 Welcome to the Greenwich Means Business podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Greenwich Means Business podcast. I'm Dardan, I'll be your host for today. I'm joined by Swayam who is a current international student studying business management. So would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, hello everyone, my name is Swayam and I'm from India and this is my first year and I'm doing business management in University of Greenwich. Cool so how did you find and choose the University of Greenwich? Like what was the process between finding work because obviously you're an international student. So what made you pick London? What made you pick Greenwich specifically? So just tell us the story basically. Yeah so actually my uncle graduated from Greenwich in 2011 so that's how I found about University of Greenwich and about London I think London is a great place to study because my family has been attracted to London particularly from like even my dad wanted to study in London even my mother so that's why I came to London and also about University of Greenwich apart from my uncle also my agent recommended me this university as it was very famous the Greenwich Business School is pretty famous for business courses. Nice and you said your uncle was a graduate University of Greenwich right? So did he also study business management or somewhere in that field? No we did not study business management actually he studied architecture and he graduated in 2011 so that's how I first heard about UOG. Nice nice and you mentioned the agent as well so did you go through the international student agency that kind of helps out with mainly in India? Yeah so mainly in India it's like you have to go to a particular international agency and not just one there are plenty of agencies back in India so you can choose anyone you like and they'll help you through the application process until you get your visa. Nice. Yeah so they have been very supportive. Very good very good and so that's now moves on to my next question what was the application process like for you? Yeah so application process for me was very easy because I have a good percentage in English I got into Greenwich University without giving any further third party exams so I think it was pretty easy for me but for other students I think it's a bit difficult because you have to give a separate exam to get into universities abroad. Nice and would you say your agent helped out with the easiness of the application process? Yeah I think he pretty much did yeah he made it a lot easier. Oh nice nice and what made you pick business management? Yeah business management for me is a very a personal concept because my family has been involved in business since 50 years and that's why I chose business management because I could relate to it personally. Interesting and if you don't mind me asking what business are your family in right now? My family is doing casting manufacturing that is basically steel manufacturing back in India so what I learned back in India from my own experience I think I could pretty much relate to everything that I'm studying right now and also I could relate it with my learning back in high school so I think everything just you know sums up to the like the whole thing. Yeah and so you also mentioned high school as well do you have any business management like subjects in high school? Yeah so back in high school up till my A levels that's what we say in UK I had business management as my top subject and I studied for two years. Would you say that also helped you pick business management as well so kind of the combination of your A level equivalents to also your family business or? I think that's what sparked my interest in business after studying business studies in deep I think that's what sparked my interest in learning about my own business. So now that you're a University of Greenwich student and obviously this is your first year so how has it been so far with your student experience like settling in moving into accommodation and meeting new people what your classes are like etc? Yeah so when I first moved to London I explored London and then on 9 September I finally moved into my accommodation that is when the license starts so after moving into my accommodation and even moving in process was very easy the people at Macmillan student village are very helpful with the moving process and settling in was pretty easy as well because I have some good company I have made some good friends and also my co-smates my tutorial mates everyone is fantastic. Very nice very good to hear and what about your classes so how do obviously universities a different experience but also learning in a different country must be different as well so how's it been how's it been different compared to in India? Compared to India I think University of Greenwich offers me plenty of other options like they have a very good they have a big campus first of all I love the University of Greenwich campus it's I think it's the best campus in London actually and also the tutorials and the lectures I think they are very helpful for me and they help me understand business in a deeper like deeper context and also back in India we don't have much to study compared to here we have a lot of assignments here in India we only used to have exams so assignments didn't play a very big role in back in India they were just exams so would you say like the courses back home or so you had no coursework at all no assignments it was just we had coursework but not as much as here like it was very less compared to what we have here because back in India we have exams and here we don't have exams we have assignments we have essays we have reports but I think that's the main difference so you find it more easy as well yeah on top of that nice very very nice and um I move on to my next question so what do you think you could do with a business management degree so what what what do you see yourself doing after you graduate so after I graduate I actually plan on taking over my family business so after my dad I think I'm going to be the one becoming the CEO of my own company and I think this degree provides me with a lot of value and knowledge about my own business and understanding how business works actually nice nice so would you say that this would definitely improve your work ethic by studying