Growing up in a lower middle class family, I always had a desire, instead of an aim. My desires were influenced by what I saw in the movies and society. I dreamed of being a rich man as shown in those Yashraj movies. Hidden beneath these desires was an innate aspiration to comprehend the workings of real world around me. So, I chose to graduate as an engineer but soon realized that knowing how a BMW worked was not as important as knowing why a BMW was such a prized possession. It seemed only logical to understand the bigger blocks after knowing all about the shapes and sizes of what comprised them. But collecting a gamut of information without an aim that combed through it was like searching for a needle in a haystack and that too with no information about that needle.
During the last one year, I have spent days working at the office and nights introspecting about that aim. Frequent stimulating conversations and the literature helped me understand that it is not just the path you follow, it is rather the skills you acquire and choose to sell in pursuit of an aim that lead to success. Foreknowledge about what comprises of a good aim was there, but deciding upon which skill I could hone took a lot of time, for often such talents hide in plain sight.
I knew I was a people's person when I befriended the entire batch in God’s own country. It was only when I was offered to develop content for a friend's new venture that I realized the potential of creativity. It took six more months, three startups and around million words to understand the marketing potential of that creativity. Working on those independent projects, I acquired the elementary knowledge for developing a marketing campaign. The caliber of an idea to affect or touch the mind of the broadest targeted demographic is immense. Channelizing that caliber through effective communication was my calling.
Amidst all this was a failed first attempt at CAT and a lot of literature read to have some thoughts for food. In the beginning, a constant question of why a management school is testing my acumen for math and language kept buzzing my head. Until one day, I had an epiphany. Every word is a tool needed to express an idea and the math was for successful execution of that idea. Once the reasons were clear, the choices didn’t go wrong. I matured through the process of group discussions and interviews to secure a place at IIM Rohtak.
I think the process of how I made the decision for MBA describes it more clearly than anything of what I expect from this course. But to be candid, I expect to learn the art of using my skills to pursue perfection in the field of marketing. Moreover, the soul of an institute lies in the students who dwell in it. I expect to learn a lot more from the soul and befriend it to keep on learning throughout my career. -----------
About the Author: I am Amit Pandey. I did my Civil Engineer from NIT Calicut and worked as a server admin for TCS before I started freelancing as a content writer for some startups. I have a keen interest in advertising and brand-development. An atheist, bibliophile and lover of all thoughts weird and random. I write about regular things at
https://theephialtes.quora.com/.
