| Journey through IIMK -- An exercise in growing up. |
 Journey through IIMK -- An exercise in growing up.
|
Sep. 2nd, 2007 @ 11:45 pm 
|
|---|
Just completed one year at ICICI. It has been an interesting year. Will not say that it has been completely without any hitch or cock-ups. There have been painful moments, tearful (almost) moments, moments when one felt it was not worth it. But there have been good moments, moments where you were appreciated, moments whose memories were enough to get you through the poorer ones. People say that ICICI is a good finishing school for freshers – it shatters all your idealistic perceptions and gives you enough hard knocks to last a lifetime. It makes you get out of your comfort zone and grow up.
Couldn’t agree with them more.
Actually growing up has been quite an interesting process for me. It started with my admission in IIMK. Let me start by saying that on hindsight, I was too immature for an MBA. I was just out of college, did not know anything about living and working alone. In fact in my first two weeks at K, I actually thought of running away and retreat to the comfort and familiarity of my home.
I was actually contemplating career suicide.
Then I grew up a little. Saji Gopinath’s classes made me warm up to life in an IIM. Plus I fell in love. Or rather infatuation or whatever they call it these days. However childish it was, it scrapped all plans of quitting. For that I am forever indebted to her.
But the growth was not enough. It required a horrible second term with its summer placement season to put some sense in me. Not getting an early placement was painful but knowing that it would have been avoidable if I had put some effort was even more painful. I did get placed but the process taught me about self presentation and gave me a sufficient kick on the backside.
Then came the third semester. I feel that the third semester is specifically meant for pricking the egos of MBA students when it has been inflated by success in placements. If it is the truth, it served its purpose well. Though it was merciless torture, it did not hurt that much since everyone suffered. You do not grow up if you are not grandstanding in misery.
If anything, summers served as the proverbial knockout. I suffered my first mauling from the boss. Worse, I deserved it. Self pity couldn’t be stronger. Summers actually taught me that marketing was not my cup of tea. On hindsight, summers was a good lesson and straightened me and made me give up on unrealistic dreams. But in that summer of 2004, it was torture. And as said earlier, the perfect ground for growing up.
All this time, the pressure was not as intense as to cause a breakdown. I still was in my comfort zone. I was in an IIM for God’s sake. I had gone though a year of immense culture shock and three months of intense summer pain and survived. It couldn’t get worse.
It did.
As said earlier, summers taught me about my unsuitability in marketing. However I had chosen my electives to be marketing heavy. This led to a problem as my interest in marketing had evaporated. This led to some harrowing times in the fourth semester. And my worst project. It was about advertising sanitary napkins. It was a major embarrassment. During the presentation, I flipped and ran away after lunch. Just like I had planned the previous year. Unlike that time, Saji had already screwed us up and left. And the infatuation was going nowhere and was turning out to be a major pain in itself. I did eventually return (the same evening actually) but I was in the pits.
However after the embarrassment things did look up. After some good projects I received some good advice from a friend to start afresh and pursue finance. I was not a fin bond but I was good with balance sheets and could genuinely do a good job working with them. As it turns out, this is precisely what I do now.
After the fourth term things got smoother. I started concentrating on working on strengths and undid some of the past damage. However my image had taken a beating. It takes ages to change people’s perception of yourself. Mine had been damaged for four semesters. And my behaviour and antics did not help. However in the fifth term I stopped caring. It was not correct but at least I was not doing any further damage.
By this time I had got over the crush. Worse, I got entangled into another one. However I had learnt how to handle it without any major damage.
The last two semesters were the best ones I had. There was clarity in purpose, manageable distractions and peace of mind. Not surprisingly, I got my only As during this period. There was only one hurdle. Final placements.
This time I was better prepared. I had limited my applications to Fin related ones which lessened the potential heartburn. Placements went as expected with Day 0 being barren. Day 1 was my hope. The first session was bad since no Fin company was involved. Then my dream job interview happened. I gave an unconvincing interview. I did not mess up but it was not special. Somehow it clicked. I had a job and this time it was about something I knew about.
I had gone through hell. And somehow I scraped through. I still had some juvenility in me. I still had my nefund crush to deal with. I had a little growing up to do. This was dealt with by my IDBI stint. But that is a story for another day.I am feeling:  apathetic |
|
|
|
| Top of Page |
Powered by LiveJournal.com |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dhans_diary's journal