abroad and it would help you more by studying in the UK to manage your family business in India right yeah definitely and are you involved in any extracurricular activities any societies so basically any activities outside of your learning yeah so I have been involved in a lot of activities co-curricular activities I am the secretary for Indian society at Greenwich and also the student representative of my program for the first years nice and what was that like do you feel do you feel like that's helped you in your studies or do you think it's improving yourself as a student or so I think becoming a student rep was a big step for me because I'm able to get the feedbacks from other students my classmates and getting to know what they feel like like what's been going on how are they been how are they settling in so I think it's a good exposure for me getting to know other people getting to know the problems and getting it forward to other people like my co-leader that is Scott Tyndall and I think it's by far it's been a very great experience yeah and it probably will help you as well with your um well because obviously your plan is to manage your family business as well so maybe um uh being like a co-founder of the Indian society um with 100% help you with managing your business back home um when you want to take uh take it over from your father what is the typical day in your life look like as a obviously cool you have a different life now compared to back home you have made I'm sure you have like a lot of responsibilities or something like that so just give us like a day in the life of Swire I think it's the it's pretty opposite compared to back in India this is a complete opposite lifestyle for me because back in India I had no responsibilities actually so in London I have a lot of responsibilities I have to wash the dishes clean my room do the coast work alone and everything back in India we had people for everything so this is a complete opposite lifestyle for me so I think it's been a good experience so far yeah so you've kind of taken on the live by yourself yeah live by yourself technically yeah that yeah um and have you been involved in any projects or work experience during your time at uni so so obviously you mentioned India society anything else other than that no I think I don't think so because as this is my first year and it's only been like three months I think this is enough for me right now yeah and do you plan on doing anything like internships or placements that obviously comes in your second year so do you plan on getting any work experience whilst you're here at Greenwich uh I don't think so because I'm not looking for work experience right now all I do all I want to do is study on like focus on my studies here focus on your studies only yeah that's what I'm looking at yeah I only have uni for three days that uh that is Monday Tuesdays and Thursdays Thursdays I have four classes Mondays and Tuesdays I'm only in for two hours so I think it's uh very easy for me because back in India we had like five days of classes maybe six days sometimes so I think this is a really big change for me would you say there's a lot of things for students to do um outside of study just yeah I think a lot yeah I think we have a lot of opportunities outside of studies we can do a part time like for international students we have 10 hours per week for part time but I think we can even proceed with part time if we have free time yeah and have you currently got a part time job outside of studies no I'm not looking for a job right now so not in the first year not on the first year okay and um a lot of so you said you made the um some new friends right now um so are they from are they fellow Indians are they uh other people as well or yeah so I like to mix with other cultures so I have a lot of friends from like ranging from Indians I also have Indian friends but also I have like people from Spain people from France and also people from UK itself nice and would you say that's what also spurred you to pick um London as well to study just yeah to get that exposure yeah yeah because it's interesting um London's also very multicultural it's one of the most multicultural cities in the world so I was just wondering whether that's what also spurred you on to pick London cool very interesting and um so you also mentioned that there's six days six days a week of learning sometimes so does that also apply to universities as well or was it or was that just um high school yeah I think up to high school you have six days a week and eight hours every day seven to eight hours every day of studying and in university I think it's actually reduced down to maybe six hours of fires that depends on what university you are studying in back in India wow okay that's a lot of hours yeah that's a lot yeah almost like a full-time job full-time job yeah is that another reason you picked London as well was just did you know did you know that the hours were going to be reduced in terms of studying and uh work outside of class and whatnot yeah I had no idea that the well like the stericulture in London was this I had no idea that we only had uni three days a week I was prepared for uni six days a week but I think this is a this is actually very easy and very nice really yeah nice it's flexible yeah yeah definitely most certainly is because you have some days where you're not even in uh university it's when you have no lessons or whatever just gives you time to breathe or even time to do your coursework if you have a need to be due as well what are your plans going forward once you graduate so after graduating I'm going to be moving back to India where I will take over my family business help my father help my grandfather and further expand my family business yeah that's what I'm aiming for cool do you um have you had any experience so far like any exposure to your family business even prior to moving to London as well yeah I have been having like before I moved to London I actually worked in my own company for three months I helped set up another unit we already had another unit I took over the unit and helped set up the whole team I was a project head intern for my own firm and also also an intern manager just like that yeah nice nice and uh so this was all in the same business then same business same business did that unit specialize in anything specific