but tell me rankings versus reality. Now, should a person only go for rankings or a brand name?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:54:02 – 00:55:05) See, rankings constantly change. I don’t give rankings too much importance because a university ranked number 1 next year goes to number 8, number 8 may go to 16. Now, how many numbers will we keep chasing? How will we make our life decisions based on these numbers? How reliable are they to begin with? They may be testing things I’m not concerned with. I may be concerned with, let’s say, how many people are getting employed after this particular course, right?

I use rankings as a measure to understand and map what are the top schools. That is my first test, that what are the top schools, not necessarily a ranking. For reality, I would go and understand the data what these schools are publishing. “Tell me where your kids are going.” I’m not asking you to give me a job. They’re not even going to give you a job because the concept of placements doesn’t exist. We’ll come to that.

But let me understand from your university, did your kids go to these companies because I want to work in those companies? Did they set up these kind of businesses because I want to set up those businesses? What did the kids do? That data I want to collect, and that becomes my reality, not the ranking.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:55:06 – 00:55:08) Interesting. And how do you find those?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:55:08 – 00:55:10) They’re all published on the university websites.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:55:11 – 00:55:13) But university will only publish the good data.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:55:13 – 00:55:31) Now again, this is legal. Universities have to publish the total outcome of what happens in a class. They’re audited. It’s fraud if they don’t, or it’s fraud if they publish something that’s not accurate. You’re asking for a single source of truth.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:55:32 – 00:55:32) Yes.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:55:33 – 00:55:52) The single source of truth is going to be the data that’s given to you by a particular university. And maybe you started with the rankings and you saw the top 50. You’re like, “Okay, I know these are reputable names.” The trust has to come somewhere, and this is where your trust is coming. That, okay, if you’re saying that this is what happens to students after they study at your schools, I trust what you’re saying.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:55:54 – 00:56:10) So even if, let’s say, some metrics and ranking measurements keep changing, and someone who’s at number twenty or number twenty five, and they have shown outstanding results, why are they not coming up in rank?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:56:11 – 00:56:13) So rankings could measure different things. One thing—

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:56:13 – 00:56:18) What are the metrics that decide whether it’s a good ranking university versus bad ranking?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:56:18 – 00:57:15) A very important metric now is the research output that you’re doing. University ranking agencies want to measure, are you publishing papers which are contributing to the scientific community? How many are you publishing? What contribution are you making to different fields within your university? Placements, of course, in terms of where people are going to be working, that comes into play.

Diversity, how many people of different nationalities are you admitting? Then what kind of facilities you have on campus? How much money are you dedicating to maybe R&D or to student satisfaction? How happy are students when they graduate? How are they happy with your college environment? There are so many factors that are used.

So suddenly you see, you’re like, “Yeah, Harvard should be number one for everything.” It’s not. It’s number one for maybe business at the master’s level, but for computer science or AI or something, you probably won’t go to Harvard. You might want to pick an MIT or might want to pick a Caltech.

Why Dr. Karan Gupta Chose Harvard: Brand, Judgment and Network

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:57:17 – 00:57:18) Why did you choose Harvard?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:57:19 – 00:58:36) For me, I had already gone through a traditional MBA. I already had learned about business. I had learned about management. I was applying it to working in my own business, working with my students. I needed motivation. And I felt I was doing the same job, same thing every day. Where was the motivation coming from? You do reach a certain point of, I wouldn’t say boredom, but monotony. It’s monotonous. You just get the same thing again. And that’s why I picked a program.

And Harvard, well, I picked it first for the brand. I was like, “I want to be in the number one school of the world.” And the first thing was brand. Today, India makes the whole chase behind IIMs, IITs. Why? The brand. A Dhirubhai Ambani International School kid, which is one of the best schools in Asia, has a greater chance of getting into a Stanford, MIT. And then that child has a greater chance of getting into McKinsey and Deloitte and whichever company he wants because the brand is carrying forward. True.

Second would be the judgment. Information is free. If today a university thinks they can charge you 3 crores for information, that university is dead. They can’t. But what they can charge you for is judgment.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:58:37 – 00:58:38) What do you mean by judgment?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:58:38 – 00:59:34) In your book, when you said, “Build, Don’t Talk,” you spoke about the same thing, that today children have to learn how to question things. I’m giving you information, but how do you know all this information I’m giving you, which sounds so convincing, is it actually convincing or not convincing? That judgment, who’s going to teach you? Where are you going to get that from?

And critical thinking, critical reasoning, not memorizing: these are the skills that we are going to pay money for. That’s what a good university has to give you. That is the test, “Is my degree even worth it?” is the first test you should ask yourself after the brand. What is my judgment today? Have I got judgment after studying? If you don’t have judgment, I’m sorry, your degree is not worth it.

The Motivation Problem in Today’s Generation

A lot of our generational problems today, and I see that a lot because children and parents come to me with it. I see the motivation. There is very little motivation with the children.

RAJ SHAMANI: (00:59:35 – 00:59:35) Why?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (00:59:36 – 01:00:43) I think this generation is the one which we have given the maximum amount of information, maximum amount of opportunities, but we’ve also confused the hell out of them. Right? We’ve given them so much; we’ve confused them. They don’t know.

In fact, so many kids I talk to, when I talk about AI and the future of AI, I can see the disdain on their face. Their eyes are closing. They’re like, “You know what? Please don’t talk about AI. I’m done.” इतना उनके मन में भर दिया है AI AI AI. They’re like, “बस करो.” I can see it in their eyes.

So I can see parents thinking, “Is the job going to exist in the future?” I’m like, you should be worrying, is AI making your child stupid? They’re using GPT and they’re using Claude for the most basic of stuff. They’ve outsourced their thinking. That’s what you should be worried about. Stop asking me, “Will AI take my child’s job?” First, your child should be capable of getting a job. You don’t want your child to become dumb because of AI. Right? So this motivation, or rather lack of motivation, is what I’m seeing in the generation today.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:00:43 – 01:00:48) What motivation to do what? They don’t want to do anything at all.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:00:48 – 01:01:00) A lot of them are so, I feel, disillusioned with where the future is going. They’re so disillusioned that they feel that why do anything? And that is—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:01:00 – 01:01:02) Anyway, things are going to not be in our favor.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:01:02 – 01:01:53) “We don’t know if the world is going to be even safe by the time we are ten years from now. Who knows what’s happening with geopolitics? Why sit and bother with these things?” Now, of course, children come and tell me this in front of their parents. They’re like, “But Dr. Gupta, these people all did well without a degree. Why are you forcing us to do all these degrees?”

And I’d be like, “Listen, on my fingertips I can count ten people who have not done their education and have achieved tremendous success in their life. What about the millions of dropouts who have done nothing with their lives? वो स्टैटिस्टिक कहाँ है?” So don’t think that without a degree, you’ll not achieve success. Yes. Now we are questioning today what that degree is giving you and if it’s worth it. But if you want to talk about chances of success, you probably will be exposed to a lot more if you’re in an academic environment for most people.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:01:54 – 01:02:30) I also have a simple framework. It’s, if you have clarity and enough proof that you are a very high agency person, then probably no matter which field you are in, you have degree, no degree, whatever you are doing, you will kill it. But if you’re not a high agency person, you want somebody else to push you and you want to then think according to them, you want some direction, university is great because then the education actually teaches you how to think and then teaches you how to become accountable for things, how to become a high agency person, which a lot of people are not born with.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:02:31 – 01:03:16) I agree. So one of the things which we were talking about was, “Can you teach judgment?” I thought about it for a second, and I think you can to a lot of people. Today, if you take case studies, right? And case studies is a fantastic way to learn where I’m telling you what happened in a real company, what was the outcome? And then you and I sit and debate that outcome, and we look at the decisions which were made that led to that outcome. We can, to some extent, hone your judgment skills. Okay, this is how you make a good judgment.

