Whats the Hype??...

Whats the Hype??

After my CA results, two important jobs lie ahead of me. One, to complete the compulsory 15 day General Management and Communication skills(GMCS) programme and two, to participate in the Campus interview. I finished my GMCS programme in the first week of February. Trichur Chapter of ICAI conducted the programme. It was a once in a lifetime experience.Faculties were excellent and thorough professionals. But the real beauty of the GMCS lied in the fact that not only did I get the opportunity to meet new people from different parts of the State but also learned a lot about the struggles many of them had to go through to become a CA.  I saw happiness and pride in their eyes when they were talking about their efforts and odds they had to face reach where they are now.There was no arrogance in their words.They were just relieved and satisfied.On the other hand, I have seen people being arrogant and harsh to juniors and articleship/internship starters ,just because they are CA Inter qualified!!!. 

Passing CA is not a big deal. This is what I said to one of  my friend, before the exam,s to calm his nerves and ease the tension. "Passaya thendikalku enthum parayam"( CA qualified scoundrels can say anything) was his reply. Well..its not like that. I have been saying this from the day i got to know about this course. Even before writing CA inter exams, I knew I could easily pass CA exam, of course, with a little bit of effort and luck. When I say little bit, I mean it. And luck is an important factor too. For example:  All consider Information Systems Control and Audit paper , lovingly called ISCA, as a pure waste of time . Honestly  I share a similar view too. More than 95% of CA students consider it boring and the ISCA answer sheets are full of "gas". Actually thats the only paper where CA students get to apply their "creative" writing  skills. And I believe people who value these answer sheets, may have the same problem too. They have to decipher those creative answers using their creative brains. Thats where , I believe  "luck" comes into play. If somebody who knows something about ISCA values your paper, you will be lucky to use your "literary" skills AGAIN NEXT TIME!!.I was blessed with  53 marks for ISCA..aint i lucky!!.

Having said that, I mean no disrespect to Chartered accountants and CA profession. Its one of the biggest league of professionals responsible for checking corruption in our society to an extent. I am proud and privileged  to be part of CA fraternity.

Now,lets come back to my jobs in hand.After GMCS, next it was the campus interviews. I chose Ernakulam and Mumbai as centres. No companies came to Ernakulam for recruiting CAs( Told you its all a hype!!). Now my hopes rested on Mumbai. One week has passed since I uploaded my profile in ICAI's placement website, still no companies have shortlisted me. Even being a first attempt CA didnt bring me much luck. My friends who kept  Chennai and Bangalore as centres were already shortlisted by 2 or 3 companies. I chose Mumbai as the centre because I was brought up in Mumbai and has a lot of friends and relatives there. Hence choosing Mumbai was a personal decision rather than professional. Anyway..One fine morning,when I logged into check my status , I saw that BPCL has shortlisted me. I was really excited. to see this. I immediately talked to my parents and they were happy too. I hardly had 3 weeks to prepare. I immediately went to a cyber cafe and took the print out of all the details I could find about the company. Thats when it struck me that I haven't booked the tickets.When I looked up , luckily, few seats were available for Rajdhani express. Couldn't be perfect!!!. So I booked the tickets. It has always been my dream to travel alone in a Rajdhani express. Now I had to book the return tickets. But BPCL interview was on the 1st day of the Three -day campus interview. If some other company shortlists me, then I have to stay back one or two days more. So, I decided to book return tickets later that night.So, I logged in that evening to see if any other company has shortlisted me or not. What the f**k?. That was my very next reaction.

Nobody shortlisted me,even BPCL. It was gone. Dont know what happened there. Technically I was shortlisted for less than 12 hours. Rajdhani express....travelling alone..all in hell. I wrote to our Institute asking clarification. But no reply came. Then I happened to see the list of shortlisted candidates in Mumbai center and their registration numbers. All had their registration numbers  beginning with either NRO or CRO( signifying Northern and Central zone respectively) while mine was beginning with SRO( Southern Zone). Kinda felt let down. Not sure whether Institute let me down or me myself let me down. But false hope was not necessary. Felt cheated. But that feeling lasted only for few hours because I had my Parents and friends to support me. Oh forgot...I had movies too.

