May 9th, 2007: it is almost like the day when Hagrid first lands up on Harry potter’s life and house, and shatters everything by announcing "you are no ordinary muggle, but a gifted-wizard".Finally I have got admission into a B-school; now the challenge: to shatter the peaceful ambience that I have build all around me; including a cushy job, pocket filling salary, doting girl-friend and forge apart a new avatar of myself, or as in pure marketing terminologies, “Re-inventing myself”.
The quest for an MBA was incidentally fired when myself and my friend Aravind, took part in a Business plan competition(reason: prize was a lakh) and then somehow our amateur luck shone and we were the only engineering team among the top 8 teams presenting before esteemed industrialists such as C.K.Ranganath (CEO calvin Care), Arun Jain(CEO polaris) and the RPG chief honco for the Anna university Entreprenership cell. It was during the initial stages of our plan that we came across couple of people who had finished their MBA and settled in varied fields, the branch-manager of SBI-Chennai, an auditor, couple of senior junta whose opinion we valued. It was then that I realized that there was something different among all these people across such multitude of job-profiles….
What really set these people apart was their thinking, how they approached any problem, trying to cast their thought-process across the entire zenith of our discussion.
Much later, however when my dream run at the software concern was going across I had the benevolence to have close correspondence with the business head of our Storage vertical in Wipro Technologies, and then a few more amazing section manager at HP added fuel to the aspiration for doing my M.B.A
"There are two kinds of people in this world as I believe those who get into the IIMs and those who become mere statistics (the remaining 99 percentile who just could'nt). And I did not want to be a mere statistic. "
For almost two years I toiled hard, just to accomplish my dream… Frankly speaking, it was an obsession which practically consumed every week-end and any spare moments I had. Things were progressing as expected, every mock-cats I was always in the top 95 percentile I had a highest rank of All India 17 till my lowest of 1500. It was over-confidence which ultimately led to the doom; somehow all the boost-up and egoistic beratings squeezed into the very last time and like Karna, I lost when it matter the most. I got a mere 90 percentile overall and the split-up was none-the-less stupendifying !!!
The first week was shattering after the results were declared, in my over-confidence I had applied only to the top four B-schools in India; IIMs, FMS, XLRI and SPJAIN.
Luckily I scored 98 percentile in XAT and somehow managed to get a call only from SPJAIN. Here was my safety net, becoming my last and final hope.
My profile :
a) Top ranker in school, awarded National merit certificates by N.C.E.R.T for both X and XII.
b) Computer science grad with a mere 86 % in college, college representation with very little to show as extra-curriculars, and definitely no spectacular achievements in sports.
c) Industry experience : 2 yrs with WIPRO technologies and then 10 months with Hewlett-Packard. Appreciation: “Exceeding” ratings at both my work-places.
d) Avid Quizzer(rather quiz master), conducted corporate quizzes within WIPRO and across shishya school and Hindu Senior. Hobbies includes trekking, exploring places with the recent back-packing trek across entire Egypt and Dubai.
I knew that with my preparation, all I needed was an interview call and sure I could convert it, with due diligence I prepared and voila got into SPJAIN.
This Blog shall henceforth record the experience of an M.B.A professional, the trials and tribulations, the mistakes and discoveries; my 2 years with my extended family.