Of course, this is the nature versus nurture issue. Some people are born with it and some people have to be taught. End of the day, it’s a combination. But more and more, we have to train ourselves that this is more of a learning thing. You can learn how to get good chacha.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:03:17 – 01:04:00) I don’t think people are born with it. I feel they’re born in an environment where, as they grow up, because of their mother or father or some relative or the books they have read or the videos they’ve watched or from their classmates or friends or some distant neighbor, you just learn because you were born in that environment. You end up becoming a good learner or someone with good judgment.

Those are the kind of people we call, “Oh, they were born like that.” No, no, they were born in an environment which made them a learner. So if you are not that, then you have to put yourself purposely in an environment where you can learn judgment. So at the end of the day, you learn through your environment. If you’ve not gotten that environment, go to a college and get that environment and the will to learn.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:04:00 – 01:04:25) You should want to do it. If you’re going to just sit thinking magic is going to happen for you, it’s not going to happen. There were people in my class also, well, an executive program typically is not supposed to help you find employment per se, but there were people who were like, “Well, I’ve now got Harvard alumni status. I should be getting jobs. I should be getting things.” Nothing comes to you. You need to go and apply for things, talk to people. Only then it’ll come.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:04:25 – 01:04:26) How much did you pay?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:04:26 – 01:04:32) How much for the program at my time? Beautiful question. $60,000. Or $70,000 at that time.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:04:32 – 01:04:33) And how long was the program?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:04:34 – 01:04:50) The program ran for 6 months in total. On campus, 3 weeks, then at home, and then again 3 weeks on campus. Beautiful program. The first time I applied, I was rejected. They said, “You’re too young, we don’t want you,” because the average age was 32—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:04:51 – 01:04:52) Was 42.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:04:52 – 01:05:15) The average age is 42, and I was 34. And they said, “You can’t get in.” And I’m like, okay, called up the director, spoke to her, explained to her the kind of work I do, the impact of the work, and how ready I am for the program. She took me in for the next term, which started 6 months later, and gave me a scholarship. Unheard of. So my total price was not the price what you’re seeing on the GMP website.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:05:15 – 01:05:20) So right now it’s about $60,000? It’s $80,000. $80,000.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:05:21 – 01:05:22) So 80 lakhs for 6 months. Plus your travel costs.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:05:22 – 01:05:26) Living is included, and you paid probably peanuts. Nice, nice.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:05:27 – 01:05:28) 10,000, 20,000.

The Power of the Harvard Network

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:05:28 – 01:05:36) Do you end up becoming friends with a lot of people who then help you, or because it’s a professional course, so friendships are not very important?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:05:36 – 01:08:14) I think the network is the 3rd test of my degree after judgment and branding. The network is so important. I am not a morning person. I don’t like getting up early. At Harvard, I used to get up at 6:00 AM. So I was in class by 7:00, 7:30, ready for the performance that my professors are going to do today. Finance professors, I felt like I’m sitting in an opera. I don’t like numbers, but they were so good. They made every subject interesting.

And marketing, okay, let’s not talk about Kotler’s 5 theories. No one interested. But let’s talk about what happened in this company. Let’s give you virtual money. You invested. Tell me what that money became. Every subject came to life. That was the value of the faculty.

And talking about people sitting next to you, I enter class and they have name cards, right? My name right in front. Big class of 120 people. I’m sitting right in front. Next to me, there’s someone. On my right, there’s someone. Talking to them. One week I got comfortable with everyone. The following week I enter, they’ve changed my position. I’m somewhere else in class.

Every week they kept changing positions because they wanted to break your comfort zone. They wanted you to network with more people around you so you get to know more people and not just stick with the few set of people that you’ve met right in the beginning. And that was a small transformation, but it was part of really, really networking there.

And we had living groups. So in living groups, we were 8 of us who stayed together. We all had separate rooms and a common living area. And every evening we had to discuss cases. We had to talk about our own businesses. We had to talk about what we learned, what’s failing, help. And that is still alive today. We still have access to each other. We still are talking to each other.

Earlier this year, I want to say something that’s going to blow your mind right now. Earlier this year, I get a call from one of my classmates, Romuald Wadagni, that he has become the president of a country in West Africa called Benin. This is a man who we were sitting with in our classroom. We were having our discussions with in the dining room. We were sitting and having our lunch and our dinners. And this year he has become the president of Benin. That is the kind of network your university should be providing you.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:08:14 – 01:08:16) Are you opening office there now? In Benin?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:08:16 – 01:08:24) Of course I am. I’m going to work on India-Benin relations next. And what’s more interesting? His wife is also from my class.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:08:25 – 01:08:25) Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:08:25 – 01:08:34) He married her. They met at Harvard. So the network is so important. Not just your teachers, the people you’re with.

The WhatsApp Story and the 5 Whys

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:08:35 – 01:08:56) You talked about the WhatsApp story, right? Tell me, when you were in Harvard and you cracked this 100, 120, whatever, what led you to do this? What was the exact problem? At what point you thought this is an idea which could work? Because it’s not very obvious for people to just email to a CEO.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:08:57 – 01:12:35) When I was at Harvard and I was class secretary, over the break, I was like, “You know what? Let’s keep in touch. We are 120 people.” वो time को WhatsApp had 100 people limit in the group, and I’m like, “We are 120. How are we going to keep in touch?” So I said, “Let’s create the group. Not everybody joins the group.” So I created the group. Thirty joined, forty, fifty, eighty, ninety. Now I’m getting tension. People are going to cry, “Why are we not in the group?” And exactly that happened. Hundred joined. And then emails started coming to me, “Why are we not in the group?”

So then we sent an email to the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum. And we said, “Listen, I’m at Harvard Business School. We need a group. We are 120 and only 100 can be in your group as per WhatsApp’s rules.” He replied in 2 hours, “Give me the additional names, I’ll add them in.” And by morning, the group read 120 out of 100. Now, I think in my mind, maybe the response came faster because of the brand, because I mentioned Harvard.

For me, number one is that you have to find a solution. If there is a problem, you cannot just give up. See, even if you get a denial on something, that denial is probably the end of the decision process. It’s not end of the larger process. It’s not end of the negotiation.

So when that WhatsApp thing happened and I was like, “I have to find a way to connect my group.” And second was, I have given a commitment as class secretary that I’m going to put everybody in this group. How can I say those last 20 people are left out? It was also somehow my responsibility. A solution had to be found.

And I always think that if something is not looking right at the face of it, let’s not question the people delivering the information. Let’s go to the source. Let’s go to the policymaker. Who has made this policy and why? Does this policy make sense? I questioned the policy and I still do that.

I have this very interesting way of solving problems, or rather understanding what is the real problem. Because imagine if someone comes today to you and says, “I’m very confused in my career, I don’t know what to do.” I’ll say, let’s look at this 5 Whys solution. It was actually originated in the Toyota production factory in Japan. And the 5 Whys basically is keep asking why till you arrive at the most actionable cause or the most actionable point of the problem.

So if someone says, “I’m very confused with my career, I don’t know what course to do, I don’t know what to do next.” The first thing is why? “Well, because I’m not getting any jobs.” Why? “Because my CV does not have enough prior experience.” Why? “Because my undergraduate education never had any internships and experience.” Why? “Because I joined a program which was very theory in nature.”

