Have you ever felt stuck in a job that doesn’t feel right? Do you ever wonder if you should be doing something else for a living?
A year ago today, Manasa Ramakrishnan, a 26-year-old ex-Teach For India (TFI) fellow, felt all that and more and went on to create a platform called Curricooler along with her husband, Aritro Bhattacharya and her brother, Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan, Indian School of Business (ISB) graduates. The platform helps students explore their options through interdisciplinary careers without a test but via actual interaction with mentors of diverse fields from the finest institutes, and experimental learning by shadowing the mentors or by doing an internship to get a peek into the industry.
Curricooler launched their pilot programme in thirty Teach For India classrooms across the country and have been able to reach almost six thousand students through this. They also work with many NGOs like Akanshana and iTeach to help students who come from a not-so-privileged background. They hope to reach some more in the future.
“I was a very confused child and jumped many fields. I did my graduation in Commerce and tried my hand at CA and Law. Then I did my masters in journalism at Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) and at 24, I finally found my calling in education while I was doing my TFI fellowship. Life would have been so much simpler if I had someone to guide me in school with my career choices. I believe, to have a regret-free career we should help kids understand what they are truly passionate about and not give in to herd mentality.” explains Manasa.
They find the right age to explore to be from the 7th grade onwards; they even work with confused graduates who are 23-24, who are in the process of finding their right career path. They also work with many corporation schools to help those kids understand upcoming careers and different job profiles, which wouldn’t be possible for them to get any exposure to otherwise. Their long term goal is to make the content affordable to all, especially to kids who cannot access technology and also make the courses available in local languages.
Reach Out: facebook.com/curricooler