Make use of every opportunity that you get in life. This is one quote that holds good for my life. I would be lying if I say I did not dream of pursuing MBA in IIM A. I wrote my cat exam, and I was no where near that range to get into IIM-A. One more try , and one more failure. But, an interesting MBA life had just begun. I was already 3.8 years experience, with my family situation and personal life, I could not afford to take one more year of preparation. I got selected into TAPMI, a premier MBA institute in the country having a legacy of more than 35 years. ‘When life throws stones at you, make monuments out of them’, tells a wonderful quote.
Literally, I survived the first term. For a person who had spent his entire life at Chennai along with parents( not even a single day of hostel life), being in hostel itself was new experience. Imagine that in a place far away from home, and you can’t see your parents for atleast 6 months time. New food, new place, new friends. New college (back to college life rather), was stressful too. I began the sleepless nights that every MBA grad will have. I burnt the midnight oil. I was never used to staying awake till that time, sleeping at odd hours, competing with young students(some who were just out of college and were just brilliant). I failed and I was not scoring ‘above average’ in subjects when half the term was done. I analysed what was going wrong. I understood that , after nearly 4 years of corporate life, my brain was not used to ‘studying’ and ‘sleeping’ at very odd hours, attending case discussions and getting scored throughout the term with surprise quizzes. I decided its now or never. Do or die. I decided to slog harder and smarter. I did slog. I decided to prioritise, find my own scoring areas, prioritise them, give my best shot at them and leave the rest to God. Magic began happening.
I cracked my internship at Deloitte Consulting India Private Limited and got selected into ‘Samnidhy’ as equity analyst(Students Investment Fund at Tapmi, purely handled by students like me). But the best was yet to come. I got selected into the ‘HUL Speed Mentoring Program for leadership skills showcased at Toastmasters during my work life. Not only that, to top it all, I got selected into the ‘TAPMI Young Leaders Program’ , a prestigious leadership initiative program through a rigorous selection process. As I write this, I realise what Robin Sharma always says , ‘Dream Big. Start small. Act now'. For a guy, who has never seen finance, to a person who is majoring in finance was a turnaround. And for the amount of challenges and sleepless nights , I’ve had, God has really blessed me. Even now, looking back, everything seems to be magic. Truly, no matter what the challenges, with fire in the belly, one can really achieve.
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