The 4 years of engineering were not less than a game of snakes & ladders for Asha. It was hardly into her second year, when her family came under major financial burdens, and funding her education became a serious issue. She was suggested dropping out of college and going back to her hometown, saving costs and helping her parents back home. After a lot of groundwork, Asha took a personal loan from a relative to pay her college fees and took up a part-time job to support her living expenses. She did what she had always been interested in - Teach. She walked for nearly 4 kms everyday to give at-home tuitions to school students. Asha continued this endeavour for the remaining 3 years until she graduated.
Asha managed to bag an exceptional campus placement offer, despite an average CGPA of 6.09/10. But as destiny had it, she couldn’t join the organization due to her mother’s ill health. After her mother recovered, Asha applied for a job at a private coaching institution, where she received positive reviews as a Junior Lecturer. Soon after, she went on to work for one of the highest-valued education start-ups in the country.
Through some dedication and a little bit of luck, Asha managed to do well at her job. Within a span of 2.5 years, she started heading a team of six. She also shared financial responsibilities of her family, including funding her brother’s higher education. During this stint of managing a team did Asha realise that she needed to learn a lot more about leadership and what it takes to create a successful business.
So, along with these endeavours, Asha parallely began her preparation for MBA entrance tests. Partly through self-study and partly through her colleagues' guidance, Asha dreamt of making it big. She was fixated at pursuing her higher education from any of the top-20 B-schools. Juggling work deadlines and exam preparation, her final performance was pretty 'average' -
NMAT - 96 percentile
CAT - 94.8 percentile
CET - 99.6 percentile
IIFT - 93.4 percentile
With the handful of interview calls Asha managed to get, she decided to make the best of the opportunity. She managed to convert one of the most coveted B-schools of the country - NMIMS, Mumbai!
Today, Asha is self-funding her education at NMIMS.
She is an epitome of a strong, independent woman, who has managed to beat all odds to reach where she has.
"You stop being average the day you decide to become a champion; because the average person won't make that decision". - Tom Hopkins
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