Aspirations for my future

The field of construction is a brutal and unforgiving one. Having worked in this field for 6 years, in India and overseas, on industrial and non-industrial projects, within the city limits and in the middle of nowhere, I have come to realize that it’s a whole different animal and it requires a special mindset, to be able to make a successful career in the field of construction. Hats off to all those professionals who have achieved great things in this field. It’s not a glamorous job and it’s a good thing that it’s not, efficiency, professionalism and ethics are what is needed. Thinking about this in the Indian context, these aforementioned qualities are very vital in individuals as well as organizations because the real estate and construction sectors are undergoing a massive shift towards organization and standardization. Being a construction professional myself I welcome it, as do countless others who have worked and who are still working in this field in India.

The stark difference I realized when I worked abroad compared to India, was the lack of professionalism in this field in India, while I do not want to generalize and say that everyone who works in the field of construction is unprofessional, but the tendency to cut corners and revert to “jugaad” though on a decline, is still rampant in India. When I was employed by my previous firm, all the Indians employed with me would express the same sentiment, “when will the construction industry of India catch up with the world”. With the introduction of RERA, it has taken the first step towards that direction and I want to be a part of that change.

RICS School of Built Environment is the right platform where I can start making those changes. RICS values ethics and professionalism above all else and these two traits automatically improve a professional’s working style and create a healthy working environment and improves the quality of execution of projects. I want the world to come to Indian firms and clamor for jobs, just the way I joined a Japanese firm knowing that I would be groomed in the right way with not only industry experience but also the ethics, professionalism and values I would need to possess when working with them and beyond.

My aspiration from RICS School of Built Environment is to equip me with the tools and the skills that would help me mould the future professionals of this field in the coming years not only in domain specific knowledge, but to be able to pass on the ethics and the professionalism that I learnt while I was working and now when I am studying in the RICS School of Built Environment. I look forward to a day when construction professionals would look at the Indian construction sector or Indian construction firms and say “when will the world catch up with India’s construction sector”.