Okay, great. Now I have an actionable thing to do. Maybe I need to send you for a master’s degree. Maybe I need to pick a master’s that will specifically allow you to get work experience, like a co-op program, while you’re studying and working, or a program which has internships, or a program that gets you a good job later. So you can always reach that bottom.

So with the WhatsApp example also, I mean, why can’t I add people? Well, because the group doesn’t allow it. The WhatsApp doesn’t allow it. Why don’t they allow it? Maybe they have a capacity problem. Why? Maybe because the CEO knows. Let’s ask him. And that’s why I emailed him.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:12:38 – 01:12:44) It’s called root cause analysis, right? That’s what the process is, the 5 Whys. Yeah. Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:12:45 – 01:12:47) It really works so well in life for so many things.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:12:47 – 01:12:48) You do that for everything?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:12:48 – 01:12:54) For a lot of things, especially when it comes to students, to understand what is their real problem, and parents, because there’s a lot of frictions.

The SSF Framework: Security, Status, Freedom

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:12:54 – 01:13:00) What’s the biggest common pattern that you’ve seen? What is a common problem for everyone?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:13:01 – 01:13:02) I think the common problem—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:13:02 – 01:13:02) Tell me the last why.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:13:03 – 01:13:23) The last why? The last why is people have not introspected enough. They have not really understood what is it they want. That confusion is coming from because of societal pressure or because someone is saying, “Do something.” I use the SSF framework, which I developed myself.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:13:23 – 01:13:23) What is it?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:13:24 – 01:15:09) The SSF is security, status, freedom. I feel all fights that originate in my counseling room between parents and students are all centered around SSF. When a parent is saying, “I want a top university. I want a university or a degree or better engineering.” “यही करना है.” Parent is chasing security. If a student is saying, “But I want to be free,” or “I don’t want to do something so hard. I want to have fun,” he’s chasing freedom.

Society is asking, “Which university are you going to go? बेटा कहाँ पढ़ रहा है?” Parents want to say, “My child is in Boston, my child is in New York.” They are chasing status. When everyone is chasing different things, so the fight is never about the university. It’s not about is Oxford better than… security, and parents would always want that.

I had done actual research with 801 student-parent pairs, and that research paper is going to be published soon. In that, the results were so surprising that yes, it’s true that parents did chase security, parents chased status. On the freedom matrix, parents and students were aligned. A lot of parents did want their children to be free as well. That was a very interesting revelation. But yes, because security and status dominate the conversation, the fights originate there.

How to Calculate the ROI of Studying Abroad

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:15:11 – 01:15:40) See, all these frameworks, all these things, I know the country, I know the course, the things that we spoke about, money is an important part. That’s where we started. Right? Is there some kind of ROI calculator or something that you can teach us live which helps a student decide if that person is going to put X, what are the chances they’re going to make 10x?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:15:43 – 01:18:02) So should we try to pen it down? If we have to think of an ROI. Okay, what are the first factors that we’re going to think of before we add in our equation? Let’s assume that you’re a master’s kid who’s finding a job. You’re going to think of, “Well, what is the kind of job that I’m going to be getting?” If you’re an undergrad kid, you may put more emphasis on the quality of your education. When I say quality, we are talking about maybe your judgment, maybe your transformation, maybe the network you create, correct?

If we have to sit and quantify this, I would say that your ROI would be your job, career, business, whatever we decide that is. Let’s call that X, okay? This would be the first part because this is what the purpose of your education, purpose of everything is, along with your personal transformation which is going to be Y.

If the sum of these 2 is your ROI, I think it’s too simplistic and I think it’s an error when people say that ROI should equal to tuition and how much am I earning per year? Tuition plus living expenses, and then my job salary should be so much. Let’s divide that by the number of years it takes me to earn my money back.

This formula may work for you in India. It may work for you if you’re going for an IIM or you’re going to an SP Jain, or if you’re going to ISB in Hyderabad, you’re going to any good school in India. Let’s use this formula. And it makes sense from a parent’s point of view because we have the concept of placements.

This concept of placement doesn’t exist outside India. The onus of finding a job is on the student. Universities want to teach a student to be responsible enough to find a job. They have career management centers, not placement offices. See the title difference. We don’t call it a placement cell. In India, it’s called a placement cell. The university takes the onus of placing you.

Now, depending on the university, they may not be able to place you in your dream job or the job which gives you so much money. For them, it’s more important, “Let me give 100% placement, I’ll get my next batch of students.” Outside India, a career management center, there’s no limit to what kind of a job you can get.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:18:02 – 01:18:02) That.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:18:03 – 01:18:39) They will train you with interviews. They’ll help you refine your resume. They’ll connect you with alumni who are working in institutes. They’ll make introductions to companies for you. So they’ll help you, but all this is driven by you. This is you who’s taking that leap forward that “I’m going to go get a job somewhere.”

So now, when we plug in this formula, the Indian formula of tuition plus living expenses equals to salary, divided or multiplied by number of years, whatever, does not work. We have to add in job, career, business as one part, quality of my education and what my personal transformation is my second part.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:18:41 – 01:18:41) Fair.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:18:42 – 01:18:44) This is completely live. I haven’t even thought about this, which is good.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:18:45 – 01:18:49) I like this. I like this as long as—

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:18:49 – 01:18:51) And would you add any other factor in?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:18:55 – 01:20:45) No, I would just add in a factor that a lot of people… See, I’m a very anti-degree person, okay? So you also have to take that in mind. But I place high amount on exposure and your ability to figure out things, to live alone, to network, to build this. All of these things which you learn, you don’t put a price tag on that.

So maybe year 1, your salary is an entry-level salary, but because you’ve learned all these things in last 2-3 years of your university, year 5, you end up making a lot more. Because all these things which you learned in universities, which became your personality, you ended up doing that for 5 years. And those skills, which are you just becoming a high agency person, an extra lively person, a good connector, all these little leadership qualities in you, they all got compounded.

And 5 years later, now it’s showing in some other form or on the other part of your personality, which will help you make way more money than your entry-level job. So the math that you do, X number of salary and then Y number of years, doesn’t hold true because someone who goes to a s***ty place doesn’t learn these skills, doesn’t know how to actually path his or her way in the world.

Doesn’t network, doesn’t have an alumni network, doesn’t understand reaching out to people and become resourceful. They don’t know. They might start because of a brand or tag or something. They might start with higher salary, but 10 years later they will be much behind and you’ll be much ahead. So that factor you should add.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:20:46 – 01:20:50) Absolutely right. And that’s the part which is highly difficult to quantify.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:20:50 – 01:20:52) Exactly. And it’s an invisible part, right?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:20:52 – 01:21:40) And that is why people don’t put a price tag. And people come with, “What’s the ROI? What am I going to get?” How can you quantify the leadership? How will you quantify that judgment which you have now learned because of your education, which 10 years later, the business you created, was that one spark? Your teacher had said something in class that sparked something in you. How do you quantify that part?

And that’s why I put it as a variable as X and one variable as Y, because X can be the financial part. But that Y variable is what you need to be able to do. Exactly. Most people don’t get this because for most people, see, they also come in with a place of, let’s say, limited resources, or they’re not giving that importance to… At the end, they see that, “I’m buying this particular education product. If I’m buying this product, what am I getting from this product?” And hence, they need to break it down.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:21:41 – 01:21:44) This, by the way, all of these things you can learn on the streets as well.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:21:44 – 01:21:48) You can. Education is free. Information is free. And I said this before that—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:21:48 – 01:22:00) And all these skills, the Y factor, you can be a very street-smart person. You don’t need to go to a fancy university for that. You can learn it on the streets. You go to a big city, be the smallest fish, and then learn how to become a big fish.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:22:01 – 01:22:40) What if you don’t have that drive? Then you go to a good university and that good university gets you that drive out there. What you’re saying makes sense for someone who says that, “Okay, I’m very driven. I’m Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani and I’m coming into this city and I’m going to make something for myself. I don’t need no education,” because the man had the drive, the man had vision, and he had the execution power on it.

