It was August 2014 when I first glanced upon the TIME posters offering CAT classroom coaching while I was in the third year of my under graduation. I decided to give the preliminary scholarship test for coaching. As a student of BITS Pilani, I always planned on getting into IIM ABCL XL or FMS. Then I checked the admission criteria of top IIMs and felt that though it was difficult, it was worth giving a try. Then, I enrolled myself for the coaching classes at Pilani.
My first attempt at CAT was in November 2015. Though I felt like I had prepared enough, apparently it was not good enough and I ended up with 97.11 percentile.I got placed with a campus job and decided to skip MBA interviews as I felt underprepared and did not feel interested in taking up admission yet as it was just my first attempt. I started preparing for CAT 2016 once I got into my new job at Capgemini.This time I was overconfident that I would get a good score with minimum preparation and ended up with 94.8 in CAT. I could not get into any good schools I wished for and decided to give the CAT one more try.In 2017,I took it upon myself very seriously to start preparing for CAT from July 2017 and got 99.05 in CAT. This time I prepared seriously for interviews and was offered admission from all new IIMs except Ranchi. I decided to join IIM Trichy after a lot of deliberation and research.
I am very much in awe of the growth rate and progress IIM Trichy is displaying in terms of infrastructure, faculty, pedagogy and career opportunities. Trichy is also very close to commercial, manufacturing and technology hubs like Bangalore and Chennai and has an international airport. Trichy is home to many heavy scale industries like BHEL which makes it even more appealing. Trichy has excellent connectivity by air,rail and road to rest of India.The student culture and academic pedagogy is amongst the best in the country. One of the most important factors in choosing IIM Trichy over others was the number of opportunities in IT and Analytics sector available which is where my interest lies. I have an unknown connection to this place where I was offered a seat at NIT Trichy back in 2012. Trichy has very beautiful hill stations close by like Munnar,Ooty and Kodaikanal and also close to historic temple towns like Tanjavur and Madurai and many beautiful temples and rock forts in the city of Trichy itself. In short ,Trichy felt like a perfect destination to launch my career in the management world. During my orientation programme which lasted around 6 days,I was impressed by the tenacity and rigor with which it was carefully designed. This made me even more happy with my decision of joining IIM Trichy.
Which ABG company would you want to work for and why?
Given an opportunity, I would like to work with Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank Limited . Finance and Technology are at an exciting cusp of revolution with technology making deep inroads in the world of Finance. Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data are the key buzzwords now in the world of technology. These are becoming increasingly prominent and necessary in the field of finance too. I would like to position myself in a team that handles the technology integration into the banking system. I feel excited this about this because it is a very new opportunity and the scope to learn is immense. I wish to become a part of the FinTech Revolution that is going change the world forever.
This article is written by Shaik Adil Islam - Class of 2020.