State of Shock!

No wonder, there has'nt been any post on this blog since a while. What do you expect? 90% of the ISB population came here believing in their guts, that they are gonna end up in the top 10% of the batch, a.k.a in the Dean's list.

Term 1 Exams are over. Scores are out. Unfortunately, maths does not have any emotion. As a lot of folks figured out, only 10% can come in the top 10%. So what about the remaining 80% "junta"? As I said, they are in a state of shock.

I think I would be a "representative sample" (Thanks to Prof Stine, I know exactly what I mean by that) of this 80% crowd. So you will get the drift if you check out my story.

The day I joined ISB, I carried a lot of baggage. This baggage I had earned from my past life. Some of it by sheer good luck, a few I had actually slogged to achieve. More often than not, I had found myself amongst the more lucky ones. Then I realized, that hey, I am not lucky. I am actually a great performer. I am able to achieve my goals, where many do not..Thanks to many successes, I was tempered to believe that results are always within reach. I just have to stretch enough. In short, like the rest of the 420 individuals who joined ISB, I thought I am SuperMan.

Now, the writing is on the wall (or blackboard, you could say:-)) The truth is, I may be SuperMan. But there are 419 more of them. And you know maths does not have emotions. So you end up with 380 Supermen, who cant be supermen, as they used to be, because they are some 40 Super Supermen.

It is not something easy to digest. It is not pleasant to find out a new weakness in yourself, every damn day. Thats true. Every damn thing that you did well, there are a dozen others who do it even better. Things about yourself that you never knew, now stare glaringly at your face. But come to think of it, am I not better off now? I am.

So that is why many of us are probably in a state of shock. Some of us will come out of it instantly. And accept it. Some will accept it and fight it. I hope I end up in the latter group.

Anyways, the moral of the story is that ISB is very competitive. As an alumnus has said, ISB will give you the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows.

So folks, if you are reading this from outside ISB, thinking about whether to join next year or not, trust me. You can only gain from ISB. Forget about the salary gains. I am taking about something more profound. To be honest, you have to actually live through it to understand it.

And by the way, I have requested many foks from my batch to write on this blog. So you should see more interesting stuff. If you are an ISB applicant and would like us to write about any specific thing, please leave a comment. We will try and share our views on that.

cheers,
C