GATE Success story - Anuj Jain: Success GATEway

ANUJ JAIN

ADMITTANCE: IIT MADRAS

The strongest factor for success is self-esteem: Believing you can do it, believing you deserve it and believing you'll get it

Let me give you a little insight about my upbringing. I grew up in a family where my parents are very well qualified; my younger brother is extraordinary when it comes to studies. Conversely I was very bad at studies since my school days, infact I badly failed in my 11th standard, Mercy of my school teachers I was promoted to 12th standard, Even in my 12th standard i barely passed.

I did not have any goals about my career and as most of the Indian students not sure about their career; I decided to pursue "ENGINEERING". As I did not score even average grades in my high school I never considered myself capable enough to land in a good college therefore I joined an engineering college nearby my home which was easy to get into. I had little understanding of what field to pursue engineering in, therefore following the mob mentality I opted for the computer science branch. Now the only objective of mine remained to get a mediocre job on completion of my engineering.

Well, everyone thinks if you have a B.Tech degree in computer science then getting a job is easy but believes me it is not that easy, one needs to work hard to earn even a mediocre job. In 4th year of my college I joined placement preparation classes at Success GATEway; irony is that these classes were meant to make us understand what all we have studied in our B.Tech.

How I joined the GATE preparation batch is a story in itself, I attended a few placement preparation classes but I found it hard to concentrate and pass time in such long classes therefore just for the sake of good company I upgraded my batch to GATE preparation batch as some of my friends were already attending this batch. As this batch covered everything that was covered in placement preparation batch but in more detail therefore I thought it could never harm to attend these classes.

Now when I look back, it seems wonderful how things plan out and I find myself in a place where I never planned to be, how I end up attending classes for preparation of an exam which I never even thought of appearing for, but one cannot achieve a goal until and unless self-motivation towards achieving that goal is developed. It's strange how little things in your life can change your thinking. Till this point in time I lacked that motivation, I had joined the GATE preparation batch but my objective still remained getting a mediocre job from college placements, I never took GATE seriously.

Vinod sir and Sachin sir who teaches at Success GATEway are two most influential people in my life, everything i have achieved and will achieve in my future, a big credit goes to them. The kind of motivational talks they would give time to time helped to always set our aims higher.

Two incidents that happened around this time provided me the motivation I was lacking towards GATE:One, I got to meet Manish Panwar who happens to be the first IITian from Success GATEway. Listening to the stories he had about IIT Kanpur, about the kind of practical knowledge you get there, research opportunities there, new ideas that develop when you are surrounded by such bright minds, lit a spark in me about getting to an IIT and of course then there is the kind of job and money one gets after passing out from an IIT is not a secret.

Second, even after working hard and preparing well for the placements I did not get placed, that was the lowest phase of my life till date because I did not know what else to do, it was already December, I had not prepared for GATE at all and the exam was in February.

I appeared for the exam with no preparation and as expected my score was no way near to what is required to get into an IIT. This was the time when I had to make a choice, whether to look for a job or to take a drop and prepare for GATE. This is the tricky part as my father had good links and it would have been easy for him to get me a job and considering my below average performance in studies it would be difficult to convince my family for a drop. But somewhere deep inside I had a belief and was motivated that I could crack the GATE exam and get into an IIT, therefore I wanted to give my best shot at GATE at least once.

After some resistance I managed to convince my family, I rejoined the same coaching, no one I guess would have believed in me to reach an IIT at that time but the only one whose belief counts is you yourself. Believing in myself I started preparing for it with my fullest of the potential, I did everything as asked by the teachers, worked as hard as I could but one can only work towards achieving a goal but whether a goal will be achieved is in the hands of destiny.

Even after working hard I was not scoring well in the regular tests conducted in the coaching, I was feeling the pressure of drop and was starting to doubt myself. But the key here is never to lose faith in you, keep working hard and the things will eventually fall in place.

This is exactly what happened, eventually I started to score well in tests and later in mock tests my scores were really good, that's when I got my confidence back, even the so called best eligible candidates of class started to discuss doubts with me, this is when I felt certain to possess the potential to crack this exam.

Now comes the exam day, everyone was nervous, I had butterflies in my stomach but strangely I did not feel nervous, in fact I was pretty confident about doing well in the exam. My exam went excellent, I was 99% sure after the exam that I was going to one or the other IIT. Results came out, and I scored AIR 275. It is almost sure for one to get into one of the top 7 IITs with this rank. I guess I was a bit lucky to get into IIT Madras with this rank, thanks to the COAP system, as I should have got IIT Guwahati with my rank but got Madras in the spot round.

Well once you get into an IIT things change, people and relatives start giving you respect, suddenly you become a topic of discussion, but on top of everything I cannot forget how proud my parents were, how happy they were to inform everyone. I don't think it's possible to buy feelings like that; one has got to earn those.

Spending 2 years in IIT Madras was like a dream, I will remember every second I spent there throughout my life. It is the environment of these big institutions that makes you push your limits and makes one discover the best version of yourself.

Second time in my life when I made my parents proud was when I got placed in Samsung R&D India with a good package, a kind of job I could not even think of passing out of my B.Tech college. I will now be starting a new phase of my life, entering corporate life, hoping this journey will also be as happening as my previous journeys.

If I can cover distance from being a failure in my school days to getting into an IIT, completing a master degree and getting a research job, I believe anyone who has the willpower and works hard can achieve anything that he/she fancy. I would like to end with the quote "The strongest factor for success is self-esteem: Believing you can do it, believing you deserve it and believing you'll get it".