Bhomik Saini-

I am Bhomik Saini. From last 3 years I’ve been to the USA for studies. Currently I am a senior in finance at Iowa State University. 3 years has been like a rollar coster ride. When I first came to the states, I went to a small private school in South Carolina, named Coker college. It had 1200 students that time and I was the only Indian. At starting weeks and months, I couldn’t make any friends because all the other people did was just making fun of my accent, I questioned my decision to come to the US for so many times.

I had scholarship to play tennis for the college which is a division 2 college but on the first day when I met my coach for the first time he said I am not eligible to play for the first and last year as I played international tournaments and earned money. But I didn’t lost any hopes, continued practicing, continued talking to the people who didn’t made fun of me as much as others did and became the orientation leader in my sophomore year and did great for my group. And in my sophomore year all my best friends transferred from Coker and that was depressing. Although everyone knew me(in good context) I still wasn’t happy. So finally decided to transfer my college and came to Iowa State. It took me 4 months to take a decision to transfer or not as Iowa State doesn’t have a men’s tennis program and that was the only thing that time which I had a passion for. But in the end, took advice from one my professor at Coker/mentor created a list of pros and cons of coming to Iowa State and leaving Coker.

The list made it clear and here I am today at Iowa State. So after coming to Iowa State, I realized this is a huge university with 35800 students that time, I was overwhelmed by the size and couldn’t talk to anyone, even at the workplace. I didn’t got internship that summer so I worked for a painting company and painted houses whole summer. During that time I made bunch of friends, opened up to talking to strangers and started having good conversation. After the summer, in the fall 2015 semester I was just focused on one thing getting an internship for next summer and by October last week I had a job lined up for my summer.

Focused on academics then, and during April I went to Young Entrepreneur Convention and met this guy who wanted to start similar business as mine and we had chat and we decided to open up a company. But when I went to India this May and asked him whether he still wants to continue or not, and he replied it is too much of hard work. I was upset but I didn’t ruined my mood for too long and came up with a different business idea and met an investor while my trip to India. After coming back to the US, the investor and I had a chat and when he came last month to New York City, he asked me to come and spend sometime with him in order for him to understand me and I understand him. The trip went great soon after my graduation we will set a office in NYC. But meanwhile during summer I already had a debt of $3300 and wanted to complete it by August, so I thought of doing two jobs and worked for 13 hours a day, and did that for 2 months and completed my debt and came to my potential. So this fall 2016 semester, I am taking 18 credits, 20 hours of work, working on 2 businesses, writing a draft of my book, enrolled in one entrepreneur accelerator program and enrolled in social media marketing program. And I don’t complain. That’s I want to tell out people, stop wasting time in complaining and do something productive everyday.

Bhomik

Listen another #12minconvo

Credits:
Musical Background: ‘TAKE THE CHANCE’ by Nicolai Heidlas