the most important question why did you move to canada
Was it due to the struggle on H1B VISA, L1 VISA or ..
what was the biggest reason for this move so hey guys we are back with one of
the most inspiring story of an indian student a journey from
india to mba in us and then to canada so how you can make
your way secure in u.s as well as in canada so hi pranay
can you please introduce yourself Hi Harnoor! so nice to be here thank you
for the opportunity to speak with your viewers and yes
yes i'm from INDIA, an ordinary Man i have lived for 24 years straight in
one city never changed my city engineer by profession worked for nine
9+ years in IBM and CA at India and then
as pointed by you in your last video like engineer gets bored after working for some time in the Industry
as well and then i decided to take the mba route
and then i came to us uh in mba for uh uh specializing in data analytics
and then I worked in US for 2 years
program at harvard business school and uh that
is focused especially on uh leadership.
From where did you do your undergrad and what was your branch? my undergraduation was in JNIT university college of engineering in hyderabad
I did my undergrad from JNIT
or Sham Shah Baad. Computer Science engineering was my major
First of all, why did you pursue two business degrees first in University of Iowa state and
then in harvard business school yeah so first
my first degree was from university of iowa which is different than iowa state
and university of iowa happened to be uh like you know a full-time program
where I had to study for 18 months after quitting my job
move to us and then get into full-time programs. After that I joined ACT
which is the number one college testing in us
and uh when i was working there i realized the key is
even though I had an engineering background, MBA has given me a Management view which is
middle level management and then i felt so
I want more leadership experience in my middle management to see the C level
C level or up. (c suite) life that I could experience that view or perspective
to learn how a C level employee thinks to run the organization
so that's where harvard business school program added value to me because i was
in a class uh of uh 190 students i suppose
from different countries and all of them were
at least 15 years of experience so I learned a lot from Peer group learning
that was my goal behind harvard business school wow howard
Can you please share about this Harvard business school program cuz everyone knows that HBS
HBS is one of the most difficult school to get in
get and especially for mba then how were you able to manage to get in
and how difficult was it. First of all,
program that was little different than mba uh
disco program for leadership development and the way harvard business school puts
this is an exit-MBA equivalent
this is seven month uh intensive program
with one month on campus and six months online now coming to your difficulty
question is uh this is like uh obviously an
intense program because
you know we used to start at 7am in the morning and go until 12 30 pm in the
night uh and that includes monday to saturday
cuz it is a executive program and Sunday half day. basically only half day weekend (only break)
so so in that aspect it is rigorous intense
and but when you learn new things i think all that intensity is gone
uh when you that the person on the left is from middle east and the other is from oil
you know oil and gas industries
One is a doctor from Miami
you know it's really wonderful experience wow so that's mind-blowing an interesting
element here is that the mba is very expensive so the first MBA you did
so MBA 1 and then 2nd Business program. Then how you were able to afford it?
were you able to just afford through your job. so what was the entire process?
so that's a very interesting question because uh this i have been hearing
constantly and that was one of my major
As an Indian when you look into $200k and that's 1.5 Crore. so I had my own strategies to tackle it
So first I looked and applied for Scholarships and then for on-campus jobs.
First I was granted 96% in scholarship and I had 4% tuition left that was significant too
which was still a good healthy amount of uh for me uh
along with the living exp uh cost of living so
so I was exploring the financial options i had i
was looking at indian banks that was my default option being an indian
and Indian Banks were asking for a lot of Collateral then being a ordinary man how could I have managed
Then I read about Prodigy Finance a Tech organization and applied through a friend
and uh when i look the most important thing about prodigy finance is they
don't ask you about any collateral they are trusting you
your caliber and your future rather than collateral. I loved this fact
I applied it was a 30 minute process and the loan was approved and finished wow
all my financial worries were taken care of and at the same time currently
prodigy interest rates range from 5 to 8.5 and most importantly you get your
loan in u.s dollars if the currency rate fluctuates then you
will not be affected much as well so if you use the link in the
description below you will get free sanction data and free loan code within
few minutes so now what about scholarship
So how did you get 96% such a big scholarship?