yeah my company basically focuses on gearboxes which is doing this is basically steel business you take steel you melt it down you put it into moles and then you supply it outside that's what you basically do cool so it's directly involved in the manufacturing process yeah steel manufacturing actually nice nice nice and um so you headed a team specializing in gearbox manufacturing right is that right and then you said italy as well yeah um so this is automotive parts right that you're specializing in yeah very interesting so how did you manage to procure like uh indian clients uh did you just um offer your services or and then you managed and then the clients reached out to you or how did it how did that happen so since we have been in the business from a very long time from 1973 so we have actually had a lot of clients first of all we managed to capture the domestic market like the basic local market and then we moved on to reaching on uh like uh state-wise clients like we moved from local then we moved from state and then we moved from country so after capturing the local market we moved on to capturing the state market and after then we proceed like proceeded to go with international market oh very nice very nice and um how did how did the how did the italian market um discover you or did you just manage to promote your services effectively would you say you marketed it very good yeah so in terms of marketing uh my father used to attend a lot of seminars which actually helped our company gain a reputation internationally and also the italy supply the main problem and supplying to italy is the weather and how we supply the material to italy because it's like a very wrong route from india to italy and the material tends to get very wet and uh it doesn't you know doesn't last long when you supply it from a very long distance you have to take care of a lot of things yeah of course of course and i can imagine the process is quite long and costly as well because obviously you're from southeast from south asia all the way to southern europe as well like um and how do you transport it across is it with um with trucks was it is it with a is it shipped over there or how how is it we ship it over there but sometimes if there's an emergency case or maybe we are developing a new product for them we do it via aircrafts oh very nice and um so in terms of your um so obviously you managed to inquire italian client tell um do you have any expansion plans like where else do you want to uh ship ship your products off to yeah so we are looking at usa right now maybe germany so wherever we can find good clients we are ready to do business with them cool so um you managed to acquire italian client tell through um your marketing efforts which is obviously you mentioned your father does um seminars and whatnot um so how do you plan on um expanding your marketing plan like do you plan so continue doing these seminars promoting on the more platforms than you did before oh and so what platforms did you promote these seminars on um initially yeah so in india we have a lot of in-person seminars like real seminars where you actually go and meet people instead of doing it online and india people prefer to meet face to face rather than do it on teams or maybe zoom something like that so that's how my father did it he actually married with a lot of people made a lot of new friends and and in my time in london i think i'm going to do the same meet up meet with a lot of people maybe do some networking yeah that's very important they're very important that's what um the university of greenwich actually um promotes quite a lot um there's because networking is the way to kind of get your way into any industry really not just business management or um acquiring client tell but just anything to do with networking will get you places so you also mentioned usa and uh who else in germany and germany yeah um so does your do you plan to do in-person seminars in those countries to kind of try to acquire the clientele in these countries or yeah so usa and germany actually hold a lot of seminars in india itself and also i'm looking for uk because uk has jcb and we also specialise in manufacturing gay boxes for those tractors so i'm also looking for looking to expand my business in uk also um do you think being a part of the indian society and kind of help and run it do you think that will help you in kind of networking and uh finding finding yourself people to potentially build clientele with or yeah definitely like being part of an Indian society like i have i have met a lot of new people i think we are having some fun parties we are doing my networking as well and i think meeting with a lot of people gives you new experiences you can hear about their experiences in greenwich in london back in india so i think it's i think it's pretty far been so good yeah and do you have you met any like minded people so people who plan to um build a business of their own take over their family business etc have you met anyone who's um yeah in those three months i haven't met anyone who aims to do business people are mostly looking for jobs here but i don't think anyone has the aspiration to start their own business or maybe take over the family business do you think that's the key difference between here in india is that people is that people here prefer to have like a high paying job working for a different company whereas in india everyone aspires to open up their own business yeah so the work culture difference between india and uk is that everyone as you said wants a high paying job in the uk but in india is the complete opposite even a small time worker who earns like only 10 000 pounds a year can start a business he can do a business from his home or her home they can start business anytime they want and even the government supports a lot like they pay you money to start your own business oh no way that's very good so you do you definitely say that there's more entrepreneurial opportunities back home rather than here because i think here there's always a stress and like okay work for this big corporation work for this like so that you don't so there's definitely not that mindset back home there's no that even because there are a lot of big corporations back home like back in india that you could work for but there's always a stress that it's better to just start