Sukhrob’s Blog

Avg conversation with a wife: - Fairuz is so good. I love her songs. - Then go marry her Tamom

I have been receiving questions about who to study for IELTS with. I will drop the names of some of the best instructors - objective opinion, not just because they are my friends. Innovative Centre leads when it comes to results proportion wise. Relative to the number of the students there, the volume of the 7+ results is highest. That, as a result, makes it the centre with the highest success rate. Do basic math. Muhammadhon Soliev (my mentor), Timurbek Djalilov, and Kamrambek Isoev offer the best quality IELTS classes. I personally participated, and I can speak to the high quality of lessons and methodologies backed by research: not “manabu strategiyani ishlatsang 100% 7+ olasan IELTSdan”. A lot of cheap instructors who don’t have any teaching qualifications like TKT, TESOL, CELTA and the like actually use this approach in their lessons.

Tomorrow is a big day for me. Announcements will come depending on the outcome😭

We have two homes. One that raises us, the other that shapes us. Samarkand, my home forever, taught me kindness, warmth, respect, upbringing and culture that makes me unique wherever I go. I can proudly speak of my home, of its great people and great history. This is where I will eventually come back and live. Tampa - I have so much to be grateful for to you. This is where I fell and stood up, got myself injured, and learned that it all will eventually pass as long as I keep standing up. This is where I discovered my true passions, met some of the best people in my life, and learned to be humble, approachable, and ready to go. Two homes. Two places where I will always be happy about returning to. What is your second home?

We have two homes. One that raises us, the other that shapes us. Samarkand, my home forever, taught me kindness, warmth, respect, upbringing and culture that makes me unique wherever I go. I can proudly speak of my home, of its great people and great history. This is where I will eventually come back and live. Tampa - I have so much to be grateful for to you. This is where I fell and stood up, got myself injured, and learned that it all will eventually pass as long as I keep standing up. This is where I discovered my true passions, met some of the best people in my life, and learned to be humble, approachable, and ready to go. Two homes. Two places where I will always be happy about returning to. What is your second home?

My biggest nightmare lately

TA/GA scholarships: If you ever decide to pursue specialized master’s degree programs or MBA in the US, you need to understand how you can fund your studies. Unlike undergraduate applications, where certain universities grant full tuition waivers or full ride scholarships to standout applicants, graduate applications usually expect you to pay. MBAs, in particular, are usually designed for top-level executives or managers who can pay the costs out of pocket or get their employer to cover them. That being said, it doesn’t mean you can never do Master’s programs for free. The two pathways that cover your tuition in a lot of cases are Research Assistantship or Teaching/Graduate Assistantship. In the latter role, you work almost as an adjunct professor under a professor who teaches large lecture classes. You conduct weekly breakout sessions (brushing up on the weekly material taught in lectures in smaller student groups), do the grading for your appointed student group, and do the lesson planning/presentations. These, in most cases, give you a full tuition coverage + an hourly wage so you get paid for the work you do. I’m doing my Master’s Degree in Accountancy and Analytics, and got a TA position to pay 0$ for the program. These are usually competitive, but not impossible to get. If this post gets 100 reactions and 10 public shares, I’ll drop another post explaining how you can be most competitive in these TA/GA applications📈

The best spoiler I can possibly provide

When will it start streaming in cinemas in Uzb?

Do you guys want Spider-Man spoilers?🤧

Someone might need it today: Stop thinking you have control of everything. There are variables you can control, and there are those you can’t control. Try your ultimate best to take care of what’s in your hands, but never ever dare to blame yourself for what you can’t change. Have faith and tie your camel, and the rest is “peshonadan”.

Happiest birthday to one of my closest friends. Bobirjon, wishing you all the good things I’d wish for myself. At the age of 22, you achieved what some 28 year olds can’t achieve or couldn’t achieve. You stayed humble in a room where you could be the loudest voice. You inspired so many young people to reach their full potential. You’ve helped and spread kindness. You’ve been a great friend. Keep it up. Blessed marriage, blessed life, and blessed 22!

