As I look back upon the last 3 years, my life has been full of Ops (pun intended, I converted SPJIMR OPS) and downs. I was always an overachiever since school in academics as well as other areas (potential recruiters please take note).
Come undergrad placements, I barely prepared for any interviews and my life had blessed me with luck having a value of a current Rs 2000 note (basically nada). I couldn't secure a half-decent placement in terms of the job role as well as the compensation. Adding to my already shattered hopes and dreams was the blow of working in a sleazy factory in the middle of nowhere, rather than the sought-after role of a Designer in a core engineering company.
So 2 years after working in a factory at a place whose name no one ever heard of and being jealous of the luxurious lifestyles my batchmates in the IT industry enjoyed, I decided to quit my job and prepare for the UPSC CSE exam in August 2020. . Luck being on leave of absence in my life, I couldn't clear the CSE even in two attempts.
The result of the second attempt came out in July of 2022. At this point, I was hit by a huge wave of FOMO. I passed engineering in 2018 and after 2 yrs of working in an undesirable position and 2 yrs of relentless hard work for UPSC, I was nowhere in my career, blessed with an early life crisis. That's when I decided to switch careers and follow the path that every 'Sharma Ji ka Ladka' is meant to, do engineering and appear for CAT.
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By this time I was determined to make something out of my life and grab whatever was in front, much like a newbie flails in water before learning to swim. So with another exam in sight, ie, CAT 2022 I started preparing in August 2022. I had 4 months in front of me but had the disadvantage of knowing nothing about CAT. So with some apprehensions and endless determination, I watched the strategies of people who had appeared for CAT only to realize that by August people were already done with their syllabus and had started taking mocks. In contrast which couldn't be any more stark, here I was, not even aware of what the syllabus looked like.
What I lacked in time, I made up for in hard work. While I was decent at VARC, QA, and DILR were completely new to me and I focused on those two exclusively. Come October end, I had gone through the syllabus once and now I started taking mocks and failed miserably at every one of them, even 5 days before CAT, the mock I took predicted a 90% ile for me. To bask in my own glory of self-confidence, I decided to not take any mocks after 22nd November and that's when I think luck decided to return from its AWOL status.
On the day of CAT, I had the 1st slot and the VARC was so difficult that by the end of the 1st section it self I was done for. I could attempt only 11 questions when I had planned to attempt 17, considering VARC was my forte. Dejected after yet another poor attempt at an exam, I decided to go all out on OMETs.
I think there's a point in life where believing in yourself matters more than anything else because even after a not-so-great CAT attempt, I kept at it for other exams. I thought I would get a 90% ile at best in CAT and shifted my dreams to study in a b-school in accordance with the score. But CAT 2022, turned out to be wonderfully difficult (at least for me) because I got 97% ile even with an OA of 67!
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When CAT was done and dusted, now I faced another behemoth - interviews. But this time around, I was pretty confident because I was in a position to talk at length about any topic under the sun (thanks to CSE for its infinite syllabus). Preparing for interviews felt ridiculous to me based on the absolutely unexpected things that you might face in an interview. I think the key is to get your hygiene factors right and be comfortable in your own skin, with whatever great or not-so-great you have done in life up until now.
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And finally, here I am having converts from IIM CAPs, MDI, and SPJIMR even with a gap of 3 years. I took the road less traveled by; believing in myself and not giving up... And that my friends, has made all the difference.