How many people today have that without handholding? So university is handholding them. Fair enough, because the end product may be great. So simplistic way to say, “Okay, you don’t need education, you can achieve everything,” but put discipline to it, get to a good university, you’re multiplying your chances of success.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:22:41 – 01:23:02) I’m not debating you on that. I’m just saying there’s another way. If you can’t get to a big university, don’t think that you’re done. You can make your way and you can be way better or way bigger than anyone who has gone to the top universities in the world. You probably might end up hiring them if you’re a highly driven, motivated person with clarity and you have an execution power.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:23:02 – 01:24:21) Sometimes the job of a good counselor is to say that, and I say that to people, that sometimes you don’t need another degree or you don’t need to go to another university. You need to work on yourself. There are people who cannot afford even close to what we are talking about, right? Not the 3 crore figure, not the 1 crore figure, not the 50 lakhs, not the 25, not the 15, none of those figures.

I get messages from people from my foundation also. I give them skills, “Okay, let’s do this quick online course. It’ll give you a skill. You can get a job somewhere and maybe you can transform it into a business later for more earning potential.” It’s not necessary always that you have to spend so much to achieve that. If you’re driven, let’s find you a course.

Our government has so much going on though. The government AI program where people are getting money if you’re doing an AI project. Undergrads, I believe, are getting almost a lakh of rupees. Master’s students almost 2 lakhs. And PhD students 70,000 to 80,000 per month and a 2 lakh research grant. All this is part of the government scheme to promote people who want to do AI projects. There’s the apprenticeship training program, NATS 2.0. There are so many programs which people are missing that the government is paying you to skill you. You’re missing that opportunity right there.

Education Loans and Funding Options

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:24:22 – 01:24:26) How much can be funded by loans, education loan?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:24:26 – 01:25:27) So out of 1.5 crores, our state banks are very, very liberal and very eager to give students loans. And a lot of the state and the private banks now can give you loans of up to a crore of rupees, sometimes even higher, as long as it’s not higher than 80% of your total tuition fees and living expenses. Also, most of these loans are guaranteed.

Now, one thing which is very interesting is if you are going to a top university, there are companies that give you cosigner-free loans. What they’re telling you essentially is that, “We believe so much in you that you’ve gotten into this top school, you’ve got this brand stamped on you, that tomorrow we know you’re going to do something great with your life, whether it’s a good job or your own business. We’re lending you your entire education fee at an interest rate, and we know you’ll pay it back. We are taking a promise that you’ll pay it back. We’re not asking you for any proof, any guarantee, any security.” That’s how much confidence they have in you that they’re going to be paying your money back.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:25:28 – 01:25:30) If you get admission in a top college.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:25:30 – 01:25:33) Yeah. This only works if you’re going to top colleges.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:25:35 – 01:25:40) Because nobody is going to fund your state education. No. People are going to fund your Harvard education. Correct.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:25:40 – 01:25:44) Even banks, when they’re giving you loans, they want to know which course are you going for.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:25:44 – 01:25:44) Of course.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:25:44 – 01:25:49) Banks also put a judgment. “Is this guy going to get a job to pay the loan back?”

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:25:49 – 01:25:53) Well, let’s say you pointed out a state university. Who will fund that?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:25:55 – 01:27:31) Some banks will fund a state school. Okay, private lenders are not going to give you a cosigner-free loan because it’s a state school. But if you go to your private banker and tell them it’s a recognized university and a recognized course, they’ll give you the money. See, money, in my opinion, should not stop you from studying abroad.

Today you have, at the graduate level, teaching assistantships and research assistantships. Both are part of something called graduate assistantships, where you work with a professor or a teacher for 20 hours a week. They pay for your tuition and they give you a stipend for your monthly expenses. Your entire education can be free if you get a TA or an RA.

You have need-based financial aid. So in some schools, private schools, your Ivy Leagues, you fill a form giving all your family assets, your family income, family expenses, and you demonstrate need that “I cannot afford to pay this cost.” If they admit you in a need-blind process, they pay for everything.

Then you have loans, as we’re talking about, and then certain opportunities that people don’t even know of or use. For example, the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, besides paying for your tuition, €1,400 a month. The Tata Cornell Scholarship, the JN Tata Scholarship. There are so many individual scholarships. India has a National Overseas Scholarship which most people don’t know, but it’s for lower income and certain communities. So India also has certain funding opportunities. I truly believe that funding should not stop you from going abroad.

Scholarship Hacks and Profile Building

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:27:31 – 01:27:41) Tell me one more thing, another test is scholarship. Will a person get scholarship or no? What are the hacks to get a scholarship? Can everybody get scholarship?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:27:41 – 01:27:41) They can.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:27:42 – 01:27:43) So what are the hacks to get scholarship?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:27:43 – 01:28:25) Okay. Now again, when you talk about scholarships, there’s a wide, wide variety of scholarships that you need to look into. There’s the merit-based, which is solely based on your merit, how good you are at your academics or your testing, etc. Let’s assume that we are not. We move to the next one, which is need-based, where we’re going to fill forms showing your family’s income, expenses, assets, obligations, and there are universities who will match the need.

I have people who have said, “We need 95-98% need-based funding.” And if they got in, the university said, “98% is yours, you can pay $2,000 and come.” So $100,000 fee, people paid almost nothing.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:28:26 – 01:28:28) But how can I get that?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:28:28 – 01:28:37) To get a merit-based scholarship, the trick is you need to get admission. To get admission, you need to have a brilliant profile. If you don’t have that brilliant profile, you’re not going to get admission.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:28:39 – 01:28:48) But are there some hacks around it? Can I get a scholarship in one university, or maybe I apply to universities where I get scholarships? Is there some way around it?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:28:48 – 01:29:43) 100%, yes. So we talked about merit-based and need-based. What we didn’t talk about is identifying those universities. So there are universities which are known… Not every university gives need-based aid, and not every university gives merit-based aid. You select the right university.

So that is a very important part of even counseling a child, that if this is your need, if you tell me, “Listen, I can only go if I get scholarship,” I will select universities which will give you funding. So I know that, “Okay, there’s a 90% chance this child is going to get funding from this university.” I will recommend that university to you. So selection is a hack. Select the right university, number one.

Now, once you get that scholarship, also the hack, if you want to increase the scholarship, is scholarship matching. So we show one university that “This university has given me a higher scholarship, please match it.” We make the universities bid against each other also to get student funding. It’s not unheard of. It’s actually quite common now.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:29:44 – 01:29:47) Interesting. And I think the good student will get the bidding.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:29:47 – 01:29:53) Always. Now that is not negotiable. You are a good student, the world is your oyster. We have so many options.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:29:54 – 01:29:56) Can an average student come to you and you can make that person a good student?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:29:57 – 01:30:00) Always. Profile building. Profile building is so important. Now listen, let me—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:30:00 – 01:30:06) But everybody can do profile building then. Be flowery. At the end of the day, the student has to perform.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:30:06 – 01:32:17) But let me explain how it works. An initial selection in most places will start with your academics and your testing, okay? That itself will allow us to understand what universities to target. Now let’s say we are targeting the A group. We’ve been speaking about that. Let’s say you’re targeting the B group of universities. Once your initial selection is done and everybody is put on our table and we are all studying profiles, what I do is, just imagine 3 boxes.

