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In my first year of M Phil, I had to take a Macroeconomics and for some reason I really enjoyed the lectures and assumed that I was good at that. I got a very rude shock when I got a very low grade in that course, but my university allowed for reattempting the paper again, which generally is tougher to ensure fairness. In my next attempt I managed to do extremely well, and I realized that often technically deep subjects require a tenacity to ensure you can perform well. One lesson I got is to be extremely serious in your efforts and not take anything for granted. I would always prefer to be over prepared rather than be under prepared and this has helped me in enriching my learning later when I started my doctoral research.
I am a very big Harry Potter and Amish Tripathi Fan and top two things on my bucket list are getting a signed autograph from Amish on the next Ram Chandra series book and going to London Central to get my picture taken in a proper wizard costume with a wand and hat.
The first success that I was most proud of was cracking IITJEE in 2007. Although, I eventually started my IIT journey in 2008 after spending a year in BIT Mesra, cracking IITJEE in my first attempt was an immense confidence booster which gave me a lesson that hard work more often than not begets results. The IIT experience was extremely enriching and was an added benefit of my achievement.A second success I am extremely proud of is the fact that I was offered one of the 11 PhD positions in Tilburg University from an exclusive cohort of 20 students who went to a strenuous selection level to make it there in the first place. The most important lesson from my PhD experience is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing motivation or energy or focus, and always believe that things will work out in the end. To be honest, I have become a hopeless optimist thanks to the PhD experience.
I have a long term goal of 10 years from now. Post-MBA, I would love to get into consulting. Top firms such as McKinsey, BCG and Bain are potential targets. I see myself getting into a top Partner-level position in the next 10-12 years. Over the next 5 years, I would like to get exposed to different industries and verticals. I see myself running my own fintech firm where either I am innovating on an important gap point, preferably in the Supply Chain sector as I have some experience studying global value chains and I enjoy solving problems that have many facets. Another possibility could be to start my own trading firm, given my experience in economics and interest in finance. Either way, I would prefer to gain some corporate experience and then start something of my own as I feel I can do justice to it and doctoral experience has made me more conducive to work and innovate which works well in a startup environment.
The characteristic I possess is more of an acquired one, which is that I am immune to public opinion. Now, it doesn't mean that I am tone-deaf towards criticisms or don't enjoy when my achievements are being praised. It's just that I always accept any opinion as it is opinion without letting it impact my psyche. In the course of my life journey, I have encountered many phases in some of which I was an exceptional performer and a darling of anyone around me and in some I even had folks close to me treat me with a benign neglect to be politically correct. Thus, eventually, I build up a simple understanding as to who I am and where I am going are some things only I know for sure at any given moment of time and as such opinion of authors will always be colored by their lens of experience, which led me to always treat public opinion at an arms' length.
The most important skill a successful manager possess is the ability to take in criticisms dispassionately from anyone junior or senior to him/her. Most managers have quantitative and managerial skills imparted either via education or experience, but the soft skills part is often ignored. Thus, if a manager can take criticism dispassionately, it helps him/her on two fronts. Firstly, it helps him/her find out ares where he/she can make improvement, and secondly, it makes him/her more approachable by his team which can be extremely beneficial for the manager as it could ensure that the problems are tackled at the very beginning before they have chance to flare up and cause some major damage.
While doing my PhD, I had teaching obligations and I taught tutorials to undergraduate students. In the course of teaching, some students were a bit more interested and thus asked a plethora of questions. Sometimes, I also answered their doubts outside of class too. I still remember that before a mid-term exam, a couple of students dropped by to ask a doubt. Now, the office hours were past, and thus I was a bit skeptical in answering doubts on the eve before the examination, but I agreed to stay back and clear their doubts. Surprisingly, two of the doubts they asked were very similar to the questions that were going to be asked in the exam the next day, and I was in two minds as to what to do. Answering these questions would mean that these students get an edge in the exam at the very last minute which seems wrong but at the same time they ended with those doubts because of their diligence and not answering the questions was wrong too. At the end, I decided to err on the side of caution and explained the answers to the students as they should not be punished for sheer luck of happening upon questions that are going to be asked the next day.