The MICA Experience

The day when dreams were near to be accomplished had arrived. Landed at Ahmedabad on the 11th of April 10'. Made a stupid choice of taking prepaid taxi which charged me 280 bucks for a distance as good as Mahim  - Churchgate. The moment I got into the cab and its wheels started rolling, a hot(i literally mean hoooott) gust of dry air blew on my face. I asked my self. Dude if you get selected by MICA you will have to bear this for 2 years. And I was like, increase the temperature a few notches more and tell me to live in MICA for a year more I would still have the smile on my face that I had on that moment. Felt great that I had dreamed about something for nearly 2 years and I was just a group exercise and an interview away from realizing it. It was a feeling of accomplishment I would remember for the rest of my life. After all, how many times in life do we get what exactly we wanted. I had come this close to my dream for the first time in my life and was smiling from ear to ear atleast till the point on the next day when I was declared as not even being there on the waitlist of the probables for the PGDM(C) batch of 2010-2012.

But as the message that comes out of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, its the journey that teaches you the maximum things in life than the feeling of reaching the destination. When I had seen the requirements for MICA, 90+ in CAT/ 600+ in GMAT and then clearing MICAT to be eligible for the GE/PI, I thought that I didn't have the caliber to even have come this far. I was a total flop in competitive exams atleast until then. I kept belief in myself, slogged my ass off, scored a 640 in GMAT, I was so fairly well prepared for competitive exams post GMAT that I succeeded in most of the Indian exams including CAT to the extent I wanted myself to succeed. This was the degree of fighting spirit that my desire for MICA had pushed me into. I am thankful to this entire journey for building so much of confidence into me. It just taught me not to get frightened by a daunting task without putting in your best efforts, most importantly when you so badly want something in life. And today when I look back, I am literally in awe of the efforts that I had put in and that makes me feel proud about my abilities and has made me a much more confident for my future attempts at MBA exams and most importantly for my dream.... MICA. In no mood to let go that one so soon atleast. Comeon(the author at the time of upload of this article was 3 months short of turning 24... I hope he can consider himself to be young at that age).


Got the first taste of the cosmopolitan nature of MICA. I was constantly in touch with Abhbijit from Bangalore before reaching Ahmedabad. A kannad born and brought up in Calcutta, now working in Bangalore. On reaching my hotel the first person I met was Dhaval from Aaamchi Mumbai and later ever smiling Mahima - born and brought up in Ahmedabad, now working in Mumbai. Akshay from Delhi who runs a dance academy, Shelly from Noida working for an IT major, and Vidhu who had done a masters in microbiology or something from the UK. I am by nature a very quiet person, but I was amazed by the ease with which we all gelled within seconds. Right from this moment of meeting this people at vastrapur lake, finding a place for dinner in Bawarchi I knew I was in for an altogether different experience of my life. The world is indeed a really small place. Dhaval turned out to be working in the same company where one of my friend works. Mahima turned out to be a SAP Consultant from Siemens who complained of having a tough time with a certain Mr. Wadhwa during her stint at Times.... I'm sure some of my Times friends are listening :P

The D-day had arrived. The day started from India's premier MBA Institute IIM-A. Roughly 72 aspiring candidates on that day. I had to be just one of them to claim the coveted seat that I had been eying for a couple of years. The task seemed less daunting than eliminating 5200 aspirants from the 6000 odd students who appeared for MICAT to get a call for GE/PI. These top 800 students had to be really good after such a gruelling process. And boy, the quality of students that had come over there didn't disappoint at all. Needless to say, I felt proud to be part of the clan.  ..... ( to be contd)