My story of converting IIM C
I gave one of the best interviews of my life for C. I didn't wanna post or talk about it earlier because I get a little superstitious when stakes are this high, and it's not good to count your chickens before they hatch.
After botching my B interview in the early interview season, I knew I had to give my all for C. What I didn't expect was the conversation to flow so naturally and the panelist so interested and eager. Here's the transcript with a little paraphrasing since it's been a while.
M1: Sit down. Tell me what you do at your company.
Me: Told my roles and responsibilities as a data scientist.
F: So, why do you want to do MBA?
Me: Told my short term and long term goals and how mba will help achieve them.
M2: Apart from work what are your hobbies?
Me: Told along the lines of chess, bikes, and books.
M1: What was the last book you read that you really liked?
Me: Animal Farm by George Orwell
M1: Did you read it recently?
Me: Not that recently but definitely much later than I should have. It's a really great book
M2: What's your favourite character from Animal Farm?
Me: *Thinking about it*
M2: My favourite is Napoleon.
Me: *Laughs*
M2: I think he is really cute. No?
Me: He's definitely a great villain but I don't relate to any of the pigs in the story.
M2: I think pigs are cute, who's yours then?
Me: I'd probably say Boxer the horse. I really liked his tragic arc and how he's one of the few characters morally admirable even in a corrupt environment. The strongest yet the most exploited just like the working class in the real world.
M1: What do we learn from Animal Farm?
Me: It tells us how power can corrupt anyone and how the system is inherently flawed and breaks down when power is distributed among a small group.
F: How do you decide then how much power to give someone?
Me: It's very hard to gauge that correctly but that's why we have democracy.
M1: *Laughs* Democracy. It doesn't look like it works at all tbh.
Me: (I didn't want to talk about Mamta, Modi or Trump so I kept my answers generic). It definitely has many flaws and ideal democracy is impossible to achieve. But imperfect democracy is far better than imperfect dictatorship. It's the least evil of all the other forms of government. It is a government for the people and by the people.
M1: But what if the majority of people are advocating for something completely wrong (I think he gave example of something involving killing people)
Me: That's an issue that education will need to solve. When majority of people are advocating for something inherently wrong it's an educational and awareness issue.
M1: There's a YT video by Veritasium about democracy where he talks about it's flaws.
Me: Yeah I have watched that, it's a great video.
M1: Of course you must have watched it.
Me: There are also few videos by CGP Grey on election and voting and gives us a game theory perspective.
M2: Okay, you said you are a data scientist right. Tell me a few ML models that you have used.
Me: Um there is Random Forest Algorithm, and.. *gets interrupted*
M1: *Laughs hard* Random Forest, what an apt model to mention. It's an ensemble method right? Can you tell how it works?
Me: *Chuckles as realisation hits* It consists of many decision trees that look at the data or features and make a prediction. The final answer is whatever the majority of the trees vote for just like a democracy.
*All panelists laugh*
M1: So why does Random Forest work so well but democracy fails?
Me: *Thinks for a bit* Decision trees are usually picking between yes or no, but in real life we can have option A, B, C and D. For decision trees there is always a correct answer between yes or no, but in elections there is no single correct answer. Because of that whole model can work on error reduction but humans do not have any error correction built in.
M1: What are feedback other candidates are giving about our panel?
Me: *smiles* I didn't get any feedback for this panel but I did for others.
*They laugh*
F: He got feedback but he can't say.
M2: Which panel did you hear about?
Me: A guy came out of P5 and I asked how did it go, he told me with a smile that he didn't do well but the panelists were very nice and then went away.
*They laugh again and discuss who is in P5.*
F: What other calls do you have and what are your preferences?
Me: I have B, C, L, M, and K with that order of preference.
F: Why B over C?
Me: Told how Bangalore is my home and the comfort and connection I have with the city.
F: So you don't want to explore other cities?
Me: It's not like that, for me B and C are so close that this was the only meaningful difference to me. And I grew up in 6 different states so spent my whole life exploring, that is definitely not a deterrent to me.
M1: *laughs while talking to M2* Papa ke government job ne bahut ghuma diya ab nahi ghumna
F: *smiles* That will be all. Thank you for your time. You can go now but be willing to keep exploring new places.
Me: *Smiles* Of course! I'd love to come to Kolkata!
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I might have missed a few other points we discussed but as I left I could still hear them laughing for another minute and other candidates were asking what the hell is happening inside, what did you do to make them laugh so much. I replied, idk I was just myself and the conversation just flowed.
And now the results are here and I'm the happiest person. Can't wait to be there.