How I Overcame Rejection & Depression To Find Success | My Journey To MICA Ahmedabad

Toastmasters had become my escape. I got a chance to exploit my writing skills, my public speaking skills and most of all my leadership skills, which quite frankly speaking I never knew I had. For a bullied kid who was afraid of saying something for which he might become the centre of the joke, this was huge. My confidence boosted and this came at a time I was battling acute depression.

The day you leave your home and come to a place like VIT, you can break very easily. People, surroundings, everything else feels as if they are working to bring you down, and I felt the same. I had no friends, a roommate who stole from me on principle, my ex-girlfriend was extorting money from me, and I was horrible at academics. Toastmasters was the only respite after a week of on and off crying, binge-watching FRIENDS and eating cup noodles with boiled eggs from Enzo. But you know, I didn’t die, so I thought maybe I have more life in me than I had guessed and hence, I started writing more.

I wrote everything I felt and more, I delivered speeches on topics which made my eyes glint in darkness. And I found everything slowly and steadily, friends with whom I recently concluded a trip to Panchgani, mentees who still call me to their homes to treat me for how much I helped them, but more than anything, I found myself. And this struggle with myself and my surroundings had made me empathetic. I understood people, I had tact, I knew the right words to use at the right time and to the right person. I could sense sadness a mile away, the reason for the same and I started documenting everything, how I made conclusions about the people I met and how I felt their emotions, their reactions, their lives, sometimes even better than themselves.

In this hullabaloo of finding myself, the final year of college had arrived. It was time to sit for placements. After rigorous training and exercises, I was ready. However, my parents had a different thought. You must have guessed it by now, yes – MBA. I was under constant pressure to prepare for MBA entrances for the best B-schools in India, a process which is no less intense than the gruelling preparations for engineering entrances. The only difference is where the game is of how smart you are rather than how intelligent you are. I enrolled with Career Launcher, went for classes religiously till dawn and I felt I needed more evidence to affirm my decision, and so I left my preparations for MBA and decided to focus on placements.

By the time CAT had come and gone, I had been rejected by 13 companies at the final stage of the process. My interviews were killing me till Hafele India became my lucky charm. I joined as a Graduate Engineer Trainee for Hafele India’s Sales Team and started operating in the Eastern part of India, under the Appliances division.

My sales career, though short, was extremely sweet. In the 10 months that I was there, I had set up two distributors, multiple new retailers, and overall increased the sales from East alone by 50%. And while it was thrilling, exciting, unnerving, it took a toll and I had by then explored the agencies and their lives. So, I started applying for internships first as I knew it would be difficult to get a full-time role in an agency at such a nascent stage and without proper qualification.

The opportunity came from Gurgaon and with a heavy heart, I left Hafele India, my wonderful boss to whom I owe almost all of my success, and my illustrious journey. I joined as a Brand Executive for a definite period of 2 months at a startup which is now defunct. While I learned a lot, I also learned that what I knew wasn’t enough. I was working on two projects, one was a real estate startup in Delhi, of whom I was the Project Leader, while the other was a very high profile client for whom we were redoing the entire online presence from their e-commerce website to their international website. It was exciting but I lacked the expertise and so, under extreme pressure of my boss, which was putting me back into depression, I quit.

Now just imagine the scenario - I had done a degree of which I knew absolutely zilch, I got a job which I loved, I lived and did very well in, but left, and took an internship where my room rent was more than my salary, and now I was jobless again. I was lost with nowhere to go. And then one day I really analysed the why and what next. It was simple – MBA, not because everyone was doing it, but because it really was the differentiating factor in my career. If you looked at it, I had been preparing to become a manager, since before that day.

My Toastmasters experience, my increased acumen of understanding people and managing them, my understanding of business through my sales journey and ultimately, my stint as a Brand Executive automatically led me to the obvious choice of an MBA and I was ready.

And if you look even closer, MICA also was an obvious choice. My creativity and empathy, a thirst for knowledge, and love for Marketing and branding gave me a clear path towards MICA, the mecca of marketing, and today I believe I feel I am home. The things that I have learned here, my understanding of everything business, and the expansion of my skillset have made me realize what I was missing in my career growth process.

This story sounds a lot like things fell into place, but MBA had been my motive for a long time and first I decided to follow what I loved doing. I pursued public speaking with all gusto, wrote as if there was no tomorrow, and worked with all my heart. And these strengths of mine that I have developed over the years, today, help me in managing and understanding with clarity. You can jump into an MBA, as everybody else does, or work towards it in a structured way. But what I have learned is that jumping in has a higher risk always than first testing the waters.

Hope this story will help you make an informed decision. Cheers!