Anxiety and mismanagement of last hours! one day before the IIMK interview

8Th Feb (written on 10th)

I was always apprehensive of this day, the day: when I am less than 24 hours away from my first ever IIM interview.

I was too much involved in preparing for the Acads, that I did not get time to do anything else. I had plans to rehearse my answers to typical interview Qs, plans of recording them and then monitoring if there is something wrong in voice modulation or body language. But plans are just plans, in my case they are too idealistic and too perfect.

That’s why I hardly do what I plan to do, never up to my satisfaction.

In this case I was still satisfied that at least I was trying to do my best.

Time was less, I had set a deadline for going to bed by 1’o clock. It was crucial as I was not sure if I would be able to wake up on my own that early (I had my GD/PI at 9’0 clock). Went for dinner with Sangeeta, kinda relaxed my nerves a bit, then back to my room.. time was 10:30 pm. So I have around 3 hours(already stretching by half an hour), and I still have to –

Fill the Interview form(SOP)

Read some Current affairs articles from TIME’s GD/PI briefcase

Revise few of my notes.

Too many things still not covered from Acads(like a quick review of sorting n searching, OOPS, Database(after all I am working in Orac**, no matter that the only kind of database that I am even remotely related with is, hmm… maybe my Outlook archives), … and ..and ….just too many things to cover.

I started with some current affairs.. read it for about an hour, then started to go through some automata(donno y?)..time? already 12.

Then thought about SOP.. the rough draft took more than an hour, then writing/modifying that on the Interview form took another hour I guess. After that I was again back in front of my computer screen, went through some IIMK experiences on Pagalguy. Time? 2:30a.m.

Then I started to go through the latest online issue of business world and also dug out some articles from their archive. I tell you! they have some really great stuff over there.

Most of the articles were extremely interesting or full of gyaan(which in turn is extremely helpful in PIs when faced with opinion based questions.. you just need to read and appreciate one gyaan filled article from the vicinity of that field and you can make an attempt to show your recently acquired gyaan).. I just could not leave this site and finally realized that the time is already 3:30 a.m.

Got really stressed, had to wake up by 6 o’clock in the morning(revision of notes, newspaper, shaving, bathing and even Photostat of the required documents, ..everything was pending).. Finally I was lying on my bed. Years of experience, months of CAT preparation, post result celebrations, all those mock GD/PI classes, then again weeks of preparation for acads and current affairs, and now again i found myself in a bit of mess(thinking that just a couple of more hours and my prep could have been perfect), wondering if at all I will be able to sleep, more than once I reconfirmed the alarm status, what if I wake up at my usual time of 10-11’o clock in the morning?

What happened after this? .. that will be in the next post..