It was a Sunday afternoon in January 2011, about six weeks after the SNAP exam, when I attended the Annual ‘City meet’ of SIIB. While I was interacting with the speakers and simultaneously analyzing my future prospects for SIIB (which later turned out were actually pretty good) a thought suddenly crossed my mind – “It would have been so cool if I was the speaker addressing this crowd”. Not knowing what fate had in store for me, I made a promise to myself that if I do get admitted to SIIB I will join the PR team.
10 months later, October 2011 another Sunday afternoon I am delivering a similar presentation while addressing a crowd of 100 odd nervous aspirants.
The 10 month journey from being a spectator to be a speaker has been nothing less than spectacular; my first day at college, first interaction round with seniors, Interview for PR team and preparing day and night along my with team mates to make sure that when the day comes we fall short of nothing and deliver the expected.
The PR (Public Relations) team bears all responsibilities related to official communication and visibility of college but the ‘Crack it with SIIB city meets’ is what everyone dearly waits for as it is a completely student driven initiative which gives us an amazing opportunity to meet our potential juniors and share our thoughts and experience with the aspirants. Same is also a wonderful platform for the aspirants to gain some extremely useful tips and insights on SNAP exam and process beyond that (GD’s, PI’s). We try our best to facilitate the journey that aspirants go through; which starts at the preparation stage and ends at the very door of SIIB.
On a personal front, I was eagerly waiting for the meet as it allows one to feel the same adrenaline again as one did a year ago when he/she was one of the Aspirants and also to realize how does it feel to be on the other side of the crowd.
The motive is to conduct the workshop in all major towns on the very same day accessing as much populace as we can across the country. This year we have planned to conduct this workshop in 13 major cities reaching every corner of India.
Invitations have been send, teams have been designated, months of planning & preparation boils down to the week of the city meet when we all embark on a journey to the designated cities to conduct the ‘Crack it with SIIB’ city meets.
For the PR meet scheduled on 20th Nov, I along with my two colleagues leave for Delhi to make arrangements and to conduct the workshop. We spent the preliminary days making venue arrangements and contacting as much coaching institutes and colleges in city as possible to invite the respective students to the workshop. Last but not the least, we got our suits dry cleaned and we were all set to represent our college.
The day went fine with people turning up in good numbers and two of our distinguished alumni gracing the occasion with their presence. The students seemed satisfied interacting with us and the alumni.
The workshop acted as a platform where aspirants could quench their thirst of knowledge when it comes to MBA program and SNAP exam, hence the session was aimed to provide a firsthand experience of life at a B-School & I think we were pretty successful in doing so. The aspirants seemed to appreciate the value of MBA and how it can act as a catalyst for their career.
Evening, in order to celebrate the success of the event we went out for dinner with both of our alumni and believe you me it turned out to be an enthralling experience, not just because of good food but because of the amazing anecdotes our seniors had in store for us.
As our super seniors were sharing their stories (indeed very interesting) with us we could see them getting a bit nostalgic and sentimental. For us it was a great feeling to see the level of commitment and love they have for their Alma Mater, Indeed a lesson for all of us to learn.
The Event was a huge success all across the county, the response was terrific, we addressed around 1500 people pan India. But the best moment for me was yet to come and it came a couple of days after I reached college.
It was in form of a mail which said “It was indeed a really good presentation and I wish I could do the same when I join SIIB”.
