A quarter of a century of my life has passed and here I am, finally pursuing MBA at one of the most prestigious colleges in India. Notice how I mention “finally”, this has always been a dream, reaching here has been an adventure.
I’ve always been academically oriented, aced my classes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that its been easy to get here.
I topped my city – Bhopal, in the class 10th CBSE board, and as good as that feels, it is also one of the biggest regrets of my life. Expectations have been exceedingly high since then – parents, teachers, relatives and friends, they all just assumed that I’d clear IITJEE. This is when I first realized how stress affects a person. As a 12th class student, I was always exhausted – school, coaching classes, board exams, the constant pressure to not disappoint, it got to me. I lost my motivation to study harder and eventually didn’t do well in either AIEEE or JEE, this was unacceptable to me and my parents and to not have any regrets later in life, I decided to drop a year and study again. This didn’t seem like the best decision though, the stress increased manifold. Most of my friends from school were in college, I was lagging behind. Eventually I got so lonely, it was borderline depressing, but I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t going to let this take a toll on me again. It was August 2011, I decided that it was time to re-invent myself. I cleared my head, shut my room’s door and drafted the most practical time table I could. I reminded myself time and again, that I managed to top an entire city and so I needed to believe that I have the potential to do great things. I made new friends, others that dropped a year to reattempt the exams again and they became my source of motivation. I didn’t clear IIT again, but that’s okay, I knew I had given my best effort. I eventually decided to pursue my engineering from VIT Vellore.
Even though this might not seem like a major challenge to a lot of people, but I beg to differ. When I look back at that time, I am thankful I took a drop and pursued competitive exams again. Why? Because that’s the year that redefined my personality. Every challenge in life since has been comparatively easy to deal with, because of all I learnt as a 17-year-old. It made me patient, tolerant, taught me to accept failure, deal with stress, made me emotionally strong and restored faith in my capabilities.
When I was struggling to balance my career with preparation for MBA, I went through something similar again. The stress was back, with the added challenge of managing time. But was I prepared this time? Yes.
I believe all challenges big and small only make a person stronger than before. And so, here I am, even more prepared than ever to face any challenge that comes between me and my ambitions in life.
#NMIMSMumbai #ABGLPWooMe