My Journey To IIM Rohtak

Life was good, I had it all, a stable job, amazing friends, caring family and most importantly a monotonous but simple routine. Time changed, however, I remained the same, an average person who worked just to sustain life. This was my story, the story which led me to question my existence every single day until I had a sudden epiphany to create a unique legacy.

It all began on the morning of 10th August 2019 when upon waking up I knew what I had to do. I knew that my career goals and vision lied way outside the current job and I no longer want to be a part of time inverted world where the best hours of my life were used to serve the job. It was time to let go of the normal life-sustaining mindset and to embrace the bold side of my existence which like a Phoenix was willing to rise from the ashes. It was time to quit, restart, rebuild and conquer.

However, belonging to a middle-class family, cutting the source of income was a very irrational choice. I was aware that no one will ever support my decision and no one ever did. They all said don't quit, but little did they know that I was just starting.

With a heavy heart backed up with a strong desire to work dedicatedly towards the bigger goal I independently quit my job along with a promise to not become a liability to anyone even with unemployment. Once I left my job, I started analyzing various career alternatives until I stumbled upon the idea of pursuing an MBA. Some decisions do not require due diligence because you intuitively know that you have made a right choice, for me pursuing MBA from one of the prestigious business schools in the country was one such decision. Thus my roller coaster journey to IIM Rohtak finally began on 13th August 2019.

The first step to achieve my dream was to bell the CAT and staying firm on my decision of being independent, I decided to prepare in my work city rather than going back to my hometown. Now with as little as three months left for the exam, I needed guidance to optimize the time utilization and learning, thus I decided to enroll for CAT guidance program which was conducted 35 Km away from my house. With limited savings in hand, I had no choice but to use public transportation for my commute, changing three modes of transport to reach the other side of the city only to learn the strategies required to ace CAT became my daily routine. Someone has rightly said, “Nothing worth having comes easy and Nothing easy is worth having”. I still remember the time when I use to wake up at 4:00 am to prepare food for the entire day and catch a 6:00 am bus to attend the 9:00 am class on a regular basis.

Eventually, with each day passing by, my desire to get into an IIM grew stronger and stronger. I started burning the midnight oil ensuring that I complete the entire syllabus with as many varieties of questions as possible. I also started attempting CAT mocks to prepare for the D-day but the results were shocking as I was barely able to cross the 85 percentile mark when my target was to get a 99 percentile. With each and every mock result, my confidence started declining and the clouds of self-doubt, uncertainty, failure and worst of all, fear of going back to the family with empty hands started surrounding me and in no time I fell prey to the worst problem in life “Depression”. I started studying for sixteen hours a day and spent the rest crying and weeping about how life is not going the way I want it to be, I started having serious second thoughts about my decision to quit the job.

After losing a gigantic amount of time to negativity, I accepted my situation and made peace with the fact that whatever the final result I will be happy that I gave my cent percent and left no stone unturned. Self-realization is a person’s greatest friend and once you accept your situation you do not need any numbers to prove your worth, all you need is a little hope and a firm belief on the quote “Whatever happens, happens for the good”. CAT happened, WATPI happened and the experience of being a part of such an amazing process is a story for some other day. The important part of my journey, the verdict whether quitting was right or wrong came and all the efforts and hard work paid off when I got a mail stating “Congratulations! You have been accepted for PGP program at IIM Rohtak”.