Home Entrance Exam Prep My fight between the PGDM course and other competitive exams -By Gayatri Souryaja from IMT Hyderabad

My fight between the PGDM course and other competitive exams -By Gayatri Souryaja from IMT Hyderabad

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My fight between the PGDM course and other competitive exams -By Gayatri Souryaja from IMT Hyderabad

It was August 2014 and I was in my third year of engineering. I studied in a city away from my hometown. So, I used to stay in a hostel. My roommate had joined coaching classes for competitive exams in a well-renowned institute. She used to come back all exhausted after her weekend classes. I used to check her books and try to solve the different problems of quantitative analysis from the book. Verbal section was eye-opening too because there were so many words to learn and so much to just understand in a limited time. It was fun. It was challenging.

While most of my friends had a clear path as to where to go in their careers. Well, I had nothing in my hands. I also didn’t want to venture into my higher education because of a terrible personal loss in the month of February 2014. Also, I didn’t want to stretch my expenses beyond my limit. I wanted to earn as soon as I graduated and I was not going to put any more financial pressure on my family.

When my family wanted me to appear for GRE and other competitive exams

It was in February 2015, I visited my home for an extended weekend. Over the weekend my relatives managed to meet me to share their 2 cents on what I should do next. I was indecisive about getting a job, writing CAT or flying abroad for my MS. The family council was the only counsel I could approach to take an informed decision and I put it out in front of them that I wanted to get a job. The family collectively said no to this option. They wanted me to write GRE and fly to the USA.

I was against this option because I was not going to leave my family behind and fly away from my responsibilities. It seemed like a selfish choice to me. I had only one choice. I had to appear for GMAT or CAT. GMAT is an expensive exam and I didn’t want to attempt until I was 100% sure that I would get a good score. Colleges accepting GMAT also had a constraint of work experience. Now, I was left with one and only option of CAT. CAT was not my last resort. But rather, I wanted to do a PGDM. It only took me some time to totally own that decision and realize my dream.

Chapter 1: August 2015

I had made up my mind and I applied for CAT 2015. At this point in time, no one knew about my decision to attempt CAT except my mother. My mother was unfamiliar with the world of MBA. She was supportive but didn’t understand what I was trying to achieve. At this point in time, I didn’t start preparing for the exam. I had no reading material and had not joined coaching classes either.

Moreover, I was thoroughly at a loss with respect to preparation materials when compared to other students who were appearing for CAT 2015 and other competitive exams. I wanted to get a good score but I didn’t even know how to go about it. My roommate had given her coaching material to some other students who were preparing for CAT 2016. I didn’t know what to do. The exam was about two months away. Moreover, I had yet to start preparing.

I had done a maximum of ten hours of preparation in total. The exam was a month away. What was I thinking? But, the internet comes to my rescue. I attempted mock papers that were available on the internet. Everything looked new to me. I had my mid-semester exams at the end of September. I was preparing for them as well as CAT.

Chapter 2: January 2016

I received a decent CAT score and applied it to all the colleges. Moreover, I made it into almost all the colleges I had applied to. My relatives were shocked to learn about the path I was talking and they didn’t understand what I was doing. However, my mother always supported me and never asked me anything about my decision.

From June 2016, I began getting calls from many prestigious colleges to join their program. I could not join any of these colleges, again because of an accident. But I took this as an opportunity where I could study more and get a better percentile in CAT. So, I made up my mind to reattempt CAT in 2016.

When I joined my institute in 2017 after all the competitive exams

Well, I scored decent marks. I was choosy with the institutes. I joined my institute after thorough deliberation in 2017. At this point in time, my relatives had given up on me. They had seen my interest to join a PGDM course. They couldn’t budge me from it despite them trying to convince me. I was overjoyed that my dream was finally coming true. It was everything I wanted to be since the first time I attempted my CAT exam. I was happy but suddenly got sad.

Painfully, I sustained an injury on the college grounds. I couldn’t walk for over three months. Ultimately, I had to undergo surgery. The term was three months long and since it would take more than three months for me to walk again, I couldn’t continue my course. I was devastated. Luckily, the college had considered my case and let me join the college in the upcoming academic year in 2018.

My PGDM dream

I was resilient and knew that deep in my heart I wanted to do a PGDM course despite all other competitive exams. Well, I stood up against people who said my dream would just be a dream. and relentlessly pursued my goal and here I am. Here I am, doing what I fought for. Against all odds, if you feel that something is right for you, go for it because no matter what others say, it is your life and you are the one who’s going to live it. Whether you live it by your rules or by the rules by other people, the choice is yours.

This article was submitted as a part of Become an Author conducted by Dare2Compete.

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