The first box is the box which shows me you’re capable. Leadership, sports, debates, drama, Model United Nations, theater, acting, outdoor activities, scuba diving, hiking, skiing, chess, whatever, right? A nice box shows me that you’re capable of doing so many activities.

The second box shows me that you’re credible with your major. A research paper that you’ve written and published in a nice, well-known Scopus-indexed journal, articles that you’ve published in other journals, internships that you’ve done, online courses that you’ve taken. It shows me that you’re credible when it comes to the major.

And the third box is this fun passion project, is one thing that defines you, maybe a startup, maybe an NGO. I had this girl who learned judo for 3 years, and when we sat, we were like, “What do you care about?” And she’s like, “Women empowerment and women’s safety.” And I’m like, “Okay, then maybe we should use judo to teach underprivileged women self-defense.” And that became her memorable activity, the third box.

So when your profile spans across these 3, A, it should not look like 3 different children. It’s one person. That’s important. The coherency between the boxes is important. But let’s get your coherency right, and you will get into not only a university which we are aiming, but you’ll get scholarship from that university because this is your real profile. This is the narrative that we are spinning. Undergraduate, graduate, PhD, the boxes will differ, but the thought is the same. Coherency, showing your capability, credibility, and how memorable you are. Interesting.

The Visa Test

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:32:17 – 01:32:22) Coming to, let’s say, we spoke about money. Talk about visa.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:32:23 – 01:32:24) What about visas?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:32:24 – 01:32:28) Everything about visa. So that’s a big test to go, right?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:32:29 – 01:32:30) The visa test.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:32:30 – 01:32:37) You can try to be like, “I want to go to this country and that country, and I want to do this and that,” and then the big monster comes in.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:32:37 – 01:32:55) See, I’ll give you the bottom line right in the beginning. Don’t make your decisions, don’t make your entire life based on an existing visa policy because that can change. You cannot make your decision of where to study and what to study based on that visa policy. That’s the headline. That’s what you should be focusing on.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:32:55 – 01:33:04) But so many people who get in the courses, everything’s done. They still get their visas rejected. U.S. visa in particular is extremely hard to get.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:33:05 – 01:33:05) It is.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:33:05 – 01:33:11) So what are two, three things which a visa officer is watching? Or is secretly judging you on?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:33:13 – 01:33:26) So when it comes to visas, and again, what I’ve been seeing, and when we’re talking about rejection, this is my personal opinion. I’m seeing that if you’re going to a good university, your visa rejection chances are under one percent.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:33:26 – 01:33:26) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:33:26 – 01:34:35) Right. Ninety nine percent you’re going to get your visa. When you go in front of a visa officer and he sees your I-20 for the U.S. and he’s like, “Whoa, you’re going to Cornell, Columbia, you’re going to NYU,” you’re in. An officer needs a reason to deny you. Then you have to really have messed up your interview if you’re going to get denied for an Ivy League or a top school.

When an officer sees you’re going to Wichita State University or some other random school, they’re going to be like, “Really? Do you know where Wichita is? Do you know this city? Do you know Kansas? Do you know anything about the geography? Why have you chosen this university?” The student will fumble. He will not be able to answer the question. His visa will be denied.

Now, and again, my analysis here is the rejections, what we are seeing is a correction. US, what it’s doing in my opinion is they are giving visas to the best. They want the best. People who are going to average universities, community colleges are not getting visas. That is what is happening. And you will see that in a couple of years because the government is very clear. They want the best of the best. And when they come there, and they assimilate into the entire system, let them get jobs and let them stay back.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:34:35 – 01:34:47) But why have they started checking your social media profiles? So now they’ve started this, right? For five years, your profile needs to be public. There are a lot of people who can’t have a private Instagram or social media profile.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:34:47 – 01:34:48) You cannot.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:34:48 – 01:34:49) Why?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:34:49 – 01:34:53) See, why do they want to check your public profile? I’m going to tell you something very interesting here.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:34:53 – 01:34:54) Okay.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:34:54 – 01:35:50) The U.S. government policy is very clear. They don’t want people who are anti-American. They don’t want people who have posted things which are putting the American government and the American policies in a bad light. They don’t want people who are going to be potential troublemakers on campus, who are going to come on campus, you’ve come to study, but you’re creating protests for issues which may or may not be related to you. Okay, that’s their logic.

Now, let’s bring that back into our own country out here today. You tell me, if we have foreign students coming to India, coming on our campuses to study and creating protests and creating law and order issues, I promise you the first thing India would do is deport those children back where they’ve come from because we have to protect our country, our sovereignty, our government policies. The US is doing the exact same thing. How is this different? But you have to understand in our context as well.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:35:50 – 01:35:58) But there’s freedom of speech. The land is known for that. So people can have different sense. We are not—

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:35:58 – 01:35:59) We don’t have freedom of speech?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:36:00 – 01:36:56) No, I’m saying US. We’re talking about US specifically right now. India is not very harsh on those visa policies, by the way, at this point, right? So I’m talking about the country which is harsh. So US is known for, you are a free person, you can criticize whoever you want, you can criticize the nation, you can criticize the government, you can criticize the president, and you can be open about it. Yeah, right.

So that’s the personal side of things. Yet a person who can be against a policy of a particular president, and yet that person wants to study in the best college in the world because that person is not doubting that that university which is in US is the best. That’s why that person’s studying. Now after going there, he or she might criticize some policies or some actions which the president is taking. What’s wrong in that?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:36:56 – 01:37:16) But see, this is exactly what happened at Columbia, which is one of the world’s best universities. There were foreign students who were protesting against the Israel-Palestine war that was going on, right? And they were the ones who did get into trouble because the government is like, “You are a foreign student in my country, you’ve come here to study, why are you sitting and protesting about issues that don’t concern you?”

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:37:16 – 01:37:17) Go back down.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:37:17 – 01:37:25) “Please go back to your country.” Now, whether this is right or wrong, I mean, I’m not sitting in that position to judge, right? I’m explaining why that policy exists.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:37:25 – 01:37:33) This government saying that, “If you are a US citizen, great, criticize us. But if you are some XYZ random country citizen, don’t come to our country and criticize us.” Is that the thing?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:37:33 – 01:38:13) When your purpose of coming to my country is to study, come and study. You’re a student. Why are you getting pulled into things which don’t concern you? India, we’re talking about India today. OCI cardholders also who are going to come are basically foreign nationals, and you’re going to come here and criticize India. The Indian government is also doing the same thing.

