It's high time I say something about this. I scored a 'D' in FAA (by the way, FAA = Financial Analysis and Accounting) and I consider it one of my biggest achievements in MBA, no kidding. Till the results came, I had my heart in the mouth. Whatsapp didn't help much. This is what happened before results came on Whatsapp/Telegram
'9 failures'
'What?'
'Yeah, Nine'
'Someone post the scores please'
One good samaritan went to the college notice board (so much for technology), clicked pictures and posted in Telegram (Whatsapp never worked in college wifi in 2014). 38... 39... 40... 42 (my roll number) ... heart pumping...
How did I feel during those FAA days in trimester one? Here it goes.
It all started with a balance sheet. How hard can this be, I thought. After all, we just have to do a LHS=RHS thing. And then it all begins - Credit, Debit, Depreciation, Amortization, Profit before Tax, PAT, Non-cash expenses...
And the faculty didn't help.
"If any doubts, ask this girl! (Name hidden for privacy reasons)"
This strangely resembled my engineering days when sirs never used to know a thing and referred to text books for any questions or postponed the answering till students forgot about the question. It's not that the FAA faculty didn't know, may be it's just that it was all Greek and Latin to me.
The whole point of me taking HR was not to deal with Finance, but that's not what the industry expects!
For Midterm I worked really hard, and it showed in the exam. Question was a balance sheet (25 mark question) and I had it done. RHS=LHS. Final score 17/25. That is an extremely good score considering my apprehensions about the subject.
The fear came when there was a quiz for 15 marks. I got 5/15 and the writing was on the wall. It was not so much about marks though.
Back in SRM, the final score to pass was 40/100 including internals. In MBA though, you need to get a minimum of 1/3 of the marks in the final paper to pass the exam even if you already have 40 internals in your pocket! This is a system that forces you to hate it. Got to live with it nevertheless.
This meant that I had to get 17/50 to pass. I was cornered, I was helpless. One girl offered to teach the whole class on this subject. Much to my disarray, the teaching was in Hindi and I couldn't understand a thing. I went home and told myself 'Hell with it', I will study.
I worked hard, but to no avail. When the question paper came, I was blank. There were some stupid ratios that people always mugged up. My memory was fading. I could remember only a few of them. And those were also wrongly stored in temporary memory. Boom. I scribbled something on the paper.
The answer sheet resembled a CAT paper where I tried to maximize the scores wherever possible. 10, 12,15... May be I could just pass... May be. I was still thinking.
What if I fail? I have to get placed, finish my internship and then I will write this exam. Will there be time to study? What will I tell home? How will I face home? What will I tell mom? Dad? Sister??? Oh God. I am gone. I was a topper in class four. How did I become like this? Should I pass this to get a degree? Ok ok, focus on the exam...
It's funny how mind works. Despite all this, I still had time. Well, time was never an issue. Still I wrote till the end. Well, I just scribbled something.
Result: '17' - just pass. 'D'
That moment etched in my heart for a really long time. Something I can tell my grandchildren after many years. As Sundar Pichai says, 'Wear it as a medal of honor'!
Just in case you are wondering, out of the 9 people who passed in revaluation, only 1 was a girl I think, and that in a class which has 2:3 boys:girls ratio!
What the FAA!
'9 failures'
'What?'
'Yeah, Nine'
'Someone post the scores please'
One good samaritan went to the college notice board (so much for technology), clicked pictures and posted in Telegram (Whatsapp never worked in college wifi in 2014). 38... 39... 40... 42 (my roll number) ... heart pumping...
How did I feel during those FAA days in trimester one? Here it goes.
It all started with a balance sheet. How hard can this be, I thought. After all, we just have to do a LHS=RHS thing. And then it all begins - Credit, Debit, Depreciation, Amortization, Profit before Tax, PAT, Non-cash expenses...
 |
| Somehow I felt like this! |
"If any doubts, ask this girl! (Name hidden for privacy reasons)"
This strangely resembled my engineering days when sirs never used to know a thing and referred to text books for any questions or postponed the answering till students forgot about the question. It's not that the FAA faculty didn't know, may be it's just that it was all Greek and Latin to me.
The whole point of me taking HR was not to deal with Finance, but that's not what the industry expects!
For Midterm I worked really hard, and it showed in the exam. Question was a balance sheet (25 mark question) and I had it done. RHS=LHS. Final score 17/25. That is an extremely good score considering my apprehensions about the subject.
The fear came when there was a quiz for 15 marks. I got 5/15 and the writing was on the wall. It was not so much about marks though.
Back in SRM, the final score to pass was 40/100 including internals. In MBA though, you need to get a minimum of 1/3 of the marks in the final paper to pass the exam even if you already have 40 internals in your pocket! This is a system that forces you to hate it. Got to live with it nevertheless.
This meant that I had to get 17/50 to pass. I was cornered, I was helpless. One girl offered to teach the whole class on this subject. Much to my disarray, the teaching was in Hindi and I couldn't understand a thing. I went home and told myself 'Hell with it', I will study.
 |
| Somehow, girls never had a problem with FAA |
 |
| Most of those who struggled were boys! |
I worked hard, but to no avail. When the question paper came, I was blank. There were some stupid ratios that people always mugged up. My memory was fading. I could remember only a few of them. And those were also wrongly stored in temporary memory. Boom. I scribbled something on the paper.
The answer sheet resembled a CAT paper where I tried to maximize the scores wherever possible. 10, 12,15... May be I could just pass... May be. I was still thinking.
What if I fail? I have to get placed, finish my internship and then I will write this exam. Will there be time to study? What will I tell home? How will I face home? What will I tell mom? Dad? Sister??? Oh God. I am gone. I was a topper in class four. How did I become like this? Should I pass this to get a degree? Ok ok, focus on the exam...
It's funny how mind works. Despite all this, I still had time. Well, time was never an issue. Still I wrote till the end. Well, I just scribbled something.
Result: '17' - just pass. 'D'
That moment etched in my heart for a really long time. Something I can tell my grandchildren after many years. As Sundar Pichai says, 'Wear it as a medal of honor'!
Just in case you are wondering, out of the 9 people who passed in revaluation, only 1 was a girl I think, and that in a class which has 2:3 boys:girls ratio!
What the FAA!
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