Term 1 at IIM

This year CAT has been scheduled for 26th?November. More than 3 lakh aspirants will be appearing in this year's CAT to get seats in the premiere b-schools of the country. There are lots of YouTube channels regarding CAT preparation so It has absolutely no meaning to write about that.

Term 1 has ended in all of the IIMs and let me give a glimpse of it to the aspirants.

One fine morning you will get an offer letter from the institute and you will call your friends and family with utmost joy that “Yeah, you have cracked it,” with more excitement you will start packing your bags and your contact number will be added to the official WhatsApp group of the institute.

You have to attend Zoom sessions and the PR Media committee will tell you about the rules and regulations of the institute. You and your batchmates will eventually start asking stupid questions to them because your mind is filled with a lot of queries and confusion now. PR Com will arrange Zoom sessions to address your queries and even after clarifying all the doubts you will still remain confused and you will knock on your peer's WhatsApp with those silly doubts. Along with that, you have to attend preparatory sessions before joining.

Now it’s the time to gather all the necessary documents and believe me that’s the most confusing part. You will face a lot of doubts regarding the immunization certificate, Income affidavit, medical fitness certificate, and so on. Finally, after gathering all the documents one mine morning you will reach the institute with backpacks of ‘dreams’ and ‘hopes.’

Just after joining you will have to go through a lot of paperwork and document verification. After completing all these, you will get a short nap before the induction begins.

Now..Now..Now ..time for induction. The most rigorous days you will ever face in your life. The induction will be arranged by the Student Affairs Council?(SAC) along with all other clubs and committees and you will be participating in the program wearing mandatory business formals. Throughout the entire day, you have to perform certain tasks given by them and have to submit those before the deadline. You have to attend sessions in the seminar hall for the whole night and in that induction week, you will barely get any sleep.

You will feel like you are in a bigboss set and SAC members are the bigboss and you are the participant.

With a lot of rigor, the induction program will end and your classes will start. Your first class will be at 9.30 am and even if you are a minute late, you won’t be allowed in the class.

1 week will continue like this and then the most challenging phase of 1st?term will begin-

“your club committee selection round.”

Trust me, you have to slog a lot to get into clubs and committees of your own choice. You have to sacrifice sleep for a couple of days. Even after all these, if you can’t get into any club and committee that’s a separate sadness.

Then, you have to attend regular classes, submit assignments, give quizzes, and complete pre-reads before coming to class. Moreover, you can’t sleep during lectures. Also, you have to attend seminars organized by different clubs, attend batchmeets, perform on occasion, build your resume, and attend online events arranged by the placement committee after the whole day of class.

You always have to be alert because some professors will take a surprise quiz and the admin office will notify you just before 1 hour of the quiz. If you don’t be attentive you will miss the quiz and the entire 10 marks gone.

you will get a notification at 9.30 pm that in tomorrow’s class, you have some pre-reads?(which basically is a case study of 12-15 pages) and you have to finish that before sleeping.

?Sometimes you will feel suffocated, you will miss your home and family, your long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend but can’t help it.

The club committee selection will end just before mid-term and you have to perform well in mid-term to get good grades. After mid-term, life will become comparatively easier because till then you will be a little habituated to handle these rigors.

Now, the time begins for projects and presentations. Your section will be divided into multiple groups and you have to finish and submit projects before the deadline and have to present in front of the class.

Along with that, your Summer internship interview process will begin, and if your CV gets shortlisted by any company you have to prepare for the interview as well.

You have to forget about holidays and Sundays. Sundays will be packed with graded exercises, guest lectures, and club activities.

If you are in long distance relationship then convincing your partner that you are actually busy will be an additional hurdle for you.

All these struggles and sleepless nights will come to an end with the term exam.

Honestly speaking, you will not get any study break before the end term because of project submission, committee work,k and Preplacement talks arranged by the corporates. So you have to be super smart to finish the entire syllabus within one day.

In this tenure of 3 months, you will get accustomed to multiple new terms and those will haunt you throughout the MBA journey (sarcasm)

1. Deadline is EOD (End of the day, i.e. 11.59.59 pm)
2. PFA (please find attachment)
3. Deadlines are sacrosanct

But, all these rigors will give you a deep feeling of satisfaction when you realize that you have become a more confident and wiser version of yourself.

-Now, you can easily read Business newspapers and technical jargon will not bother you anymore.

-You will feel that you’ve become a better team player and developed better leadership qualities.

- you can read 12 pages of case studies and financial exhibits within 25 minutes

-You are now confident enough to give a presentation in front of an audience.

-You can read and analyze the Balance sheets, financial statements, and income statements of companies.

- you can comprehend the microeconomic technicalities of the market.

- Your approach to solving problems has become more data-driven and you are actually using statistical hypotheses to solve any problem.

- your analytical ability has improved a lot and now you are actually able to solve real-life business problems.

-You can feel that you are doing better in case study competitions and you have learned to apply the most common marketing frameworks in your case study analysis.?

???-PORTER 5 forces, PESTEL, SWOT, ANSOFF, BCG, SERVQUA, IPA Matrix.

Moreover, you will make some friends for life.

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Folks, all the best for your CAT and Interview round. See you in IIM?