WAT-PI recall: How I cracked IIM Calcutta?

Shubham Ranka

Hard work and perseverance always pays off – nobody can agree to this quote more than CAT 2015 aspirant, Shubham Ranka.

Shubham hails from Banswara, a district near Udaipur, and is a graduate in Electrical Engineering. Later, he worked with Cognizant for around 2.5 years, and presently is associated with Delhivery. After scoring 99.6 in QA, 99.94 in DILR, and 82.51 in VA in CAT 2015, Shubham had just one thing in his mind – cracking any of the IIMs.

A call from IIM Calcutta, and he knew that he had to make the best of this opportunity. Shubham appeared for WAT-PI on Feb 12, 2016. To start off with, WAT took place, followed by a Personal Interview. This is what Shubham recalls: 

Written Ability Test (WAT)

Topic: Easy availability of loans has increased the consumerism of materialistic society. This is affecting the morale of the youth, in longer terms. What are your views on this?

I wrote something like this: India has paved the way to the increase in demand of goods and services amongst the citizens of the country. Bank loans are readily available, which is increasing the liquid money in consumer's hand, and hence the demand and consumption increases. 

Then I stated some pros and cons of the same. 

Pros: Good for e-commerce giants that they are able to grow and compete with the global market, so Indian economy is increasing because of the revenue generated by them. Also, the resources are easily accessible to the youth, which can help them in completing the task within a given time frame. 

Cons: Due to easy loan availability, and non-productive consumption of the resources, the current debt to equity ratio is increasing, and has already reached to 0.52 which is bad for the Indian economy. Resources are not getting optimally utilised. The extra liquid money has instead increased the amount of black money, and illegal betting. Youth is getting lazy day by day. That is why we can see the difference in the health and the kind of consumption of resources in today's generation and our forefathers. 

In a country like India, which is remembered for its culture, history and tradition, morale values matter more than everything. Movements like startup scheme are a good start in the direction of developing the nation, so they should be used in a positive way and the kind of startups should be such that it adds up value to the prevailing system. Awareness needs to be created for the same. Hence, technology is good for the society but at the same time, we must ensure that we do not become slave to technology. 

I know, it could have been better, says Shubham. 

Personal Interview 

Shubham’s interview was scheduled for the morning slot which consisted of 3 male panelists. The interview lasted for around 20 minutes. Here is what happened at the PI: 

P1: Shubham, so I see you brought executive file. Can you tell me the executives of this file?

Me: Sir, the file contains my CAT scorecard, application form, academic certificates and mark sheets, and extracurricular mark sheet. In way, it defines who I am today and what have I been till now. 

P1: So tell us who are you?

Me: Sir, I am Shubham from Banswara. I graduated from IIT Gandhinagar in Electrical Engineering back in 2013. During my final year, I went to US for a research internship. Then, I worked with Cognizant for 2.5 years. From the past 4 months I am associated with Delhivery. My hobbies are playing table tennis, solving mathematics problems and puzzles, and guiding my juniors in their career preparation like IIT-JEE examinations. (I wanted them to ask about Maths). 

P2 (A young techy guy): So, you are interested in Mathematics. Which area of the subject?

Me: Ummm.. Sir, everything. 

P2: Okay, so you have 3 circles. How many common tangents can you draw to them?

Me: Sir, you mean direct common tangents? 

P2: You can assume that.

Me: Maximum 2, if they are planar. Else, it can even have 0, 1. So, anything from 0-2. I explained my answer with the help of figures. 

P2: What if they are non-planar?

Me: Infinity then. 

P2: You have 2 n*n matrices. When you multiply them, how many multiplications are actually happening?

Me: The final matrix will also be of n*n. Now, for each element, we have multiplication because first row of first matrix gets multiplied by first column of first matrix to give first element of my output matrix. So, n^2 times.

(But now I think, it should be n^3. Since every element will also have n implicit multiplications.) 

P2: Can you try to think of a converging sequence, which is converging but the corresponding sequence is diverging?

Me: 1/n. Since as n tends to infinity it tends to 0, but 1+1/2+... -->infinity. It can be proved by comparing this series with 1+ 1/2 + (1/4+1/4) + (1/8+1/8+1/8+1/8)+... 

P2: By the way, what is the rank of Rajasthan in terms of area?