Everything starts well for me.....

Signing everywhere.....signing in whatever piece of paper one could catch hold of. That is a common habit among the CA aspirants. Being once a CA student, I used to do that a lot. Used to try out different forms of signature whenever I was vouching, studying, thinking and writing. Fortunately I managed to zero in on one which is currently my OFFICIAL SIGNATURE. I admit that I haven't had the opportunity to put use of my "official" signature officially even after 1 year of my passing CA, but at least, I have one.

My CA student life was not much eventful. I was happy being a student though.  I am not a writer first of all, nor am I an avid reader. You may see a lot of grammatical mistakes in my sentences( not much spelling mistakes...you know why). But anyway, i decided to write because I wanted to and there is nothing better I could do at this very moment in my life. I just decided to share some of my thoughts, views and experiences which I am sure will help the future interviewees.

Well I became CA at the age of 21 and on this 18th of January 2013, its the first anniversary of me being a  CA, cool...right?? . Its always a great feeling to be a CA.  The best moment in my life was the day when my CA Final results were out. My results were unexpected, to be honest. When compared to the efforts put in by my friends , some of whom who didnt pass that time, they deserved a fair result more than me.

Having said that, it doesnt mean that my passing of CA Final course was a mere fluke. I guess my" sleepless" effort and hard work during the 17 days of examinations (Nov. 1st to Nov.17th, 2011) worked for me.

There are 4 kinds of students.

First category is the one of who does everything systematically. They plan everything. They have plans for every subject, every month, every week, every day and every hour. Not only they plan, but they even execute it and follow it the core. Even 7 to 8 minutes of time allotted for toilet in their time table works for them, always!!

The second category of people is good at planning and planning ONLY.Hell..they are even better planners than the first category students. But come what may, they WONT follow it. And each time they fail they redraw the plan again. Its a never ending cycle

Now the third category doesn't have any specific plan. But they have this wonderful skill of making it on time.These people are highly talented and are only concerned about "when" rather than "how".

Finally the fourth category.They are least interested in their studies. They may or may not be brilliant, or they maybe misguided or misled . They may even be feeling that they don't belong to this CA society.

I belong to the 2nd category during my study holidays and 3rd category as the exam days approaches. But like 99% of the CA students, I  also start to think about the portions to SKIP in each subject as the exam approaches.Yes, I skip portions because I  dont have that "wonderfull" skill normally associated with the 3rd categories.

Earlier I used to mock at people who used to write only One Group or who gave up writing the rest of exam after writing just a single paper.But once my exam days began, I personally realized the stress and strain of writing EACH of those 8 papers. Its a very tough job friends.  VERY TOUGH. The pressure of scoring the magical 50 marks in each paper. The pressure of scoring atleast 60, to get an exemption, when we dont do well in the paper before. All kinds of calculations and theories will go through your mind during that 17 days. Your life depends on that 17 days.

Well tension and the pressure doesnt end for many even after the exams are over. Tension restarts from the moment, our Institute declares result's date . And the tension is further prolonged by our Institute's 'tentative'ness in declaring the results. But for me, the tension of results starts from the moment i enter my roll number into the website. The tension reaches its pinnacle, when my results are loading.

Finally, that moment came for me. I saw that I passed the 1st Group and anxiously, without checking the total marks and the marks I got for each paper in 1st Group,i scrolled down to see the 2nd Group's  results. PASS. My nerves were calm for a fraction of a second. Then I screamed , not bothering about the fact that I was in one of our client's office for an audit. Luckily, at that day, my Sir was not there with us for the audit. Only my dearest friends(Sid and Gouthem) were there. And I am really glad that they were there to witness that best moment in my life. I just wanted to scream out to the world that "I am a CA". 

 Mark my words, you want to become to CA for that very moment, if not for the rest of your life.

(My Next post will be about my interview experiences..u don't want to miss that..Trust me!!)