Now the difference is, yes, the OCI people whose OCI visas were revoked because they had problems with the current government, they have been to court. Many of them got their visas restored. US, they did the same thing. They went to court and many of them got their visas restored as well. So the same thing happened.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:38:13 – 01:38:13) Interesting.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:38:14 – 01:38:35) We are living in a world where every country is nationalist. And every country is voting for their strong leaders. End of the day, whoever the US leader is, the people have got him there. Our Indian leader, our people have got him there. We are voting for this. We want this. Everybody wants to protect their own countries. No one wants to see a foreigner coming to their country and creating problems.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:38:36 – 01:38:59) No, which I agree with, but not a lot of students go with an intention of creating ruckus. Go there to study, then they study properly, and in middle of it they feel something very deeply against an issue, and then they protest around it. So those students should not be penalized just because they feel something against a particular issue.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:39:00 – 01:39:25) If they’re going to have protests and they’re going to disrupt their own education, my advice is keep this to yourself. There’s no need to go to campus, make posters, create a big scene. For what are you doing all this? You’ve gone there to study. You’ve gone to make a name for yourself. You’ve gone to learn something. You have a political problem, come back to your country. Let’s talk about it. Why are you going to a foreign country and doing it?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:39:26 – 01:39:38) So let’s say this is still a thing which people do after going there. Okay. Before they go there, okay, what are 2, 3 things which a student should not do so that they get the visa approved?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:39:39 – 01:40:14) If you are a person who has very strong political views and you love to post those political views on your social media and you love to criticize other governments’ policies, then don’t think of going to the US because you’re not going to get your visa. It’s as simple as that. Why beat around the bush here? Let’s be clear, you don’t belong there. Be in a country that welcomes your views. Go to Europe. Europe doesn’t have a problem. Go and protest on campuses there. US has a problem. Don’t go. UK also does not have a problem. They also don’t check. Happily, they’ll take you. More than 90% visa approval rate. Stay in India.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:40:14 – 01:40:19) So that’s the only thing? The political views? Yeah. What are the other things they should not do?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:40:19 – 01:40:27) The thing is, I so far have never encountered a student who has been denied a visa because of political views.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:40:27 – 01:40:27) Never.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:40:27 – 01:40:29) So this is more a warning.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:40:29 – 01:40:36) But they can’t tell. Maybe they’re rejecting them for something and they won’t tell you on face. They’ll give you some other reason, brush it under the carpet.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:40:36 – 01:41:14) I don’t think the US needs to do that. I think they’ll tell you, “Oh, you have a problem with our policies? We’re not giving you a visa.” They don’t need to answer to anybody. So why would they be polite with you and tell you, “नहीं नहीं, I’ll not tell you the real reason.” They’ll tell you on your face, “I’m not giving you a visa because I don’t like what you said politically. Do what you want to do. Go.”

What will you do? You want to come to the world’s number one country of AI research, tech? You want to get access to Microsoft, Google, etc.? Then behave yourself, come study, get your job, and be happy with your life. Once you become a citizen, let’s start protesting, right? But not now. That’s how the system is. We got to call a spade a spade out here.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:41:14 – 01:41:18) Fair, fair. Smaller countries can’t do that. US can.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:41:18 – 01:41:23) US, they can and they are, which is fair.

Agents vs Counselors: The Study Abroad Scams

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:41:23 – 01:41:36) Okay, tell me, there’s a big fake visa, fake university letter, all that scam which goes on. There’s an agent in middle and they scam you. What are the scams which happen in this world?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:41:37 – 01:42:23) Oh Lord! In our country and possibly around the world, people confuse a counselor and an agent. A counselor is somebody who works with your child, understands what your child’s strengths are, what your child’s weaknesses are, what the right program is, what the right university is. They were doing exercises like we were doing, trying to understand where your career would go, what kind of future, what kind of course.

An agent is a contractor of a university. An agent’s job is to send you to that university. There’s a fiduciary relationship between that agent and that university. And what will blow your mind is how the system works.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:42:23 – 01:42:24) Tell me.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:42:24 – 01:43:30) A university has an aggregator, the aggregator has an agent, the agent has a sub-agent who’s then dealing with possibly a family sitting in Mumbai. So when someone says, “My counseling is free,” free for whom? People are getting paid on all these different levels. So there is no such thing as free counseling. That’s what agents do.

Now, again, to clarify, I’m not saying all agents are bad and all counselors are good, because you can have a bad counselor and a good agent. What I’m saying is there should be transparency of who is paying the person who’s advising you to go abroad and study, and what is the financial incentive.

Today, if an agent is getting paid by 5 universities, will he recommend university number 6? Why? There’s no incentive. No one’s paying him. 5 are paying him. Let’s recommend 5. The danger is now a good child with a good profile who’s got everything going for him, that child is now going to this agent who’s sending him to a substandard university because he’s getting paid there. It’s a clear problem.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:43:31 – 01:43:37) So does it ever happen that the university doesn’t even exist and students land up there?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:43:37 – 01:44:47) I’ve heard of such cases, but those cases are harder now because the consulates and embassies are vetting visas. So in all developed countries, they’re getting official confirmation from universities and only then issuing visas. Earlier, these things could happen because there was lack of communication between a university and an embassy. Now things are connected. You can’t go down that route now.

What can happen is there are universities, let’s say in the US, who have something called CPT. CPT is basically permission to work from the day you get into your course if that work is central to your degree, and hence it exists. There are some universities which will just give you CPT and allow you to go work elsewhere. That scam is also now being closed. That loophole is being closed.

So there were agents who would say, “Hey, go to this university,” and your real intention is not to study. Your intention really is to go work, and not proper work in terms of skilled work rather, but just go work randomly because you have a better life abroad than what you have back in India. Those scams are now shutting because countries are becoming smarter. They don’t want people to just come and hang around and take jobs that locals could do.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:44:47 – 01:45:22) I heard this used to happen in Europe, Italy, Germany, etc. That an agent here would show them dreams of XYZ University, “It’s big, this and that,” send the kid there. Then the kid finds that, “Oh, I have ended up in some very small village in middle of Italy and the university is this much and there’s nothing.” People don’t even speak English here and they all speak Italian apart from that one professor whose class you’ve ended up into, and it’s a bulls*** university.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:45:22 – 01:45:23) That happens.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:45:23 – 01:45:30) I mean, and how do you vet that? How can a person not land in this situation?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:45:30 – 01:46:44) See, number one is when you’re going to an agent who’s not charging you money, that itself should be your first red flag. Second is, fine, a UK survey showed that 55% of UK universities use agents. So fair enough, the business exists, agents exist. If it’s going to be free for you, go to the university’s website, study it, make a call to the university, find alumni of that university. That’s your biggest source of information. And understand firsthand what this person is saying about their education. That will ensure that you’re not getting fooled.

How can you make such an important decision of spending so much time and so much money and going to a place you’ve never heard of in the middle of nowhere just because your education here is not good?

The Problem With Medical Degrees From Abroad

Now, there are so many people who are going to Eastern Europe for medicine. They have to because they’re not getting admission into seats in India. They’re not getting admission here, so they have to go. Now, their problem is, is the degree recognized by the Medical Council of India? When they come back to India, are they able to practice? Then we open a whole different can of worms for that. And if you go to the why part, it’s because of scarcity. We don’t have enough here. We don’t have capacity.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:46:46 – 01:46:48) What’s happening to those students?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:46:48 – 01:46:52) The medical ones? Many of them are in a problem.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:46:52 – 01:46:52) Jobless?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:46:52 – 01:46:57) Many of them are jobless. They’ve got to take on paramedical jobs where licensing is rather loose.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:46:58 – 01:47:04) Or can they open up a clinic in India and just write that “XYZ doctor from Ukraine”?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:47:04 – 01:47:09) Sure, if they want to get arrested and be put in jail, yeah. Otherwise, no, legally no.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:47:09 – 01:47:10) No, legally no, they can’t.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:47:10 – 01:47:22) No, to call yourself a medical doctor, you need to be recognized. Your program needs to be recognized by the MCI. You’re misrepresenting yourself otherwise. So that’s an important thing.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:47:22 – 01:47:24) And the body doesn’t recognize these people.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:47:24 – 01:47:33) So MCI does recognize certain institutes, but you also have to take our own entrance test when you come back to India. And many of the students fail that test. It’s not an easy test.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:47:36 – 01:47:39) “यार कैसे होगा फिर उनका?” What will happen with them?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:47:39 – 01:47:54) Many of them, like I said, have to do paramedical stuff which is not in the mainstream of medicine, which doesn’t require licensing. Work with private hospitals in lower positions, which doesn’t need you to be certified as a doctor. There’s always a way out. There’s always hope in life. I would never ever tell you that.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:47:54 – 01:47:56) But the dream of becoming doctor just ended.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:47:56 – 01:48:03) “नहीं, the dream छोटा करना पड़ेगा।” वो इतना बड़ा dream से you will have to come down so much because you made that decision. Now, when you make—

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:48:03 – 01:48:05) But they didn’t know at the time when they were making the decision, right?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:48:05 – 01:48:22) They didn’t know, as in, was it not your own responsibility to do homework and find that out? Today someone comes and tells you, “यार, go to this university, बहुत अच्छी job मिल जाएगी।” Okay, go do your homework, speak to ten people, then go. No, if you’re going to spend that time and effort, then I’m sorry, you’re to blame.

