"Be careful of the words you use to insult others because of most of them might be a clear reflection of your personality” – a thought conceived by Tshepo Koos Maluleke that maintains its veracity in almost every worldly situation. But since time immemorial, (let’s bring it forward to 1961 actually :p) it is common knowledge that the mystical world of an IIM unabashedly defies many concepts of the world outside it and the aforementioned thought also miserably fails to be an exception to it.
Out of a plethora of skills that the denizens of an IIM possess, very subtly maintaining a huge contrast between what they say or even do and who they really are is probably the most ubiquitous. Based on my experience of roundabout 8 months in an IIM, I’ve discerned the following 5 interesting and the most rife personality types. Beware! The list is obviously not exhaustive.
A.
The “experienced immature” guys: Professors expect a great deal of maturity and prudence from the students who have arrived at the party after gaining a significant work-ex. The fresher students also count on these students to teach them a few lessons of maturity. Surprisingly enough, many of the experienced students don’t leave any stone unturned to demonstrate their so-called maturity by indulging in activities like bickering over 0.5 marks in a quiz of negligible importance, getting excessively scared and dropping their weapons in the face of even a modest level of multitasking requirements, etc.
B.
The “do-it-all” candidates: There are a few who have a high propensity towards participating in everything that comes their way. Sometimes you envy them and sometimes you pity them. Many a time, it hits them bad when they end up in that dreaded zone lying between being the Jack of all trades and being a master of one. However, many of them excel at their game by getting success at some of their escapades or by gaining great learning from many of their failures.
C. The ones with the veil of coolness: They are the ones who are innate geeks but due to some unfathomable reasons, are ashamed to portray this to the world. They mock the studious ones in all their daytime social gatherings before burying themselves in the books for the entire night. When they score fancy in the exams despite “not touching” the books, their coolness quotient knows no bounds. They never miss a chance to ridicule the ones who get easily scared by whatsoever reasons but then they themselves pee in their pants when confronted by any such situations.
D. The “Help-desks”: Barring the ones who genuinely want to make the lives of others easier, there are many who staunchly believe in quid pro quo. Each gesture of help shown by them today is expected to fetch them recommendations or votes in the club/committee elections poised to happen sometime in the future. They show camaraderie and heap praises on others not because they truly feel like doing so but to draw benefits from the goodwill earned today in some possible way tomorrow.
E. The ones living the extended version of their undergrad: People falling in this category do not find many incentives even in an IIM to push whatever personal limits they had set for themselves during their undergrad courses. It’s said that you’re definitely missing out on something if you’re able to sleep consistently for more than 6 hours in an IIM but these students just go overboard by drawing a sleep of not less than 8 hours a day and still squandering a big chunk of their time while they’re awake! They snub almost all the competitions, events, seminars, guest lectures, etc. with great aplomb.
Although there are a multitude of students who quite clearly lie out of the aforementioned 5 personality types, one tenet applies to them all: everybody has his or her poison to survive the toll-taking environment of an IIM.