It’s high time I get down to mugging for my final placements. Hardly 3 weeks left and I haven’t even started. Looking back, I started wondering how I managed to mug for those entrance exams I managed to do well in…
Going back six years. All of April 2000, I studied for not less than 10 hours a day. Intensified to around 14 a day as the JEE approached closer. It used to be such a pleasure solving those problems in coordinate geometry… Used to give such a high when I managed to crack one of those conversions in Organic Chemistry… I would almost masturbate when I would use multiple Physics concepts to solve a problem…
The basic reason I managed to push myself so hard was because I enjoyed the PROCESS. It was NOT because I had dreamt of getting into IIT ever since I was six years old. It was not because someone else told me that unless I study hard I won’t be able to crack the JEE. It was simply the process of mugging I loved! That I eventually did well in the JEE was simply a side-effect!
It’s exactly 2 years since I wrote CAT. Exactly 2 years since I came out of the Loyola Auditorium singing “Comfortably Numb”. And English, Math and “Data Interpretation” aren’t exactly the kind of stuff one would particularly enjoy muggging. The way I did it was to just do sample papers. Did around 30 Mock CATs leading up to the real CAT. Those time-constrained pressure cooker situations I used to put myself under made my mugging fairly enjoyable!
Where do I go from here? I need to prepare for the case interviews but the HBS interview guide is hardly inspriring. Hopefully, when I actually start doing the cases, I should start enjoying the process. Else, jai only!