Watching a dream and making it come true is itself a dream!

Nice thought, isn’t it? Some people dream while sleeping, while others have open eyes, and it is always said that ‘the dreams with open eyes will never let people sleep.’

Having said that, most of the dreams have been watched after our secondary education, when all students have to select the different streams of education, and living in such an advanced world; there are various options available for the students and the liberty to select the career of their interest.

However, the number of choices has become a challenge for today’s youth. Sometimes, they are not able to identify or get confused in their interest areas. Catering for the major challenges, nowadays, there are many career counselling consultancies guiding students and helping them to take the right decision for their careers.

Similarly, Dr. Sonia Achantani has been setting new milestones in counselling the students in selecting their interesting streams after completion of their formal secondary education. Starting her career as a teacher, she has taught for 14 years and counselled many students during her teaching tenure.

While doing so, she used to enjoy knowing the students’ interests and showing them the right path. This led her to switch her teaching career to counselling, and after realizing her interest, she completed her certification in career counselling and then started with Dream Achievers consultancy. Since she started with the consultancy, she has guided more than 3000 students.

After a long conversation with The Knowledge review, Dr Sonia Achantani, the Founder and Director of Dream Achievers, shared her overall experiences and future goals.

An Expedition of Compassionate Leader

Dr Sonia Achantani is the founder and director of the Dream Achievers consultancy, and for 14 years, she has been in the education sector. Also, she has been in the teaching profession for eleven years.

Dr Sonia also had a coaching centre for students from Sr. Kg to Twelfth Grade, in that centre, she provided quality education in all subjects like Social Science, Biology, English, Psychology, and Business Studies, and there were eight staff members in her coaching centre.

She always arranges sessions where she interacts with the students and knows about their subject choices and career preferences. With these, she gets to know the students’ preferences, and accordingly, she used to guide and counsels the students.

Eventually, this became her interest area, and she did her certification course in Career Counselling. Currently, she is a successful career counsellor and has counselled more than 3000 students within a span of three years.

Dr Sonia counsels students for their stream selection, profile building, and shortlisting of the colleges. Apart from the students, she also guides professionals at various levels of their life and the copious options available for them to explore.

She is a certified PoSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Practitioner, and also the National Counsellor for Sports Education SPAA (Sports Academy Association India) and Global Ambassador of AIEF. She also organizes teacher enrichment programs.

Moreover, Dr Sonia is associated with many NGOs that are working to uplift the downtrodden people and create awareness among them to make a place in society. She has the Honorary Doctorate in Counselling and has more than 13 felicitations. Beyond her overall experiences and she had a certain value statement for her consultancy, which she shared with us ahead.

Sharp-Sight and its Operation

When Dr Sonia shared her whole career journey, she also enlightened us with her consultancy’s vision and mission. While sharing her vision, she says,

• “Create an opportunity, don’t wait for one.
• Cool heads make the best masters.
• Focused mind is the path to attain desired goals.”

Stating further the mission, she notes, “To create awareness among the youth to explore and choose the right career path.”

Her counselling consultancy’s stated vision and mission drive an intrinsic motivation, and she mentioned a few other aspects that keep her inspired all the time.

Self-Driven Motivation

After sharing the vision and mission of her counselling consultancy, Dr Sonia mentions the people and the aspect which always inspires her to achieve her goals, and she asserts, “My Inspiration to keep walking down the path is the goodwill and trust I have earned from my students. The support my family has given me to establish myself and make a place of my own in this society. All this gets more special when my work and efforts are recognized and appreciated. When my students grow and become successful people in their life and also do well in their respective fields.”

With so much experience, she also made changes in the quality of education when she was in the teaching field.

Trailblazing the Education Quality

While telling her inspiring story to us, Dr Sonia also shared the changes she brought in the field of education and how she introduced quality education for the students during her teaching tenure saying, “When I was a teacher, I used to try to make the concepts easy for children and provide their handwritten notes with simple language and short pointers so that they don’t adapt to rot learning.”

“Today also when children come to me for counselling, I make it a point to explain to them all 3 streams available after 10th and also about the subjects in each stream so that they have a clear vision of what they aspire to and how they can pursue? I also share tips on how they can prepare for exams without taking any kind of stress. I do suggest them activities that can be taken in order to make a strong profile,” she further adds.

Dr Sonia’s career counselling helps many students to grab international opportunities, as she helps her students to groom in certain aspects which drive various global opportunities.

Comprehensive Opportunities

When it comes to opportunities, Dr Sonia grooms her students in such a way that drives different opportunities for them. While asserting her strategies to make the students competent enough, she mentions, “I guide my students to explore their inner strengths and interest, understand their aptitude and passion and then accordingly take a call. Along with academics, I motivate them to be a part of extra-curricular activities as it helps them to groom holistically.”

She helps the students indulge all these innate skills in themselves to grab various possible opportunities. She also mentions the difficulties she faced during her journey and the outcome of those challenges.

Complications and Hitting the Jackpot

While having a fruitful conversation with Dr Sonia, she enlightened us about the challenges and their outcomes in her life, saying, “The decision to change from teaching to counselling was a tough one as I had to leave 11 years of hard work and start fresh. Yes, it has been very tough, but I am gradually moving towards accomplishing my milestones.”

A Piece of Cake

• She has been felicitated by the Human Rights Education Association and Bharat Vikas Parishad for her work throughout 2020.
• On 5 September 2021, she was felicitated by the prestigious Dr Sarvepalli Radha Krishnan International Award of Excellence 2021 organized by IDYM Foundation.
• She was also felicitated with Shaurya Samman and Sutra Excellence Award’21 by AB News and Sutra Events.
• She has been featured in the book Marvellous Maestros written by Sarbari Dutta.
• Also, she got felicitated by PAAI with the Rashtriya Shiksha Ratan Samaan.

Besides all these achievements, Dr Sonia has achieved many more awards and recognitions throughout her career. All these achievements have been possible because of the changes she made and believes in, and there she also shared a piece of advice for the teachers, students, and everyone.

A Shot Across the Bows

When we ask her about her advice for everyone, she suggests very significant approaches and asserts, “I would like to suggest teachers, students and everyone who is a part of the education system to always have a positive mind frame because that will help them to adapt changes faster and better. Initiate exploring and research work in daily lesson plans as that will enhance the knowledge of students as well as teachers. Have healthy interactive sessions, involve more and more activity-based learning, and above all, give sports and fitness awareness. By doing this, the child will stay physically, emotionally, socially, and mentally strong. Have enrichment programmes for teachers on a regular basis.”