The story of how I know Deepak is pretty funny…I first connected with him when he emailed me a couple of years ago with questions about getting into business school with a background in Software Engineering. I gave him a response to his email and figured that would be it…until I got another email…and another…and another. At first, I was surprised by the continuous questions and requests for advice, but, after a while, his genuine interest in my story and my insights about a range of topics kept me going on with the back-and-forth exchanges until the point where it became almost second nature. Over time, he and I have communicated so much that it’s almost as if I know him and the two of us have never met in person before. My longtime readers have probably seen me refer to him as “DP” or “my man Deepak” whenever I’ve posted a link to an article that he’s passed my way. Over the past 12 months, he’s given me quite a few recommendations that I’ve ended up following through on to improve this site and its content and I’m thankful for his contributions.
Deepak’s goal was the apply to Stanford GSB and several other MBA programs during the 2010-2011 application cycle, but he didn’t score as well on the GMAT exam as he’d hoped when it took it last summer. He decided to delay his MBA application process for another year to give himself a chance to retake the GMAT exam and, since then, he’s been doing a TON of things to improve his overall applicant profile outside of prepping for another run at the GMAT. I guess I could say that I’ve been a bit of an outside advisor to him on this, but he’s really driven all of this on his own and I think hes going to be a stellar applicant this coming Fall. So, when the 2010-2011 MBA application season ended a few weeks ago, I asked Deepak if he’d be willing to write a guest entry to share his experiences with others who are facing the MBA application process. Some people wrongly believe that everyone else out there is 100% ready to take that plunge and I figured that Deepak’s story would help people to see that there are others who approach the process with apprehension.
When I looked at what Deepak wrote, I was floored by how open an honest he was in his writings and his willingness to share his own fears and concerns about approaching the MBA application process with the world. If you’d like to check out more from Deepak after reading this entry, you can visit him on his blog at http://deepakpanigrahy.wordpress.com/. I’ll warn you in advance that Deepak had a LOT to say, but trust me when I say that it is well worth the read.
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Deepak Panigraphy wrote:
It was a surprise but then I won’t say it was unexpected. I knew somewhere down the line, I will be doing this for Marquis but in a different way – joining him in clearing his email box and reaching to the maximum number of needy people like Marquis does right here. Basically, it is after an admit to a premium B-School but I never expected the same to come to me so soon. Thanks Marquis, who thought that my story is worth sharing it now. Honestly, I visited Marquis blog when he used to write for blogspot.com and from then, it is a great experience for me to have interacted with Marquis a number of occasions and exchanging information and thoughts. Somewhere, I feel that we connected well in almost all our thought process and feelings. I hope you guys find my story as interesting as it seems to Marquis. Marquis has been very kind enough to shout in favor of me at various platforms including his blog. So, here goes my story:
Life is unscripted. So why do we always try to think and act to achieve something, trying to form our story the way we want it to. But no matter what, we are bound to expect and experience some hiccups and obstacles while we try to achieve our own goal of life. One of them for me is to get my MBA form an Ivy League of Universities. The fight became sometime back when I decided to write my GMAT. Even though whatever I thought, some things didn’t go my way last year and that’s the reason I decided to back out of the whole process without a second thought. If I look back, I was never in a state last year. I planned things and nothing worked out. I was devastated and dejected. When I tried putting my alphabets of life in the scramble board, I found a lot of alphabets were missing. I had passions, interests, hobbies and aspirations but then I was not able to find and form the word I was looking for. And hence, the search began the search for the missing alphabets and I started the journey seriously.
In my opinion, the biggest blunder that we all make while we start the season is to try to know each and every corner of our dream school as if what is it they are looking for. What are the qualities the class makes of? How unique they are and then how can I tweak my stories to come close to it. But in this process, we miss out a very important aspect. We are trying to see the movie of our life with someone else’s eyes and try to script the story the way they want it to be. Now, one might argue what is the difference. Well, the difference is the perspective. One would have done a very small thing but what experiences and inspirations he/she would have drawn from it, will now get lost in the script of someone else. Sometimes, it may be very dangerous. Remember the classic old story of our school: A glass half-filled with water may be interpreted by someone as a glass half full but at the same time another person can interpret the same glass as half-empty.
So, I guess enough of philosophy. Let’s now discuss what I tried and trying to do few things relevant in order to form a meaningful word for my scramble called life. As I mentioned earlier, the whole motive was not to figure out what the b-schools look for rather it was to figure what are the things I am good at and how to project them more convincingly and effectively.