Behavior and communication hacks that “mainstream” books won’t teach you: 1) Stop seeking validation. You don’t have to try to fit in or be a fake version of yourself to seek someone’s validation. If you don’t feel right in the room, don’t force yourself to act different. That’s felt intuitively by others in your presence, and it just crushes your respect. Either leave or sit silent, and you’ll get noticed without your awareness. 2) Speak when you are given the turn. Throw the question, listen, and don’t add anything. Speak when you are prompted to do so. Dominating the conversation, you may think, makes you look better, but it doesn’t. That who dominates is that who speaks less and listens more. 3) Don’t kiss leaders’ “private spot”. If there’s someone who everyone is kissing up to, that’s your moment to stay away and not do that. Ironically, you’ll be noticed more and gain more respect from those same leaders.

If we get more public shares, I’ll post more of this internal information only people with experience know. I’ll share them for free, but all I need is more outreach so more people get access to this!

How to secure the internships you really want: a step-by-step guide 1) Work on your GPA, do certification programs, and polish your resume: GPA is the first thing recruiters want to see. Since you don’t have anything valuable to offer, you at least need to show you showed up to classes, studied the material, and did well. That reflects your work ethic. If you did certification programs - preferably the directly related ones, that shows you’ll understand the jargon in the workplace environment and have the bare minimum required to get started. I did simulation based tasks offered by Big 4, and those were great starting points. 2) Coffee chats: As soon as you believe you are in a good standing for the internship, reach out to people with at least 3-4 years of experience working for the company you want to be in (Online zoom meeting is a coffee chat too, it’s not literally going to get coffee). Use LinkedIn for this. Send them a polite message inviting them to a 10- minute coffee chat. Get to know them, establish the connection, and with the one you get along with the most, ask for a second coffee chat. 3) Establish the mentor-student relationship: Let’s say you did coffee chats, you found the person who fits your interests the most. In your 2nd or 3rd coffee chat, ask him/her to become your mentor. Establishing a mentor-student relationship will open access to future conversations that will make the real change. 4) Find and go to recruiting events where the company you want to be in is taking part: It might be a school career fair, a convention, or an Expo. These are the places where you have the best chance to meet the recruiters and some other people who work for the same company. Dress to impress, prepare your pitch and present it, hand your resume, and ask for an application QR code. This is an important step. General application through platforms go nowhere, but the QR codes in career fairs/conventions take you to internal application links. 5) After the event, email the recruiter thanking for listening to you, and reach out to your mentor from the coffee chat (refer to step 3). Don’t say you want a “referral”. Something like “could you please put in a good word for me” makes the whole change. No one will give you these tips for free, but I am sharing what I took a long time to learn. Do and repeat these steps, and an internship opportunity is much closer than you think!

No matter how outgoing I look, I’m a very introverted person. Today is the weekend. I had a choice to go another fun social, but I decided to lock up, get my fav California style pizza, watch Netflix laying on the couch. I enjoy this way more than being in the crowd

Start your corporate ladder with a smaller firm: In my freshman/sophomore years, I’d get a lot of recommendations to look for an internship with smaller firms. They’d say “you’ll get more individual attention in a smaller firm”. Later on, I realized that starting somewhere smaller is indeed better, but not only because you get more attention. For me, it’s been vice versa. The smaller firm will give you the steepest learning curve. Before working for Deloitte, I worked at a mid-size firm that had a very niche speciality in the real estate market. They provided 3 service lines - taxation, audit, and reviews of financial statements for real estate entities. The moment I walked in, I was just thrown into a cell where I had to sort everything out independently. I printed out all sample work papers - accounts receivable, trial balances, contract liabilities, insurance, and many others. I started following, making mistakes, and learning. Fast forward 2 months, the busy season hit. Client deadlines started pushing. And guess what? As a new hire, I’d do reviews from 0 (tying out financial statements) to 100 (modifying the audit report and sending it to a client) all by myself. Seniors and managers would work on audits, and interns did the reviews. Review < Audit. Review is just checking everything was calculated and presented right, and basic analytics. Audit is much deeper than that. These are two different service lines. Now, at Deloitte, most teams are working on 10Q (quarterly) filings for clients. The new hires do tie outs, some analytics, and investment report summaries. That’s 5-10% of the whole engagement process. Conclusion: Yes, the brand name will open the doors. But once you go through that door, it will be your skills that will make you shine. And if you want to develop the most comprehensive corporate skillset, start somewhere smaller.