It is almost funny how little one observes when a set of conducts and choices, largely governed by one’s own personal range of emotions and perceptivity, gets metamorphosed. Although, that is principally subconscious in most cases and typically, an outcome of a dominant environment for a prolonged period of time that influences a sense of transformation, an MBA would tell you that he/she felt personally urged to act a certain way for good.
In that context, I believe myself to be an extremely introspective person, and mapping self-evolution is a task my mind does not give me a choice with. With that at the backdrop, my journey through the rigour of a B-School has been one with a fast-paced progression. At its outset, the decision I made after rounds of deliberation was to get into the rural management programme, which, undeniably, felt like a brave choice at that point, for I did not consider myself fit for it, taking into account all the grit one essentially needs as a pre-requisite to understand development, or the lack of it, beyond discomfort. Coming from a Biotechnology background, all the discomfort I ever knew had to do with a lab test not giving the results it was supposed to! All of that in an air-conditioned laboratory with advanced machines! Cutting it short to a village stay of 45 days with rudimentary conditions of living, which is a requirement of the course, was nothing near to anything I had imagined to experience. Having been brought up in an urban space for all my life, I saw myself growing in adaptability by the end, which is a real-world life skill that no school gives grounding in. I think that the actual victory, if we call it so, was in the overcoming of fear of the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable, and rather empathizing with people we outrank in resources, money, education, and access to opportunities; moreover, thinking in the direction of finding solutions to the issues at the grassroots, rather than worrying about making myself comfortable, was a conquest in itself! Such a major psychological shift was an encouraging change to witness!
Additionally, from everything that I have been exposed to, I have come to believe that MBA programs, in general, are designed to teach one to think originally and focus more on execution than mere analysis. For those of us who have taken the plunge from a pure science background, we know that we have sailed from understanding facts to innovating resolutions. And, that has been made possible by the constant barrage of problem statements on a day to day basis. Most importantly, networking is the only culture that B-Schools promote, and for someone as introverted as I am, it was the loudest fire alarm to my personality. Among other things, the amount of interaction that one is expected to have only drives away all the reservations with initiating conversations, especially with those that we come across for the first time.
To put it simply, when the pre-existing ways of processing information or behaving or feeling are persistently put to question, you know that stagnancy is not an option, and to the end of personal progress, what has been evidently significant, or, in other words, chief, in my journey is the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, my outlook evolves every day, and, from my understanding, this process would draw to a close only if and when we cease from survival.
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About the Author:
Nipunya Panda
XSRM (Xavier School of Rural Management)
2017-2019