1. I am very good at acting. Now, I am saying this because I have acted in numerous skits and plays at the school and college functions. So, I started looking for some theater clubs in my city. Finding and figuring out such a club was tough because my basic demand was to rehearse and act only on weekends. Being a full time employee for day time jobs and then pursuing which you like to do such as theater was an impossible task especially if someone is pursuing both of them simultaneously. So, I was looking for something different and that also only for weekends. After struggling and researching for 2-3 months, I found out a small theater group with 50 odd artists which suited my requirements perfectly. I went for the audition and was instantly selected. Today, I am part of a small team of 10 people among them performing only for kids concentrating on short stories format.
2. With the above, one can make out that I have no fear of stage and public speaking but I don’t interact with people on my professional front (of course, by now you would have made out I am a Software Developer). Someone mentioned me about the Toastmaster International Clubs and fortunately enough, my MNC was also having an official club for the same. I joined the club and started attending sessions. But then there was a problem. I had to walk down to another building of my office some 3 Kms away from my building for 1 hour session. I was one of the first two members to join. Gradually, I started taking up different session roles but then I sensed one hidden opportunity. The result was a shadow club in my own building. And the membership drive that increased the membership strength from 2-13 today has been an awesome challenging experience. Talking to senior Directors, teams and new hires and motivating them to join Toastmasters Club has been a thrilling ride today. Of course, there are obstacles – sometimes in terms of resources and sometimes in terms of people but then I believe, this is the best way of learning whether one can ignore certain things or people for the better of the majority.
3. Find your passion: I love to work out and hence, I started working out after a span of 5 yrs and now, I have built my figure back. One might feel what the hell I am talking about. The difference is in the perception. I feel good about myself and I could sense the effect in my schedules and productivity.
4. Grow your network: There are loads of ways to do this. It is not important how you do this rather how you continue to sustain those relationships. One example I can give is: In my company, there was one girl who made it to Stanford GSB but then she left the company the year before I joined. But somehow I heard about her and was able to successfully track her down. Though she took 3 good months to reply back to the first communication but after that I was able to build very cordial relationship with her. The benefit you get is tremendous: firstly, you know that someone from your organization has made it really big and so the same can happen to me too. Secondly, such persons are the only ones who can tell how your corporate profile suits the MBA application and what more can you do. Joining Toastmaster was her idea to me.
5. Blogging and Twitter: I feel these are two most vital and powerful networking tools existing today. Almost every dean, professor, celebrities and b-schools are present in the twitter and facebook. Follow them. You can not only get valuable information and tips about admission but also find opportunities to interact and participate in online discussions. One can also get a feel of the happenings in the n-school which can sort of define the “FIT†for you. Additionally, you can find lot of interesting activities around twitter. One of those occasions where I contributed substantially was the “twestivalâ€. Twestival is the term coined from twitter+festival. In this annual event, one can contribute to the cause of raising money for a NGO in your own localized area. I got such an opportunity this year where we raised close to 40,000 INR for an NGO. The learning from a fund-raising event has no comparison to what one has done in professional and personal life. Titter meetings a.k.a tweetups are another opportunity to interact and mingle with some amazing people. Some of the tweetups I went to were in honor of people like a budding author whose first book released and the one where the ex-Managing Editor of Rediff Abroad and the current Managing Editor of Yahoo India. These interactions will take you to a different level of thinking.
6. Last but not the least, your profession. What we do in our daily life in our office work is unique and commendable but in my view, one’s entrepreneurship abilities show up when we try to strive to use our skills beyond our usual office work. I am a software developer, so while I was working with the NGO I am associated with, I got involved with Free Software Movement Karnataka. We, as a small team of about 10-12 people, organized the National Free Software Conference for this year at Bangalore. Other than usual event challenges, the highlight of the event was the involvement of the kids from the schools and colleges. Going to the schools and colleges and convincing the kids to not only participate but also promote the usage of free software in the daily computer usages was great. Do you understand going to someone and convincing them to use OpenOffice rather than a pirated version of MS Office (Mind you, unlike other countries piracy of software is very rampant here)? Additionally, the time required to give them basic training and get them comfortable was a huge learning. More to that, there was immense pleasure to release the famous Ubuntu version in the local language of Karnataka state.
So, these are some of the updates how I am trying to get to my dream. The most important thing that keeps me going is somehow I will make a good MBA material and can leave an impact in this business world. I am not sure of the future but I am sure that I am chasing my dream with utmost sincerity and honesty. Do feel free to visit my blog, the link to which you can always find in Marquis’s blog. And be true to yourself and your essays (Refer to the video below. There is something unique in this advertisement and the same applies to your essays too).
LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtMA0iQ6NWI
Do feel free to drop me comments and I would be happy to answer them, if I can else I would definitely pull in Marquis to answer them.
Lastly, thanks Marquis once again for giving me such a great platform to share my story and struggle for my dream. I could not have asked for any other better stage to express myself to a vast majority of people. Thanks Again.
~ Deepak
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