Jagrati Yatra | Day (0)
This series of posts are aimed at sharing my experience of the 11th edition of the prestigious Jagrati Yatra, in byte sized 2–3 min read posts.
This post will mostly contain how I came to know about the Yatra, how I drafted an application for it and other stuff that you need to know prior to attending the Yatra. As I am writing this post on the day just before the Yatra starts, this should act as the first hand journal entry for the Yatra. I will further update this post once I get to Mumbai from my hometown Indore.
How I got to know about Jagriti Yatra
I came to know about Yatra while I was stalking through LinkedIn profiles of my seniors in college. It was not a great attraction for me at first, because being from a purely technical background, it felt out of place for me to join the Yatra. I also felt a little inferior on browsing the profiles of some Yatra alumni, who were mostly associated with some NGO or were already entrepreneurs. But still, I decided to apply for it.
Why did I apply for Yatra
Having completed 2 years of engineering, I was going through an uncertain phase of college life, the 'Mid Engineering-Life Crisis'. I was not completely sure what I'll be doing after my BE, and wanted to explore different fields. But above all, my motivation for Yatra was that I wanted to solve real life problems in future. And Yatra seemed to provide a good status check of country's problems.
How I drafted Statement of Purpose
Firstly, I did a lot of research on Yatra, and how its vision aligned with my goals for future. I did not fake anything in the application. It was written carefully, keeping in mind the vision of Yatra and clearly explaining my expectations from the journey. I would say that a decently drafted SOP is enough to get you shortlisted for Yatra.
Once you get selected for Yatra, you’ll be emailed a handbook with detailed instructions for the same. This handbook is openly available here and has all the minutia of the journey, so I’ll avoid discussing those here.
The big question : Is it any good for you?
I’ll start by sharing my background. I am a pre-final year student of Computer Sciences at BITS Pilani Goa Campus. Unlike some other participants, who have some experience in entrepreneurship, I do not hold any experience in this field.
My two-cents : The diversity and role models that Jagriti Yatra provides is unmatched. The thing that inspired me to be a Yatri is that I want to know the problems faced by India before trying to solve them.
We will again address this question at the end of Yatra in depth.
Thanks a lot for your time :-)
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