Winter is here. And it brings with it the tide of exams. The pressure is intense, and the air is thick with the smell of fear. The MBA train has arrived. Preparing for MBA is like travelling in an IRCTC train. You make the booking (register for exams) and expect to arrive at the destination. Never in history has a train started on time or reached on time. Sound familiar? It once happened to me that the train driver didn't turn up. Can you believe that? It took three hours to find a substitute. But, sooner or later, the MBA train reaches its destination. All it needs is a little bit of patience and perseverance.
Failure is good – Some have it easy. They try for MBA once and make it into a b-school. I believe that the sense of achievement you get after a failure tastes much better than instant success. The value you place on the reward is higher.
Have a Patronus – After a while looking at mock test scores, b-school stats, and trying to figure out where you will end up, you get tired; you get demented. What you need is a Patronus – anything that you can turn to bring yourself up. It can be anything as simple as watching movies, listening to music, or cooking. Anything that bounces you back up.
Hit the snooze button – Burn out is common. It is okay to take some time off to revive your brain cells. Recharge yourself before you continue this tiring journey.
Be Captain Jack Sparrow – Captain Sparrow never stopped calling himself captain. In the face of adversity, he put up a brave face and went with the flow. Captain Sparrow was the captain of his ship even when he didn't have a ship. Even if you do not have the ship of MBA today, you will have it eventually.
The final month of exams can be intense. You eat for survival, pray for good scores, and hope to make it to a good institute. With wave after wave of tests, it is common to get dejected after a bad exam. It takes a while to pull yourself together and brace for the next wave. If Rocky were a movie about an MBA aspirant, Rocky Balboa would have said, "It's not about how hard you study quant. It is about how hard you flunk and keep moving to the next test. It is how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how an MBA is done".