Getting a Job Abroad: The MATCH Strategy

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:48:23 – 01:48:38) Fair. And when you do all of this, people get in the university. It’s great. We were talking about jobs. Earlier, I was reading that even if you do everything right, it’s very uncertain to get a job.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:48:39 – 01:48:40) There’s never a hundred percent guarantee.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:48:41 – 01:48:48) Can you be sure shot that you end up actually getting a job? Will you actually ever get a job with surety?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:48:49 – 01:49:28) One hundred percent? If you’re looking at that number one zero zero, answer is no. There is no one zero zero in life. Your visa is not one zero zero. Admission is not one zero zero. By the way, we’re talking about 4 different actors here. Your admission is decided by your university. Your visa is decided by your consulate or your embassy. Your job is decided by your company. And your PR is by a government policy. Trying to bundle all 4 into one decision is not going to happen. These are 4 separate decisions made by 4 different entities. Don’t bundle them. And there’s no 100% on either of the 4.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:49:29 – 01:49:32) There are different strategies for all 4 of them. Absolutely.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:49:33 – 01:49:50) That is where the roadmap comes in, the plan comes in. How are you going to target all 4? But to say that any of those 4 decisions that “I want 100%,” I’m sorry, nobody can give you. If anyone is giving you that guarantee, run, run as fast as you can, because it doesn’t exist.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:49:50 – 01:50:07) But what should a student do in their year, from month 1, which increases their chances of getting a job? Because a lot of people, when they are applying for a job after 2 years of doing their master’s, they realize, “Oh s***.”

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:50:08 – 01:51:26) I’m going to answer this by telling you the story which you’re really going to relate to. So there was this kid again who was in the first year of college, and he’s like, “You know what, one of the ways which I’m going to really stand out later when I apply for my main jobs is showing that I have prior experience.” And how are you going to get prior experience? By networking. Networking is your key today.

That boy was in a vertical campus in a university in New York. Now, why vertical? Because New York doesn’t have space. And when it’s a nice big green campus, there are many on-campus jobs that you can apply for. So everyone told him that, “Listen, you’re in a vertical campus, there are no jobs.” He’s like, “We’ll see.”

Prints out his resume, goes to the 17th floor. From the 17th floor, keeps going floor to floor, introducing himself, handing the resume out everywhere. By the time this boy reached the 4th floor, he got a call back. “Please come up. There is a vacancy. We’d like to talk to you.” Interviewed in person. Next day, he had a job from there because he had that conviction. “नहीं, मैं करके ही दिखाऊंगा। I want a job.”

Now when you’re going with such strong conviction from day one as a student, you go start networking. “I’m going to get my job.” What are people saying? “On-campus jobs are not available.” “Let me go try. 17 floors, 3 offices per floor. I’ll try every single floor.” He landed up with his job.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:51:27 – 01:51:33) So you’re telling that from day one, students should print out their resumes and just keep giving to people?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:51:33 – 01:51:36) Well, not just keep… There’s a strategy behind it.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:51:36 – 01:51:47) What’s the strategy? You keep saying networking, networking. What’s the strategy behind networking? You just don’t go to random strangers and be like, “Hey, Amaraj! Give me a job.” No, it can’t work like that.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:51:48 – 01:53:45) I’m going to tell you exactly what is the best strategy that now students have to start using if they really, really want to find employment. There it is. So the strategy what they use has to be something called what I like to call MATCH.

First is M, map the market. Let’s say there are 20, 30 jobs that you want. Put those 20, 30 jobs in AI, okay, whether Claude, GPT, whatever you use, and find out the common skills. What are the skills that all these jobs have in common?

Then A, assemble your evidence. Take your resume, put it back in that AI. Don’t say, “Fix my resume.” That is the most ridiculous prompt you can give. Find out what skills are missing. Do you need to learn Python? Do you need to learn some kind of finance? Do you need to learn something about product management? What is that skill you are missing?

Then T is target the entire ecosystem of companies that are there. You may have thought of 20, 30, but ask, “Okay, what are the smaller companies? Have I missed any segments in this domain where the jobs are available?”

Then the C part is combining networking with AI. So for example, use AI to find out where alumni are working of your university, where people are working, find out information about them, what did they do to succeed. Do intelligence on them. Don’t use AI to send an email to them because everybody can read these emails which are written by AI. Write the email yourself, but connect your networking with AI.

And H, finally, hone your skills. Use AI to train you for interviews. AI can please you as much as you like. Tell it, “Stop.” Tell it, “Listen, give me a critical analysis. What are my problem points? What are the issues that I have? Have tough interviews with me.” This is what I call a proper strategy, the MATCH strategy, to find your job.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:53:46 – 01:53:50) And you do this over and over again, and you end up getting a job.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:53:50 – 01:54:31) So this is not sending hundred resumes to random companies and just hoping “कि चलो lottery लग गई एक में।” That’s not going to happen in today’s world. Networking we keep saying. But faceless networking is now dying. In the world of AI, it’s very easy again to send all these resumes, to send all these emails. But at the end, a human only gives a human a job. You have to understand that.

Meeting people, going out there, networking means letting someone remember your face. You’re not just a PDF, you’re not just an email. If you don’t meet people, if you’re not going to go out, you’re not going to create those connections. Time for you to find your job, you’re not going to succeed.

The Emotional Cost of Studying Abroad

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:54:32 – 01:55:06) Here are the last 2 questions I have. One is, one thing not many people talk about is the cost of going abroad from an emotional point of view. Going abroad, going away from family, specifically an Indian family, that gets very lonely, mentally taxing. You are in a different community, you are alone, different people, different region. You’re probably not very extrovert, and you face problems. Don’t you feel so?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:55:06 – 01:55:22) I agree. I mean, it’s not easy to adjust at any age, whether you’re 17 going for an undergraduate program, or if you’re 20, 21 going for a master’s, or 25 going for an MBA. There always is an adjustment period.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:55:22 – 01:55:23) How lonely can it be?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:55:23 – 01:57:19) It can become very lonely. I was so lonely when I was studying there that it took me more than 6 months to actually adapt to that kind of loneliness. Today things are easier because you have communication. I still have parents who wake their children up in the morning, “Go to class,” because with WhatsApp, with other forms of telecommunication that you have, you’re constantly on FaceTime with your child. You’re always talking to your child. That has reduced to a very large extent the loneliness factor.

Second is, when somebody is leaving from here, they’ve already been exposed to a lot of things that are going to happen in that country, whether it’s through TV serials that they’re watching, through friends that they’re making. That makes the adjustment period easy.

This is not to say that loneliness is never going to come. You are going to be lonely. You’re going to miss home. You’re going to cry in your first semester. You’re going to question, “Why did I even come here?” But once that transition period happens, you’re going to know that this is the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re going to be like, “Wow, I’m blown away with what I’m learning, the people I’m meeting.”

