It was a transformational journey at IIM Udaipur, says Anmol Khedia

By: Anmol Khedia

I used to spend considerable time to understand the various concepts needed to crack the management entrance exam. I cracked the entrance exam CAT by getting a good percentile and thereafter securing calls from some of the prestigious institutions of our country.

From the very childhood, I was good in my academics especially Mathematics and Science subject. Also, I was very keen to understand the technical specifications and the underlying architecture of different products around me. Therefore, I decided to go for engineering and opted PCM in class XI-XII.

I picked up IIM Udaipur for pursuing my MBA because it is one of the prestigious B-schools of the country. Also, having gone through the pedagogy of the course, connecting with the alumni and N/W of the institute, I realized that the campus is really growing very rapidly with an exquisite infrastructure and highly experienced faculties from all around the globe.  IIM being a brand offers so many facilities and the ROI it offers is really appreciable. Henceforth taking all these factors into consideration, I opted for my post-graduation at IIM Udaipur.

I picked up BIT Mesra for pursuing my engineering because it is one of the best engineering colleges in the country. I connected with some of the alumni to understand the institute better. Also, I got to know about the infrastructure and the facilities of the campus which are really world class. I selected ECE stream because there was a high demand for this course during those years(2010). An additional thing about the campus is its location, the capital city of Jharkhand which makes it convenient for the recruiters and the students to commute here from PAN-India. Henceforth, on the basis of all these factors, I opted for my graduation at BIT Mesra.

It was a really difficult time when I used to prepare for the management entrance exams. I used to spend considerable time to understand the various concepts needed to crack the management entrance exam. These concepts mainly involved Quantitative Ability, Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation, Verbal Reasoning, General Knowledge and Current Awareness. I cracked the entrance exam CAT by getting a good percentile and thereafter securing calls from some of the prestigious institutions of our country. IIM Udaipur was also one of them. Then, I appeared for the Written Ability Test wherein the students are given a certain time limit to think and write on the given topic. Then, there are final interviews conducted by the panel comprising professors from different renowned institutes. The professors try to understand the reasons for students aspiring to join a management institute through these interviews. The interview discussion consists of a lot of things be it current awareness, course concepts, job responsibilities, hobbies and the strong reasons for joining a management institute.

The other entrance tests that I gave were IIFT, XAT, NMIMS NPAT, SNAP and TISSNET.

I had a full-time job. So, I used to devote sufficient time for my preparation after my office and at the weekends. I had taken a one-year classroom programme from the coaching institute “Career Launcher, Gurugram”. 

I used to take mocks with Career Launcher on a regular basis and analyse them seriously to understand my strengths, weaknesses and silly mistakes. Also, I used to discuss them with the faculties of the coaching institute when needed.

I was trying for some other prestigious institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, FMS Delhi, XLRI Jamshedpur, MDI Gurgaon, IIFT Delhi, SP Jain Mumbai, NITIE Mumbai, IIT Mumbai. But I was not able to get admission in these institutes.

I pursued my post-graduation from IIM Udaipur. It was quite a busy schedule here. We had our classes in the first shift from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. After that, we had plenty of assignments, submissions, case studies, pre-reads during the second shift. During the first year, it was necessary for all the students to attend every class as the course structure was common for each and every student. In the 2nd year, we had options to choose from the list of electives and I used to attend marketing and analytics classes mainly. Sometimes, I used to take finance and supply chain classes as well.

I was a part of the Cultural Committee in my college wherein we used to organise various festivals on our campus like Janmasthami, Dussehra, Ganesh Chaturthi, Dandiya night. I was also a core team member of Audacity, the annual cultural fest of IIM Udaipur. Apart from that, I was a President of the Library Committee wherein we used to provide the students with all the necessary databases and the resources.

If given a chance, I would like to learn Table Tennis and Photography well because I’m very fond of these two activities.

It was a nice learning experience and a transformational journey at IIM Udaipur. Before I enrolled in IIM Udaipur, I was reluctant to take up new opportunities and jump into new fields. When I joined IIM Udaipur, there were plenty of learning opportunities and I started picking up a few of them. Being part of the extra-curricular activities instilled a lot of confidence in me and helped in my overall personality development. Also, the curriculum is designed in such a way that we get to interact with the diverse pool of students from PAN-India and get to know the viewpoints of other students as well. Hence, I can proudly say that this course has really helped me to transform as a person.

About the Author:

Anmol Khedia is an electronics and communication graduate from BIT Mesra, Ranchi. He has worked in Aricent Technologies as a Senior Software Engineer for almost 4 years. He had just completed his post-graduate programme in management from IIM Udaipur (Batch 2018-20). He did his summer internship with Ramada Udaipur Resort in the digital marketing domain and operations domain. Apart from that, he likes to play Table Tennis and photography in his free time. Also, he is very fond of speaking at the various public forums.