Working Lives India: Student
Student Challa Ramesh Reddy is at Talent Sprint, a finishing school in Hyderabad. It's not a finishing school of the Swiss variety, but one that helps graduates hone their job skills.
He has a bachelor of technology in IT, and is now learning business communication and time management, alongside some technical skills.
He comes from an agricultural family in Andhra Pradesh state on the southeastern coast of India. His father encouraged him to get an education, after he himself dropped out of college without finishing his degree. The family had faced financial difficulties, and believe they could be avoided by getting an education.
He was nine or 10 when a distant cousin working as a software engineer in the US visited them in the village. Ramesh saw the possibility of a better life, and decided then to become a software engineer. After he finishes his three-month course at Talent Sprint, he is hoping to get a job paying around $350 a month. But he will still have to pay off the loan he has taken to pay for his course.
"I must get a job, otherwise the last 23 or 24 years will have been a waste," he says.
In Hyderabad, he lives with three other young men, all living a bachelor existence. He endures the loneliness of the city and comforts himself with chess and cricket, and working on his coursework.
Mr Reddy has a focus not always seen in a young 20-something. For him, education is the path to a better life - not just for himself, but his whole family. He wants to give them a better life, to "bring them to the city".