The only good thing about being average is that you're as close to the top as far you're from the bottom!
Asha hailed from a small town in Vidarbha, Maharashtra. She is an ardent believer of destiny, because every time she had a plan in life - life had other plans for her.
Fresh out of 10th standard, Asha had hoped to study literature and pursue journalism, but she happily gave in to her father's wishes of becoming the 'first' engineer of her family. With an 'average' amount of hard work, Asha landed at an 'average' engineering college in Nagpur.
The 4 years of engineering were not less than a game of snakes & ladders for Asha. It was hardly into her second year, when her family came under major financial burdens, and funding her education became a serious issue. She was suggested dropping out of college and going back to her hometown, saving costs and helping her parents back home. After a lot of groundwork, Asha took a personal loan from a relative to pay her college fees and took up a part-time job to support her living expenses. She did what she had always been interested in - Teach. She walked for nearly 4 kms everyday to give at-home tuitions to school students. Asha continued this endeavour for the remaining 3 years until she graduated.
Asha managed to bag an exceptional campus placement offer, despite an average CGPA of 6.09/10. But as destiny had it, she couldn’t join the organization due to her mother’s ill health. After her mother recovered, Asha applied for a job at a private coaching institution, where she received positive reviews as a Junior Lecturer. Soon after, she went on to work for one of the highest-valued education start-ups in the country.
Through some dedication and a little bit of luck, Asha managed to do well at her job. Within a span of 2.5 years, she started heading a team of six. She also shared financial responsibilities of her family, including funding her brother’s higher education. During this stint of managing a team did Asha realise that she needed to learn a lot more about leadership and what it takes to create a successful business.
So, along with these endeavours, Asha parallely began her preparation for MBA entrance tests. Partly through self-study and partly through her colleagues' guidance, Asha dreamt of making it big. She was fixated at pursuing her higher education from any of the top-20 B-schools. Juggling work deadlines and exam preparation, her final performance was pretty 'average' -
NMAT - 96 percentile
CAT - 94.8 percentile
CET - 99.6 percentile
IIFT - 93.4 percentile
With the handful of interview calls Asha managed to get, she decided to make the best of the opportunity. She managed to convert one of the most coveted B-schools of the country - NMIMS, Mumbai!
Today, Asha is self-funding her education at NMIMS.
She is an epitome of a strong, independent woman, who has managed to beat all odds to reach where she has.
"You stop being average the day you decide to become a champion; because the average person won't make that decision". - Tom Hopkins