a business yeah so definitely like in india people tend to start their own businesses they like to be their own boss that is what they say instead of working for a mnc or maybe some big company people tend to be their own boss and start their own firms start their own companies something like that yeah very interesting so have you taken advantage of networking opportunities where so have you been to any events uh have you been to any seminars etc i've been to one seminar that was organized by international business society in granite and uh so far i think that's the only event i've attended in those three months did you find it useful did you manage to meet a network with any people over there yeah i met with a lot of people not just my age people who are like older than me people who are actually working doing a job and i met a lot of different people here yeah would you say they helped you in any way to kind of move you forward in your path that you want to take or yeah i think they actually helped me understand what they feel like and how they are working and understand their work experience and i think it helped me gain knowledge of how people work here and also the difference between uk and india yeah so i'm kind of focusing again on the the working in the corporate life versus the entrepreneurial lifestyle yeah hmm do you find the industry that your father's company uh specializes in interesting like so you said steel manufacturing right and you mentioned the fact that you headed the unit specializing in gearboxes so are you interested in the automotive kind of industry i think we have been expanding a lot recently not just automotive maybe like uh different kinds of gearboxes like aircraft gearboxes and something like that we have been expanding a lot recently we have a lot of new patterns and i think casting is an amalgad of art and science so it takes a lot of time but it's actually very good and very interesting yeah so obviously you mentioned the fact that the work lifestyle and the study lifestyle in india is very different where where you you're almost overwhelmed at a lot of work so as a result of that do you have any kind of study hacks that you have picked up in the uk as a result of having the the overwhelming workload back home yeah so back in india we used to have assignments but they were not online we actually had to write those on paper and submit it yeah so it's not in it's not like that in uk where you do everything online you do it on model and you do it while turn it in and we can also use ai i think ai is a pretty good tool and it comes to study hacks and basically even our uni is very strict for plagiarism so i think using ai in a good way is actually a good study hack yeah in india we didn't have ai's we you had to get everything from books about what we learn and how we like actually understand about the whole concept yeah do you find that you have to read a lot of books like even uh not not just skimming and scamming for whatever you need but do you have to find read whole chapters and whatnot to kind of um find what you're looking for find what to reference yeah i think back in india referencing was not a big issue you can just take information from any book you want and put it into your own words and i think that was it and writing on paper is actually easier for me than doing all of the referencing and the different referencing styles in the uk i think writing on paper was much easier for me really that's interesting um and uh you also mentioned that there's no referencing also is that what you found difficult in the transition uh with moving i mean studying into in the uk where where you have to study where you have to reference everything that you write yeah so when i first moved to uk and i learned about Harvard referencing style i found it pretty difficult but then i actually read about it and actually did some reports i did some essays and i did i read some sample essays and i think after reading for a while i think i actually found it very easy i think it's easier to do when you understand it fully yeah so you managed to pick up quickly and you realized that um they actually can help you in the in the long run so how did you find the um how do you find the university's facilities such as the library and whatnot do you have a lot of do you say there's a lot of um places where you could study quietly or maybe do some group work as well so how have you been finding i think uh i think the university library is a very good resource option you can find a lot of resources you have an online website that is connected to your portal you can find information on the online library and maybe and it's pretty easy for me and it's very convenient and also library is a very good place to study as it's very quiet and it's a very spacious i think it can accommodate up to like a lot of students at one time i think it's a pretty good facility and talking about facilities i love how our university has cafes in the campus this is the complete opposite back in india because in india you don't have cafes in the uni you have cantines and and in our university we have three cafes in the campus and i think it's very great yeah and uh coming back to the subject of the library so you also so you said that you did a lot of um uh handwritten assignments and uh that you referred to books and whatnot do you still find yourself doing that even though you've moved here like just using the libraries act because obviously we yet we still have um physical books that students sometimes use so do you still find yourself doing that or have you now transitioned to the kind of online typing on microsoft word kind of thing i have transitioned to the online thing but i actually like to read books in my free time and my main interest apart from business is politics and i think politics and business are interrelated there's no stopping and there's like there's you can't separate both of them there's always a connection between both of them business and politics 100% especially political events always has an effect on businesses yeah and no matter what industry you're involved in there's always something that that will impact the the business if anything political happens yeah so how have you found the campus you know do you like the the look of it do you find the the classrooms and all the other facilities um like useful