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Where it all started
I am a people person with an inclination towards creative thinking, and I had always been interested in lifestyle, art, and design. All of this led me to pursue graduation in fashion from NIFT.
During my undergraduate studies, while my major was in knitwear design, I opted for a minor in fashion communication, not knowing how it would end up making me realize my aptitude and interest in the business and management side of the industry. Ultimately, I developed an interest in marketing.
I interned with the marketing team at a premium leather goods company over the summer before my final year, an experience that solidified my interest in this field. And what better way to fuel my aspirations than to pursue an MBA? That's how my journey began. However, little did I know that this journey would be a whirlwind of transformation and learning things I had not expected.
Preparing to Prepare
Of course, one of the first things I did was try to find someone who had a similar path: from a Bachelor of Design to pursuing management at one of my target institutes. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone who matched this specific trajectory. There were people from NIFT of course, but that was a saturated sea of people who held a degree in Bachelor of Fashion Technology. Initially, this lack of relatable experiences was the first thing that dampened my spirits. Was I even picking the correct path? Who even went from pursuing design to pursuing an MBA? It was the biggest mental hurdle I had to overcome in my entire journey, but I managed.
After graduating in June 2022, I decided to take time off to focus on preparation. I dedicated my days to studying, and seized the opportunity of expanding my mental horizons by getting back to learning French (something I had not done since 10th grade), learning more about the marketing field, taking online courses, and painting.
Embracing the CAT Challenge
Oh, CAT. No introduction is required for that, of course.
Coming from a background where textbooks and exams were non-existent and almost all work was hands-on, I faced an uphill battle. Without a tech or commerce foundation, I had to start from near basics, especially for Quant. I got myself a formula book from Amazon, cleared my concepts from YouTube for the most part, and spent time solving the LOD 2 questions from the Arun Sharma book. I knew I had no shortcuts around this and that the only way out was through.
I took a lot of mocks, at least one per week, and kept meticulous track on an Excel sheet - I kept a record of my section-wise scores and percentiles, the easy questions that I missed, silly mistakes, questions that should not have been attempted, and more.
I also relied on the sets given in these mocks for VARC and DILR preparation for the most part. Other than this, I did not specifically have any dedicated preparation for VARC, and for DILR I believe my habit of solving sudoku and Hashi puzzles definitely helped in some way.
CAT 2022
Coming to D-Day, I panicked halfway through the exam. Panicked really bad, to be specific. Even then, I did my best to maintain my composure and salvage whatever time I had left. I made some mistakes, but the magnitude of my errors seemed magnified immediately after the exam. I felt as though I had lost all hope for getting into a college for batch 2023-2025 via CAT.
However, when the results came out, it became clear that my attempt at maintaining my composure had somehow worked, and the final result was much better than was expected. I managed to get a decent result in the other exams I took as well, despite being somewhat shaken by my CAT experience.
Calls out, Interview time!
PI intimations started pouring in in January. I was ecstatic to receive calls from several institutes, some of which were tier-1 b-schools, which included a profile cum score-based call from SPJIMR.
I immediately enrolled in a PI guidance course (I joined InsideIIM's WAT-PI program) and started preparing for the PIs.
My first PI of the season was somehow SPJIMR's GI 1, and I remember being a bundle of nerves. The questions were focused on the basic ones like "Tell us about yourself" & "Why management?" along with ones that turned into a riveting discussion about marketing in rural areas & about the fashion and garment industry locally and internationally. When my group got our verdict, we shrieked in unison: all four got through to GI 2!
About a month later, it was time for the GI 2. However, life seems to have its way of throwing unexpected curveballs when least expected (Murphy's law just had to hold true). The night before the interview, I got a 103-degree fever, thanks to the change in weather. It was a moment of despair as doubts and fears threatened to overpower me. Despite feeling physically weakened, I gathered the strength to face the interview panel, knowing that this was an opportunity I couldn't let slip away. Hopped up on paracetamol and sheer determination, I showed up at the interview venue. That afternoon, luck seemed to be on my side; the writing ability topic I got was centred around restrictions on freedom of speech, which is something that I have a lot of opinions on and hence had a lot to write about with ease. Similarly, in the GI, the main discussion topics in my group were veganism and taxing the rich more; again, topics I had a lot of opinions on. The last question directed at me was regarding something I had written in my initial application, that I played a district chess championship once without knowing the game, which gave me a chance to narrate the incident's amusing backstory.
I left the interview feeling assured that I had performed fairly decently, and proceeded to collapse into my bed for a desperately needed 10-hour slumber as soon as I reached home.
