My MBA Journey Part-1

This post has been due for many months now, but better late than never.

The seeds of this journey were sown somewhere in the 2nd year of my engineering college. That is when we realised that higher studies had to be on our radar, else we shall end up as one of the innumerable faces entering a software company in droves. Nothing wrong with that, just that believing yourself to be worth more does have its share of benefits and side-effects. So higher studies for an engineering student may mean 3 common things- MBA, or MTech, or MS. Other options like civil services didn’t appeal to me. My dream was to work in a hot-shot tech. company, read Microsoft, Google, Yahoo et al. By 2nd year I realised that this dream was difficult to be fulfilled. And by 3rd year, I was almost sure it could not be fulfilled!! So when it came to higher studies, I was inclined towards an MTech or an MBA. But for doing an MTech, one needs to have an interest in a particular area of Computer Science, and I wasnt very interested in any particular field. Hence, after more than a year of dilly-dallying, I decided this was my only option.

Preparation started when we were in the beginning of 3rd year ( early birds! ), and from the very beginning, I was lucky to be in a group where many were seriously motivated to prepare hard. The preparation stage was fun, we were enjoying this stage. Then came the summers of 2008. We had a 2 month long vacation, and this was the period which we seriously utilised for our preparation. Even though we started early, these 2 months contributed to almost 70% of our entire preparation, since we had a definite direction in which we knew we had to proceed, and were definitely not rudder-less. Then came the mocks, and in this stage we realised the areas where we were on the right track, and the areas in which we weren’t. The mocks taught us the most about CAT, and how to hone our test-taking strategies. It helped that there wasn’t much pressure from the academics side at our college.

Then came the big day, November 16th, 2008 – CAT Day. I was nervous when I started for the test-center, but as soon as I left home on time, tension eased a little. The center was nice and the rooms were nicely lighted and cheery type. So far so good. Then came the paper, the format had changed a little, and I realised I might use it to my advantage. I went ahead with my normal strategy, nothing ground-breaking or earth-shattering. I was at my elements on that day, it was like the parts of a jigsaw puzzle were falling into place. I came out of the exam hall feeling satisfied, though I had attempted less questions, and would have to rely on accuracy a lot.

Fast-forward to January 10th, 2009 – CAT results Day. I was hoping for a good percentile, and expecting a decent percentile, but I was shocked seeing my results- a percentile of 99.80, with 6 IIM calls  – BLACKI, it was like a dream come true. I couldn’t have asked for more, everything that could have gone right did go right.

What these results did were more than skin-deep. I regained trust in myself, believed that I too can shake a leg among the best, and broke many stereotypes in my mind. But the greatest positive was, I realised I am living a dream, and I want to make the most of it till it lasts. It’s not everyday in life that everything happens they way you hope it will. And its not everyday that you are treated like a king by one and all.

Watch out for MBA Journey – Part 2 next.

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Tags: CAT, IIM, MBA

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