Interview with Shivani

We have recently talked to one of our students, Shivani who is a Metallurgical Engineer and has secured a GMAT score of 770. She is among the very talented students that worked with the MBA center. Let us have a look at her interview.

Could you please introduce yourself?

Shivani: Hi everyone, I’m Shivani. I’m from Jamshedpur. I am currently working at Tata Steel Limited. And I have around 5 years of experience and I did my B.Tech from NIT Jamshedpur. My hobbies are reading, writing, and playing online games.

As you have secured a GMAT score of 770, tell us something about your journey? How was it overall?

Shivani: Honestly it was a little stressful for me in the sense that my work usually extended to around 7 p.m. And after that, I used to go for my coaching for around 2 hours. After coming home I used to study for like 2-3 hours again and then sleep. I had to compromise managing my time for other things and study as well. So overall it was a bit difficult.

But for anybody preparing and working at the same time, I would like to tell you that routine is one of the most important things when you're preparing for GMAT or any kind of big exam. Because routine creates a pattern in the mind itself. It makes your mind understand and adapt the kind of thinking you require when you’re sitting for the exam under any kind of pressure. 

What was the most difficult thing in your whole preparation journey and how did you tackle it?

Shivani: It was to unlearn something to be able to learn new things. Because my quant was pretty good and I have a good IQ in quant but I had to forgive my old methods to solve questions and inculcate new methods for any type of quant question in the GMAT. I had faced some difficulties in the verbal section in terms of sentence interpretation and I had to put extra effort into that. 

What advice would you give to the other candidate who is planning to give the GMAT?

Shivani: The very important one is to keep a routine in your practice and stick to it no matter what. As 21 days is the minimum time a brain requires to get accustomed to any kind of habit. So your brain should be habituated to practice the exam in a certain manner daily. 

And the second is to be strong. Because sometimes in my whole journey I felt like maybe the pressure was too much. And it happens especially for a working individual with 10-12 hours at work. I would say that take some time like for 10-15 minutes, do meditation, listen to songs or anything else make makes you feel relaxed. Just do anything to be able to relax, get in the mood and give it to everything when you’re sitting to prepare for the exam.

How was your association with Dr. Hubert and the MBA Center?

Shivani: My interaction and association with Dr. Hubert were very inspiring in one word. Mostly motivating for me because every interaction brought out a new aspect of it. And the team has helped me a lot during my essay, the application process, as well as my interviews. The most significant part that I could tell is there were things that even I initially didn't remember about myself. Dr. Hubert and the team were able to help me identify those particular aspects to be able to properly reflect that in my application. 

Also read: Julien, a 23-year-old chap accepted into Wharton and Chicago Booth