A new journey...

"Wake up now, or you'll miss the flight"

My brother was shaking me out of my half an hour nap. I tried to open my eyes and focus on the watch. What time is it? 3:00 am. Still feeling drowsy, i made my way through the room packed with baggage. It is not easy to get ready at this hour, i had to brush my teeth with ice cold water.

I put on the clothes set aside the day before, mom, dad and bro were all set to go. My sweet granny called me up and prayed for my well-being. The cabbie arrived on the dot. Everything was going as planned. We reached Shamshabad airport well in time. Although I got my check-in and immigration formalities done, I couldn't spend enough time with my family. Just a one minute chat, and I ran into the airport across the immigration desks.

I booked premium-economy, but somehow I was upgraded to executive class. Mmmm.. executive class is good! I put my stuff in the shelves above and sank into my chair. The flight took off smoothly, and I looked at the rising sun. As I fell asleep again, there was only one thought in my mind, I'm going to miss watching the sunrise in my home country for a long time...

Over an year ago, I gave my GMAT. Strike one. 650. Good, but not enough. Not if I want to get into a management program. Not if I want to get a scholarship. Hence, Strike two it is. But this isn't baseball, strike two is 3 months away. Cool, I didn't feel like I need to rush things. I can concentrate on my project at hand and prepare for GMAT right before the exam. A week of preparation should be enough (given the fact that this is my second attempt). What about TOEFL? Everyone told me that it is easy to prepare for and a week should be ok. So I booked slots for both exams in the same week.

And that week came even before I started my preparation. So it was a one night preparation for TOEFL and no preparation for GMAT. Incredibly, I did better this time and my GMAT score went up by 10 points (... only). And my TOEFL score wasn't bad either. I was convinced that I could get into a good college in the US, if not into one in the top 50. But as I started my research about colleges and programs, the reality started becoming obvious.

Getting into college is directly linked to ones financial capability. If you're not going into a top 20 college and/or you don't have a striking CV, you've got to be rich. Filthy rich. By some calculations, the fee is more than the lifetime earnings of an average middle class Indian family. I checked every type of loan available, what I observed was that you would get a loan only if you have something twice as valuable as the loan amount for security (somebody explain this to me. twice?). Else you need a US cosigner. Strangely, I remember people who asked for a US cosigner for funding UK courses. US, UK, Australia, Singapore and even Hong Kong. Nothing was within my reach. I used all the math I've learnt until that point of time in my life, but the numbers said only one thing - that I cannot invest in a master degree right away.

I told myself that I wasn't ready yet. Perhaps the preparation helped me in a good way, it helped me get stronger. And helped me learn how to stay focused. I'll work for a few years and then it will be Btech + Executive MBA. I was convinced that this is the only solution. I got back to my plans at office, what to work on for the next 6 months. But my dad changed my life with a single phone call. He called me up to tell me about a seminar organized by a european university. A newspaper article explains how the european education system is different from that in many other countries. I thought it was interesting, so I hit google. Then I found the course that would later be my masters program - IMMIT.

International Masters in Management of Information Technology. The contents and the delivery methods of this program are quite interesting. And there is a scholarship too! I decided to give it a shot. And I gave it my best shot. I got good recommendations from my workplace and a good CV with extracurriculars. Thankfully, I made it through the selection process. And I've got to thank so many people for this, my family for always being with me, my best friend (without whom I wouldn't have thought of a masters degree in the first place), my managers and my teammates at office for supporting me, my good friend Ravindra for being my MBA application "compatriot" (he's a more deserving candidate for a masters than I am) and everyone who has ever helped me inch towards my goal (even those who thought I could never do it).

I worked on my visa(s) and documentation, got my tickets ready and started buying stuff. This is going to be a long journey, hence I better be well-prepared. I left my job, which wasn't easy, after having worked for 3 years, I felt like I was about to be catapulted out of my comfort zone. On my last day at work, I was the last person in our team to leave the campus for the day. I just didn't feel like leaving. Getting a little sentimental, am I? :) I'll never feel the same way about another job in my life. I got everything ready and when the time arrived, I said my goodbyes and flew to my home for the first semester, France.

I woke up when we were cruising at 39000 feet. Outside temperature .. -58 degrees celcius. I kept wondering how cold it would be in France at that point of time. But the truth came in as a surprise though, because I had to transit through London, and I stayed for one night in an airport hotel. The climate at London wasn't even close to being cold. And down south in France, I could already see how warm it could be.

I took the connecting flight the next morning and reached Marseille, France. I met two of my classmates, Narek from Armenia and Suresh from Nepal. We headed to Aix-en-provence, where we would be staying for the next 4 months. As we headed to Aix on the highway, I looked at the vast green landscapes of Southern France through the bus window. I felt like I missed my cozy apartment. I missed my folks back home. But there's something more important ahead of me. My hope for a bright career, and my first step towards that - IMMIT ...