Part A: Why Aditya Birla Is Big In Your Life:
I am very confident that Aditya Birla Group is so big conglomerate that it must have impacted everyone's life. Since many years, ABG has properly delivered on its values of Quality and Services through its wide range of products and services in various sectors - Apparels, Telecom Industry, Digital Banking, Mining, and many others. When I went to my engineering college, it was the first time that I was going to stay away from my family, along with them I was also very tensed that how am I going to do, what if I required any help, how and what will I do. But, at this hard time, Vodafone, follow you everywhere, was with me, following everywhere and gave an assurance of being always connected not only to me but also to my family. Then during my studies and MBA preparation, I faced a lot of situations where none but ABG helped me out, through their widespread and uninterrupted 4G network, I could find out solutions to all the problems which would arise in my studies and final year project work. It really helped me a lot to complete my thesis and also in my preparation.ABG even cared about our trending dressing fashion and styles for every day. Starting from the casual college days to formal interview sessions, I had a great variety of choices through their apparel stores- Allen Solly, Pantaloons, Van Heusen, Peter Englan. And being a student these were very helpful for me as I think they are value for money products. Then being a Civil Engineer Graduate, I particularly understand the significant contribution which ABG has done to the society through their product, UltraTech Cement, the most famous and engineer's first choice. The superior quality and unique composition of Ultratech Cement makes we engineers stand above all others and also makes Ultratech stand alone at the top in this sector and due to this every person in this industry recognizes this product. So, for all these reasons, I feel that it has made such an impact that none else and due to this, it has become an essential part of my life.
Part B: How Have You Made An Impact:
During my 3rd year of graduation, in July, I came across an exam called CAT, one of the toughest exams, also acting as an entry gate for premier MBA colleges. I googled about its eligibility, pattern, cutoff, selection criteria, and casually decided to give it a shot. I wasn't sure about the result or rather. I wasn't confident enough about the exam at that moment. But anyways, I started preparing for CAT along with my college studies and final year project research work. Since I knew my strong areas were Quantitative Analysis and Logical reasoning, I focussed more upon them. I want aware of the level of VARC("going to be a nightmare") part of the CAT. So I didn't take it much seriously as I thought I 'll be able to cope up with it at later stages of preparation. But...
But this decision of mine was going to change my entire life. Though I started my preparation for CAT just as to see where I stand in the competition, but got serious slowly. Slowly I gathered interest towards it and started preparing very seriously-giving 10 to 12 hours daily, solving every problem of maths and reasoning from various books. So the day comes, I gave the test and eventually results came. The results were such that it left a scar on my heart and mind; I had secured 93 percentile overall but not enough to clear the VARC cutoff of any colleges. For the very first time, I had the taste of complete failure because this was the first time that I had not cleared an exam. I started feeling dishearted, demotivated, and slowly went into a depressed mood. After few weeks, I received an offer letter from the ongoing campus placement to one of the top core civil company, but I was in a dilemma, my mind said go for this, but my inner soul wasn't allowing me to do. My heart was saying to me, "You can't lose hope, you are not a loser. You can do it and have to clear off this failure mark from your forehead."So I decided to not to go for a job and give CAT once again with more energy and hard work. I gathered some strength and hope from my parents and got enrolled in one of the coaching institutes.
But as you know, when the difficult time comes, it won't go quickly. The institute was around 20km far from my place of stay, which meant I would have to spend about 1.5 hours in the journey. But then also I continued. This time I knew my weakness if not strengths completely. I practiced, started reading from various books to improve my VARC(verbal ability and reading comprehension).In the 1.5 hours journey, I would watch motivational videos, quotes, and online materials for my preparation. During the initial few days, I would talk to my parents for more than 2 hours, and they would give counseling to be motivated and come out of depression. Slowly my preparation was taking up the pace, and this time, I kept a balance between all the three areas of CAT. Then the D-Day came, I gave CAT with all my dedication and waited for the results. The results came, and I finally sailed through all the hardships, and today I am in one of my dream colleges- INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, RANCHI. I want to share two things that I learned from this stage of my life-firstly, "Don't take failure as a failure that you are now out of the game, but rather think that in your next try, you will be ahead of many beginners. Take this failure as your first milestone towards your success."Secondly, "High expectations lead to better performance."
Prem Kumar
IIM Ranchi