An applied microbiologist turned educational psychologist and certified career counselor, Nithya Sriram is the Career Change Makers Award 2021 “Top Educator/Trainer” award-winner.
Nithya Sriram’s journey to becoming a certified career counselor isn’t the typical – she was once an applied microbiologist who worked in the food industry for almost seven years. Over time, marriage and traveling to different countries made it difficult to manage her career. That is when she finally settled in London and became a classroom assistance in a school for special children. During this time, she was inspired to take up a course from Madras University in Psychology, to understand how to handle things better, and eventually finished an her RCI (Rehabilitation Council of India) in Special Needs Training as well. She has helped several students – some of them are doing graphic designing, one of them doing podcasts, and another is a B. Com graduate too.
I Want To Become Good Better Best In Life
After seeing college students in their 2nd and 3rd years of their graduate struggle to understand career options, she decided to transition from a clinical psychologist to a certified career counselor. She was part of the first few batches to be certified by Career Guide, which was known as “Mera Career Guide” back then. Through her certification on Career Guide and collaborations, she was able to reach a wider and larger audience of students. Till date Nithya Sriram has mentored almost 1500 students and counseled about 4000 engineering graduates.
In addition to being a career counselor, Nithya Sriram also runs her own organization, Gyandeep. In this organization, guidance for needs of dyslexic, dyscalculic, and blind children is given. She provides the needed information on where education, vocations, and other aspects like exemptions for special children can be obtained. Gyandeep also guides women who want to restart their careers, or want a second chance in life. Coaching and mentoring classes are taken for the women so that they could choose their right paths. One particular success story is about a woman who restarted her career as a kindergarten teacher and has now become the vice-principal of a top school.
She also works at another organization called Careers4Sure, an amalgamation of certified career counselors who provide a variety of services related to career guidance and placement training for college students, services like resume writing for professions, and career assessment services.
Nithya Sriram strongly believes we shouldn’t stop learning, always keep training ourselves in real-life fields, and never hesitate to intern however old we are. She also advices to find a mentor who has been through similar stages of a career you are in, and be there at every stage of life to guide you towards success.