Me: Sir, one: It is the largest in terms of area. 

P2: And second?

Me: (A wild guess, while trying to visualize the map) Maharashtra (Maharashtra is third in actual, a slightly less than MP). 

P1: So, if I did not hear you wrong, you did a foreign internship. Where was it?

Me: Yeah sir, at University of Notre Dame. 

P1: What did you do there?

Me: Developed a web application which uses the concept of probability and collaborative filtering to predict the future disease a patient can have, given his past disease's history coded in ICD-10.

P1: So, did you roam anywhere around?

Me: Sir, not much. But, I had been to Six Flags.

 P1: Ohh, that's the roller coaster ride. (Smiling)

Me: Yeah sir (Smiling) 

P1: Anywhere else you have been to in or outside India?

Me: Not exactly sir. (I could sense he has some question on geography coming up in his mind, which I am not good at.) 

P1: So, can I say you do not like travelling much?

Me: Sir, I have not explored much of the places. But as you can see, I am from Rajasthan, graduated in Gujarat, interned at US, worked at Kolkata, and currently at Gurgaon.

P1: (Smiling) But that's for the job purpose. Anyways, what difference did you find in the US's university and IIT-Gandhinagar's educational system?

Me: Sir, since our batch was the second batch of the college, we actually got the chance to pick up the things from its roots and then establish them. We had the freedom to go and explore anything we wished to. There were only 3 core branches, but still I managed to get an internship in CS. So, it is very versatile in the college. But then at university, I was assigned a project on which a PhD student was already working. I was not much asked about my choice. The topic was also fixed. So, this is one difference. Rest, people are very much friendly there. The city is very clean with no traffic and pollution.

P3: So, what is your work at Delhivery?

Me: Sir, my job is to interact with the floor's staff at fulfillment centres, and get to know the problems they are facing in the process of picking, packing, and shipping. And then, using these requirement, we build the apps and software for them. 

P3: But isn't this irrelevant to your work at Cognizant. From a company like that why Delhivery?

Me: Not exactly sir. I was working in e-commerce sector even at Cognizant. Now, an e-commerce has 2 sectors- OMS and WMS. I had worked for 2.5 years in OMS. So, wanted to further explore the e-commerce sector. Hence, joined the WMS department at Delhivery. 

P3: But then, you already have the skills and are working in the area where our people after graduating work.

Me: No sir. I want to learn management and I have an inclination towards MBA in Finance. My long term goal is to start a venture of my own. 

P3: (interrupting): But, to start a company, you do not need an MBA. In fact, we guys do not even teach you that. See, Dhiru Bhai Ambani. He is not an MBA.

Me: Yeah, that's true sir. But then again, my management will help me gain the structured knowledge, learn about the business model, and how to sustain in the competitive markets.

P3: But that you can even do without an MBA.

Me: Sir, to make any company successful, the underlying principle is to minimize risk and maximize the revenue. And, an MBA in Finance will help me get that feeling. 

P1, P3: See but you already know that principle.

Me: But, I will also be competing amongst the best minds of the country, so we can then share the skillset and I may get the useful resources for my future goal. And in fact sir, the COO of my company, Bhavesh is also an MBA in Finance from IIM-C. 

P1: Anyways, these days’ people say that e-commerce is not having a bright future. It runs only on giving lucrative offers and discounts on the things. And once, discounts are gone, the company will fall off.

Me: But this is just the one side of the story. While this is true that our e-commerce giants are currently incurring losses, like Flipkart, Snapdeal, but in the longer run, say 5-10 years down the line, these will grow. These will develop that credibility and reliability for the e-commerce to work even without discounts. Say, for example, out of Uber, OLA, and TFS, TFS is a relatively new brand and is giving so many discount coupons these days. We do use them, but now if a girl wants to travel in night, or I want to reach to some place urgently say in next 1 hour, I'll prefer Uber over others – that is because the services have developed the credibility amongst the customers by now. 

P3: Okay. Any other call you have?

Me: Sir, IIM-K, S, I,.. 

P3: Not Ahmedabad ?

Me: Sir, my sectionals in Verbal were not that great, though the overall was. So... 

P3: Okay Shubham, That's all from our side... 

Verdict: Converted!

Also read: IIM Calcutta increases PGP fees