We at Masai School encourage you not to compromise on your career. Here is how
21 year old Soumitha Bhaskara comes from a small village in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. Coming from a humble family background, Soumitha was asked not to move out of her village for work after graduation. Owing to cultural constraints and financial barriers, she was asked to compromise when it came to her career.
The case is more relevant on a very fundamental and cultural level in a country like ours. A large part of youth in India strictly follows what their parents want for them. Many of us barely had awareness of what we wanted to study in our teenage years. And thus, there are crores of young students who have no choice but to let go of their dream career and compromise with what’s available to them in their closest proximity.
But things have changed. It’s 2021, and information is abundantly accessible and awareness is increasingly available. Learning a new skill is a matter of personal commitment and determination. It’s not necessary that one needs to go to a college to become a software engineer, a job that is considered a big thing in India for decades now.
Of course, there are thousands of courses available out there, that help students upskill themselves in the world of software development. But, there is a fee structure attached which many can’t afford.
But the problem lies with the roots of the culture in India. In a country where a majority of middle-class families rely on loans for education, homes, vehicles and even weddings, the obvious choice for most is take any job available at campus placements.
But are people willing to spend extra time and money to enrol for these courses, and let go of these placements?
Are students willing to take the risk of applying for jobs after they finish these online courses, without any certainty?
Why was Masai School started?
Technology in today’s world has visibly accelerated growth and opened up new opportunities and introduced a lot of jobs in IT and software. But unfortunately, the education system in India isn’t equipped to produce qualified individuals to fill this void between recruiters and job seekers.
There is always a substantial monetary risk involved in educating a child, and training them to be a graduate. Considering all factors, the problem of student loans is only rising. A lot of graduates aren’t employed, and hence are unable to pay back their education loans.
Why make this gamble at all? What if you could have a system that doesn’t render you broke? What if you could pay only when you find a good job?
What if the educational institutions in India shared their monetary risk along with the students over the course of their education?
To solve this challenge, Masai School runs on an ISA-based education model. The Income-Sharing Agreement (ISA) at Masai School enables students to enroll in the coding programs without having to pay any upfront tuition fee. Only after they find a job that pays them above Rs 5 LPA, would Masai activate monthly ISA payments, capped at 15 percent of monthly income for a maximum of 36 months.
Besides, these payments also stop once a total payment of Rs 3 lakh is made. For any reason, if the salary dips below Rs 5LPA, the ISA payments stop. If a Masai School student does not get a tech job after one year of graduation, the ISA payments are cancelled forever.
“There were plenty of scammers who would take your money and not teach you anything. But the idea of not taking any money from me until they make me job-ready and place me at a tech company, was very promising.” — says Suhail Malik, another Masai alumnus.
What does Masai offer?
Masai School follows a military-style 9–9–6 training, 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week. We offer learning tracks on Full Stack Web & Full Stack Android Development as of today.
The demand for tech talent has become an endless ocean but getting quality tech talent is hard to come by, for any technology company. Masai School’s curriculum has been designed with the industry leaders to make the students equipped enough and employable at these companies.
It has been a little over 18 months since Masai School has started, and we have news of our students getting placed at who’s who of the tech companies in India, every single day. Interestingly, a large part of Masai’s student intake is from the Tier 2 and 3 towns of the country, most of whom do not even have a technical background. With a philosophy of ‘Skills over Degrees’, Masai has also been able to help 12th-pass students and diploma holders make salaries that go up to Rs 25 LPA.
Now that remote-working has become normal, many of our students ended up realising that they do not have the right infrastructure and access to the internet at their home. Since everything has shifted online, to keep the coursework intact, Masai has also started its Glide Program, giving a monthly allowance of 15,000 INR to the top performing full-time students to keep up with their costs.
Career Hai Compromise Nahi
Soumitha — a fresh B.Sc graduate — never imagined that her life would be like this now. However, her very first induction to Masai School was a personal low day. She saw several peers who seemed highly proficient in English and it intimidated her to an extent that she thought she wasn’t a good fit for the coding school.
And even beyond the challenges of technical & communication skills, Soumitha’s family recommended that she not move out of the village after her education, owing to personal constraints and financial barriers. The college she studied in, did not have basic access to quality campus placements. Getting a high-paying job at a tech company was a dream next to impossible.
Today, she is overwhelmed with the fact that she is now a local superstar and a figure of admiration and inspiration for the peers in her village. Family members and relatives point at her and ask their own children to ‘Be Like Soumitha’. Only a month ago, she cracked a software developer job at a Bangalore-based tech startup, earning a salary that she could not think she would ever make.
Above everything, what’s commendable about her intent is that she chose not to give up on her personal dream, which is to be a developer. While it’s one thing to learn new skills and learn to speak good English, it’s an entirely different thing to pursue one’s dream, when your family is against it.
Nevertheless, there are still aspiring developers like Soumitha who are often asked to compromise upon their dreams and aspirations, owing to the numerous societal constraints and lack of financial support.
All said and done, the idea is that any aspiring software developer should want to choose their careers over having to compromise upon them. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced software professional, Masai School’s objective is to help everyone pursue their coding dreams and launch a career in tech.
