Why I prepared for competitive exams while working !
Though I wanted to write a blog on "How I prepared for competitive exams", I thought it was more important to answer the question "Why"
Why did I choose to do this ?
I was working for an IT concern right after my graduation , recruited with salary of around 25k. Everything seemed to be so good then. I could gift my mom & sister out of my own money now, could go on short trips where I could spend some money for them. Spending money for the family for the first time , felt so good. However, reality struck in a short while.
Due to certain statutory reasons, our salary was reduced to 17k. At the same moment, I got notice from my bank to pay off my educational loan. It was mentioned that I have to pay 10k per month for 4 years to clear the loan. This was because we had not paid any interest during the 4 years of my study. This was the same time, I looked out for a hostel near my office as the commute time to office was too long. The rent for the hostel was around 5k. The work in my project slowly reduced and we were only 2 in the team, almost in the verge of being pushed out of the project. Marriage talks for my sister had begun, I really wanted to help my family financially in this. Everything happened around the same time. Left with only 2k every month, I knew, I will not able to contribute to the family, but I decided not to burden them for my expenses.
I started skipping team lunch & dinners where we had to share the bill. I borrowed clothes from room mates to attend birthday parties. I even thought of vacating the hostel to save 5k monthly. But, if I’m going to spend more than 2 hours in commuting then there was no time left to focus on improving my career & increasing my salary.
I tried to switch to another company, it didn’t work. Tried to switch to product based company, it didn’t work. Prepared for GATE & ISRO exams which had syllabus similar to my graduation. I failed miserably in the former & very average performance in the latter. All that I wanted now was to have some decent money in hand. I tried all avenues that I knew.
That’s when I saw an advertisement for Probationary Officer of one of the leading banks in December 2014. There were 2000 posts. I looked up, prayed to god to help me get that 1 post out of 2000. Little did I know, there was a long long way to go, to get that 1 post. Though all this started for monetary reasons, I gradually found my interest in Macro Economics & General Banking. This helped me learn the alien subjects in quick pace.
The journey started in the end of 2014 , when I wrote my first exam. I still remember my first score, it was around 48/200. I kept working on my weaknesses & kept pushing my strengths harder.
Now that I started writing exams, each exam fee was Rs.600-800 and I was writing several exams per month. I remember months left with single digit bank balances. Still was blessed with amazing colleagues around who helped with money whenever I needed. I would desperately wait for pay day to pay them back.
With all this happening to me, my mom was so worried but my sister was my cheer leader. Every penny I earn today, I owe in double to her.
Finally, I found light at the end of the tunnel in April 2016. I cleared 3-4 exams after failing in 30 others. I now had a choice to select the bank for which I wanted to work.
What started for monetary benefits, changed the industry in which I will have career for the future to come. The first thing I did after getting into the job was obviously the pre-closure of my education loan (pre-cursor to all the financial trouble)
Looking back, I could think of only this, “Any situation that breaks you, brings out the best in you”
Images that stand fresh in my memory till date
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Inspiring journey!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much ji !!
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