um aesthetically pleasing or yeah i think university of Greenwich has the best campus as i said earlier and it's just very tiring the main thing is that between the gap between the lectures it's so less that you have to run from one place to another it takes you a lot of time and i think it's not enough the gap between the lectures yeah yeah it's a long campus yeah yeah i agree with that is quite a big um campus and um so coming on to accommodation again so which accommodation have you settled for in yeah i live in Macbillan student village which is a university of Greenwich accommodation nice and um so how have you found settling into that was it was a good facility is it is it set up nicely for you do you have on suite bathrooms or yeah i have an on suite room and the plus point in Macbillan is that you don't have just Greenwich students you have students from Trinity Laban you have UCL you have QMUL so i think you get a lot of diversity you meet a lot of new people and talking about rooms we have a personal fridge which no other accommodation has this is only exclusive to Macbillan we have a personal fridge and our bathrooms are bigger compared to all the other accommodations nice very nice so have you had a chance to visit the painted hall mind you chance yeah i visited the painted hall and i found it pretty amazing all those beautiful pictures and the whole ambience of painted hall was just amazing cool have you had any chance to see any filming so obviously of old royal naval college um there's a lot of big productions there many major films and series have been filmed have you managed to see any filming going on there or yeah just recently i think i've seen the shooting of crown season six i think that just happened very recently last week and i think it was very fascinating how they shoot on campuses and managed to fit in students yeah indeed um they always they always film a big big film series yeah i think crown is a very well-known series yeah and i thought bridgerton as well yeah also thought the dark world yeah yeah that was shoot a filmed in grins as well yeah very iconic campus that you you are studying in so you mentioned those facilities um though where you can take part in these activities would you say that's a another key difference in university study in india versus the uk or yeah so back in india we didn't have societies we used to have clubs in uk we have societies and i think we have a lot more variety in uk compared to india we have specialisations in business we have specialisations in sports i think that's a big difference back from india and india we used to have small clubs or maybe just like you know a main university club in in here we have a lot of different clubs we have clubs and societies for everything i think that's pretty great you know that helps people choose what they really want yeah 100 i agree so what would you say is the main difference between british and indian work ethics so i think the main difference between british and indian work ethics would be how people in britain tend to go for high paying jobs they like to work nine to five and back in india people don't like to work nine to five they despair that job they like to be their own boss they tend to start their own businesses i think entrepreneurship is really on the growth in india people are starting their new businesses every day and i think the government is actually supporting them starting new businesses nice and would you say um that indians prefer the flexible work hours because of the the overwhelming hours they had to endure during their schooling period definitely like indian people like to work in the flexible hours they like to be flexible they like to be free on weekends and everything so i think they they will choose the most flexible thing like they choose the most convenient what is the convenient thing for them yeah and as you said as well they like to be their own boss i think in the uk there's not a push on that as much because um obviously there's there's a lot loads of big corporate firms that you know they offer high paying jobs and whatever so i think maybe that's more of a push i think a lot even in universities i think there's also a big push on um internship and work placements where um they will say apply to kpmg or these big firms so would you say that's another key difference in india as well is the fact that maybe universities don't push that but they do they push for more uh business startups over there or yeah in india we have actually a lot of people coming in they do seminars about how you can start your own business they invite a lot of CEOs and i think that's also a key difference because universities in uk push people to pursue a job rather than starting their own business back in india it's the complete opposite the universities or the colleges don't focus on doing jobs they just focus on focus on like getting you giving you knowledge you don't focus on jobs at all they just guide you through the business that the course you have chosen yeah interesting and despite this key difference have you found anyone that has maybe supported you in your plan to manage your business back home or i haven't found anyone's like it's been only three months i think i will find a lot of people as my time goes by in uk yeah definitely um so do you plan on attending more seminars and such because obviously we have the big picture seminar as well where a lot of CEOs also um present and speak to students and you also will have a chance to network with them so maybe you can receive very useful insights um that you can take with you um when running a family business in the future yeah definitely i am planning to attend a lot of seminars that are happening in Greenwich itself or maybe in London as i get to connect with people network with people and meet a lot of new people i think that's the main reason why i came to uk to network with people and to meet new people that i can connect with and further help me expand my business so thank you very much swyam for coming today it's been a very um interesting session we've learned the key differences uh well the cultural differences between um the uk and indio yeah thank you data for being a lovely host it was very nice meeting you today pleasure likewise you can find our podcast on Spotify apple and google podcasts subscribe to never miss an episode