In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2020-22, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out. One of those featured in today's story, Prerna Raj, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve her true potential. Read on and find out her story!
The following are Prerna Raj’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Prerna's story and profile stood out. Here's her story in her own words.
Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
MBA was never my first choice, but I had never thought that this would become my destiny. I am a Forensic Science Graduate which is a field not at all related to Business Management. The decision of taking up CAT post my UG was something that was not advised to me by any of my friends or family as they believed this to be something way out of my league and comfort zone. But, to everyone's amazement, I had made the Holy Trinity (IIM ABC) to be my dream no matter whatever it would take to fulfil it. This was a big risk for me as during my final year, I could score only 75 percentile in my CAT exams and this failure had hit me really hard and the transition that I had to make was completely beyond my comfort instance. I had decided not to quit and started working vigorously on my weaknesses for the remaining tenure. As always said, hard work pays off which finally did when I converted IIM Calcutta on 13th of May 2020. The journey was beyond explanation and the feeling of achieving my dreams was ecstatic.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
I worked with an NGO as an Educational Health volunteer for about 2 years. I volunteered for a lot of health drives, female hygiene awareness and worked around some societal taboos. I used to go to camps on a regular basis and the major problem was that most of the women were too shy to get out of their houses and talk openly with us in the camps. I could sense this reluctance in a few weeks and one day I decided to go along with my mother to the village and try to find out the real issue with them. One of the major hindrances that they faced was that they were not allowed to go out and attend those camps as their families had a very conservative mindset and would not let the women of the house go in front of other men. I was really feeling restless about the fact that I was unable to change the situation and hence, I decided to go on my own to those women apart from the NGO camps and try to educate them in their own comfort zones. I made this a part of my routine for more than 6 months and I still feel that even if I was able to make a small impact it would mean the world to me.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
While I was working with my previous organization before my MBA, I got an opportunity to work on a product launch. During one of our discussions, there was a disagreement over the launch of the product date as I had a different opinion regarding the expedition of the process. The team wanted to go for a quick launch after doing just a couple of Beta testing but I personally was of the opinion that since the product is catered for young children we need to carry on more comprehensive testing and add more child-sensitive functionalities before finally rolling it in the market. I decided to pursue this opinion with the Co-founders of the company and substantiated my argument with various competitors along with their success and failure stories. Since the product was very instrumental for the future plans of the organization, I did not want to make any mistake by rolling it out in haste rather than giving it one more shot. I was finally able to convince all the stakeholders along with my team members to give some more time to the product enhancement and the launch turned out to be a good success.
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
I am a person who believes that experiences and people add more to our personal development than the confines of any institution. The whole idea of crossing boundaries and getting to know diverse cultures was culminated in me via reading books of different genres. These books and the stories of the people in them have been with me for the past 15 years. This triggered in me an inquisitiveness to make things real and cross the boundaries beyond books and build on to my own repository of experiences to feel the wholesomeness of human cultures and emotions. I began travelling at the age of 17 years and from then it has been an ongoing ritual that I pursue with deep passion. I have traveled to 23/28 states in India and have visited more than 100 offbeat locations including villages and tribal hubs. Every time, I travel I find a new dimension of looking at life. This passion instilled in me a desire to study a tribe in depth. I went on to write a research paper on "The Psychology of Asur Tribe" which is one of the least known tribes of India. The various interpretations of life that people around us have never failed to astonish me and I believe this is just a start to a beautiful story that I am making on my own.
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
I come from a country that is very rich and diverse in culture with people living across different states, speaking different languages, and having different psychological perceptions. I have already stated in an answer before the passion that I have for travelling and exploring new cultures, but some of these tribes and cultures also have a very harsh reality imbibed within their existence. While working with a tribe, I found out that to date they struggle with a very basic need of water and shelter and they have to travel 40 km up and down a mountain terrain even to get a basic thing like salt. If I had 10 million dollars I would try to create an impact in the lives of these people and try to form an organization/ association of like-minded people with some resources at our disposal to make the voices of these people heard. I will try to bring a change in at least some of these lives by helping them to become independent in some ways and improve their living conditions.
Read the stories of the other Employable Graduates here!