university of iowa was he they used to consider my application for
various scholarships along which they call along with the
college application universities
So I didn't have to apply separately and it was within the app and they
passed my application to all the uh fund organizations
and I got Scholarship without any extra effort
and now the most important question why did you move to canada
was it due to H1B struggle or L1 Struggle. what was the biggest reason
for this move so you are now redirecting the
conversation to which is uh relevant to any every
immigrant in the us i think which who is on h1b
so, little more background about me
f1 visa and then i switched to h1b visa in 2019 and I moved to Canada in 2020
i had a very valid h1 visa
But if you look into the practical current context in the market
it's very difficult for h1b to transition from one role to another uh
it's it's comparatively easier to transition
from one role to another within your own domain
software engineer to software engineer related responsibility is easier
a software engineer to a product management role is whole different struggle
so that's a whole different struggle so this exactly happened with me in the
past when I was in in 2019 when I was in data analytics and I got a good opportunity that was not directly related to Data Analytics
So I felt what is the heat of immigration
I didn't want to face that again so I started looking into other countries
In Canada the PR process is really easy
and i got became a permanent resident in a year and that's how i moved to canada
So you applied via Express entry which requires 1. 1 year experience, 2. MS degree cherry on top 3. IELTS and you got in within 1 year this way right?
right
Now what are the ways you can fulfill your American dream so that your promotions don't stop and you can switch stream easily too? How you will escape H1B struggle now?
what will be your next step to move back to us
so first of all before answering this question i want to put forward that i'm
no legal consultant or not professional to answer this i'll be answering based
on only my experiences so i have got two
options in my mind right now so 1) L1A route that is transfering from any Global company in Canada to USA
and green card is a permanent resident of us
and second option is TN VISA after becoming Canadia
i switch my uh indian passport to canadian passport which it's gonna take
approximately three to four years
with TN VISA: so i think that will i will still be on a visa in us
and it's not equivalent to green card but comparing with H1B. It is much easier
process current processor compared to also it will be much easier you are
trying to say that tn visa is not equal to green card in the us but it
is actually better than h1b visa h1b. SO can you share can you easily switch jobs on T1/TN VISA. what pros you will get?
switch easily corresponding to advantages
Time bound like H1B: YES
2. Job Switch: YES based on my theoretical knowledge i think yes it definitely opens up
a lot more opportunities than h1b and the only uh
downside of tn visa is i think you can't get into
the gcq based on tn visa you will still need a h-1b visa to get into the gcq
so if your long-term goal is to get into usgc2
l1 or h1b is your route and if you are looking like
you're okay being a canadian resident or a citizen
and then mobile in terms of canada and us
then i think uh pr and tn makes more sense
Completely agree and now one more interesting element that now arises is that is for GreenCard queue
that for green card queue or for green card wait time it is not based on the
country citizen you are whether you are Canadian, UK Citizen or any other citizen
at the end of the day if you are if you if you were born in INDIA
india cuz it is based on Birth not on the basis of citizen you are
so your waittime will remain around 200 years
yeah so this is exactly why i took the decision to move from
u.s to canada so because of the long gc wait times and agar may ev2 category
may be applied so i think i'll be probably 60 plus when
i get my dc and until 60 years i have to uh
stay in the queues or follow the guidelines
you know pathani just eight opportunity i was not willing to give up more
opportunities in the future so he made a mindset and i could be
wrong uh so and this was one factor and second
factor was uh what priority what what is your
priority so a priority open no matter what
yeah you never know something more interesting might come out
outside the u.s so i'm basically exploring i keep exploring
final questions
so like iowa university me and harvard business school kids programming
after scholarships after scholarships great
so after scholarship merisa dollar per year which comes twenty two thousand
dollars for the entire 18 month program full-time program at university of iowa
including my living expenses wow after scholarship or howard visit school
me harvard business school mooji scholarship military and after
scholarship uh it was around thirty thousand eight
hundred dollars wow so it's maybe interesting
can a student skip the mba degree and just go for that leadership program in
harvard business school is that like equivalent to mba
though go for both one of them so this is a highly subjective question
it depends on your background it depends on how many years
of experience you have it depends on your aspirations
so there's no strict rules
experience you can explore your opportunities in
any workforce of any country uh but the challenge with
the pld program which is an executive program
you took that leadership step and it was kind of secure move
rather than like bhakti students killed you see the india's
insecure moves so this was very thoughtful and very important and now my
final question would be move up canada like you know like you
had to move pretty much your entire life job nevertheless
suddenly moved us so how drastic was the change so far so
i will be honest like this is
so it looks like similar in terms of infrastructure at least
and uh i don't know how culturally it is different
based on my phone conversations with people there are certainly
uh cultural differences very initial assumption
u.s or canada culture similar same uh i would say it's similar but not same
and so far i'm enjoying it it's looking good
and i'm looking forward to move out after seven to eight days to explore
toronto so thank you so much pranay for sharing
a valuable information it was very insightful
very informative so i will recommend all of you to connect with you
key again prodigy related questions mba related
because you are prodigy's ambassador so definitely feel free to reach out to him
and definitely follow him on linkedin and it was pleasure having you here
thank you vernor for the opportunity to connect with you and connect with your
audience as harner said please feel free to reach
out happy to help you in fulfilling your dreams all the best
bye