It was September 14th 2017, the day I had packed my bags, booked an airline ticket and met my friends for the last time before I left for my dream college HHL Leipzig School of Management, Germany.
Yes, my dream college was not IIM Trichy but HHL Leipzig. A premier institute which was ranked 5th by the Economist, across the world for their Masters in Management program. I was going there to be part of an international cohort of 50 students who had come from 15 different countries with diverse backgrounds, each handpicked after being put through a highly selective process. My joy was boundless.
However, on the same day my family went through one of the worst experiences of our lives. From being a fairytale story my entire narrative changed into a nightmare over night. I had to forgo my plans, defer my admission and stay back here in India as it was pertinent I be there for my family. I had to be here and I wanted to be here.
During the next months my family and I together steadily pieced things together, fortunately life did go back to normal and nightmare was over. To take my mind of this experience and create options to study in India I started preparing for CAT, this helped and soon things started to pick up pace. I was in 99th percentile, my family was over the moon. Everyone I knew was confident I would get into the big 3 IIMs and finally have a chance to live my dream again, alas that was not the case.
The 'topmost' IIM I could secure an admission was IIM Trichy.
I was shattered. I decided immediately to go back to HHL again. I told my family the news, they reluctantly understood my decision. Only my mother who wanted me to stay here in India asked me to consider IIM Trichy and research things thoroughly before finally making the decision.
I decided I will and here began my journey of discovering IIM Trichy. I collated an extensive list of alumni, seniors and faculty, contacted each one of them. I wrote lengthy e-mails, had long phone conversations, looked at various ranking websites numerous times. During this process I had found everything under the sun about IIM Trichy's pedagogy, their culture, their state of the art infrastructure etc, after all this I realized how little I knew about the institution and how flawed my perception was. My perception of IIM Trichy changed drastically, I understood it is not just another 'new' IIM but an institution brimming with latent potential. Despite all of this I was still not sure as the lure of a being part of a multicultural cohort with diverse backgrounds was still strong.
Coincidentally, right during this time I was added to a 'Trichy converts' social group and just to complete my research of the institution well I started speaking with my fellow converts. These conversations shifted my whole perspective, I realized the batch of 180 were from all across, with academic backgrounds ranging from Agriculture to Physics apart from the usual Engineering and Commerce. Their work experiences were even more diverse, some had built their companies from scratch, some worked with non-governmental organizations to effect social change and some were part of the most prestigious business organizations in their respective fields. I was amazed by all of them.
Nonetheless, the final tipping factors weren't any of the above. It was the conspicuous hunger of the batch coupled with their quality of life experiences that turned my head around. HHL could not match with these, the sheer number of high achieving, extremely intelligent peers here at IIM Trichy finally made my decision.
Now, I am truly at my dream college.
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This article is written by Amit Narendula - Class of 2020.