But it is something that we should address because mental health is also very important. And sometimes one of the tests we do right in the beginning to see whether you should go abroad to study or not is, can you handle that kind of pressure? That pressure today where you’re in an unfamiliar environment cleaning your own clothes. You’d be surprised how many students don’t know how to use a washing machine or how many students don’t know how to make a basic meal. These are basic survival skills that they never needed to learn, but now they have to.

Coupled with that, there is no mom and dad in the background, there’s no brother and sister in the background, friendships are different. This is a big one today. Again, I feel that the level of relationships and friendships we make back home here are very deep. They’re very deep-rooted. There’s a lot of depth to our relationship. This does not exist in most parts of the world.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:57:19 – 01:57:19) Exactly.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:57:19 – 01:57:50) More is like, “Hey, I’m your friend. So how’s your day going? I hope you’re doing well today. How’s the weather?” And that’s it. So that adjustment also is not easy for a lot of people. It takes time to understand. And that’s why you see sometimes a lot of Indians are going to hang with the Indians because they feel, “Okay. They understand me.”

They understand that, “Okay, यार नौ बजे मन कर रहा है। I’m just coming over to your house.” I don’t need to really call you before coming. You can’t do that in other countries. You need to call, give notice, make a plan. You need to have a little bit of boundaries. We don’t have that boundaries in our relationships, and people miss that.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:57:51 – 01:58:16) Fair. But even after saying all of these things which you said, that we are in touch, people are communicating, they are exposed to the world, right? I was reading a recent UK survey where they found out that about 58% of international students report loneliness. So even though all these tools are available and they’re exposed, they still face—

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:58:17 – 01:58:27) I agree, 58%. It’s a fact of life. It’s growth. Today, without adversity, how can you grow? If you didn’t feel that loneliness, how will you appreciate your parents, family, and whatever you left back home?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:58:27 – 01:58:29) How is it just for appreciation? You shouldn’t go, no.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:58:29 – 01:58:39) But if you don’t go through adversity, how are you going to grow in life? Today, if you don’t suffer, where is happiness coming from? It’s the same logic out here. You have to go through that loneliness.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:58:39 – 01:58:45) That’s the phase. And how can somebody decide that they can handle that phase or no? Again, is there a way to—

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:58:46 – 01:59:09) Based on their past, based on whether they have managed to, let’s say, live in a boarding school for some time, gone for a summer program. These are small indicators that we can judge of whether they can cope or not. But statistically, even if you look at dropout rates, because we can look at that to measure, most of your top universities have a 99% retention rate for international students, students specifically from India, which means that our students are coping.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:59:10 – 01:59:12) They’re figuring out how to.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:59:12 – 01:59:13) They’re figuring out.

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:59:13 – 01:59:14) Of course they are.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:59:14 – 01:59:27) But the figuring out also is because remember some of them go with no choice. So then you’re like, “Loneliness है तो है. Let’s deal with it and move on.” Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s because you’re giving them a mechanism to cope with their loneliness.

Is It Safe to Study Abroad?

RAJ SHAMANI: (01:59:28 – 01:59:31) Which is the most unsafe country to go right now?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (01:59:32 – 02:00:07) So students have reported that when you’re in major cities like London, crime rates of petty theft and petty crimes have gone up. They need to be a little bit more careful in terms of safety. Most of the West is safer than some of the places we have here, so we never really face the safe issue. What I tell students is go to places which have a large concentration of international students. So then things like racism, things like you being targeted for your skin color, those things don’t happen because you’re already in such an international environment.

Should You Stay Back or Come Back to India?

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:00:09 – 02:00:17) Fair. Here’s the last question, the question which everybody has: should you stay back or come back?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:00:19 – 02:00:32) First, again, map out what you’re going to be doing there. If you’re staying back, making your career, making sure that you get a job that you truly enjoy doing. But who should stay for a few years?

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:00:32 – 02:00:33) Who should stay and who should come back?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:00:34 – 02:01:45) See, to be honest, if you have something really good going for you back home, come back home. India has great opportunity. We have a great future. We are growing at a phenomenal pace. Come back and be part of the India growth story. Bring your skills back. How? Use the GCCs as an example. Set up your own companies. The growth you can get from your company serving a billion people, you cannot get anywhere in the world. Be that person.

Now, if you don’t want to be that person and you want to be the person working, absolutely fine. There’s no judgment here. Both are great options. Take the second option. Get a good job in a country where you want to work, in a role that you’re truly enjoying. Don’t get stuck at a job just because you have to work for the next 5 years, 7 years, and then come back.

Someone asked me recently, “5 crores or happiness, choose one.” I said 5 crores. Why would you think I would select happiness? First, work for maybe 4 or 5 years, collect a good sum of money, then choose a path that you want to be in and get your happiness from that path. You cannot just make it so abstract that, “Okay, it’s going to be this or that.” So evaluate what your goals are, and then take a call.

The Most Underrated Country to Study Abroad

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:01:45 – 02:02:05) Here’s the last question, okay? I said that I’m going to ask you this last question, but here’s one, okay? Tell me the most underrated country to go today for great opportunity, great studies.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:02:09 – 02:02:30) So I would think the most underrated country right now, definitely my answer is going to be parts of Europe. I would say if I have to name one country which I think you still can go and try to make your future, try to get a good education, look at Spain. Spain is a great destination.

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:02:31 – 02:02:31) Why?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:02:32 – 02:03:01) They’re giving you a post-grad entrepreneurship visa, which is allowing you to set up a business in Spain. I think that is very good because, let’s say, you learn Spanish, set up a business out there, you can actually make a good life for yourself there. Spain is home to some very good universities: IE University, ESADE. You have such good brand names out there. It’s welcoming for international students. It’s got all the things I would want to checkbox for a student, for a country.

The Admission Diaries

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:03:01 – 02:03:26) Interesting. See, one podcast is not going to be enough for people to find out these things, okay? Because it’s a complicated issue. Just spending 1.5 hours, 2 hours is not going to help them. Is there a way that they can probably learn in depth which acts as a guide for them before they decide to go abroad and whether going abroad is good for them or bad for them?

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:03:27 – 02:04:47) I would recommend people should read my The Admission Diaries. Okay, so the book that I’ve written, it’s a very unique perspective on college admissions. It’s not a traditional how-to guide. And people often ask me, “Why did you not write a how-to guide? How to get into Harvard? Harvard admission in 10 steps?” A, that book doesn’t exist. B, because the whole concept doesn’t exist.

If I had to write a how-to book, information would expire faster than I wrote the book itself. Today, the moment we start talking about a visa, it changes. We talk about a strategy, it changes. So information expires, judgment does not.

So what I’ve done is through a series of 33 short stories, I have spoken about things that matter. So universities and university discussions is not really about universities. It’s not about rankings, admissions, SOPs, essays. It’s more about fear, ambition, love, letting go, parents, siblings. That’s what it really is. And today we may map out a life for a child, but the child may want something else altogether. And that’s why I wrote The Admission Diaries, because I feel information will expire, judgment will travel.

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:04:50 – 02:05:14) Fair. So we’re going to put out a link here, let people find out your book. And I hope whoever is going learns and understands everything before they go and end up in bad situation, because if they are going with clarity, they can probably make a really good life. But if they are not, it can be troublesome as well. I hope this podcast helps, and thank you so much.

DR. KARAN GUPTA: (02:05:15 – 02:05:17) Thank you, Raj. It was a pleasure to be here today.

RAJ SHAMANI: (02:05:17 – 02:05:36) Thank you. Thank you for watching this episode till the end. We would love to know what you liked or disliked about this episode and which guests you would like to see on the show. Let us know in the comments. Your feedback helps us improve and make every episode a little better. I’ll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.

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