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Before coming to XLRI, I was a mechanical engineering student and a fresher who was always eager to explore beyond academics. During my engineering journey, I actively participated in different activities — I was part of the dance society, worked as the Suspension Head of our motorsports team, and was also a cadet in the National Cadet Corps (NCC). These experiences helped me develop confidence, teamwork, and leadership skills, but I always felt that I wanted more exposure and a platform where I could challenge myself in newer ways. That is what brought me to XLRI. Coming to XLRI was a completely different experience. Moving from an engineering background into the world of management, business discussions, and problem-solving was exciting and challenging at the same time. The initial months were intense — late-night assignments, tight deadlines, CV preparation, interviews, and constantly adapting to a new learning environment. Every day brought something new. One moment you would be working on an academic challenge, and the next you would be attending an event, meeting new people, or simply creating memories with friends. One of the biggest learning experiences for me was participating in case competitions. Before XLRI, I had never done a case competition, but here I got the opportunity to solve real-world problems faced by companies and think beyond textbooks. These experiences helped me develop a structured problem-solving approach and understand how businesses tackle challenges in the real world. What makes XLRI truly special is the people and the culture. Having friends and seniors around you who are always ready to support you makes the journey much more meaningful. The Delhi campus, being a close-knit campus, gave us the opportunity to build stronger relationships with our batchmates and seniors. The conversations, support, and friendships created some of the most memorable moments of my MBA journey. Another important part of my XLRI experience was stepping outside my comfort zone. Initially, I was not able to get into any committee, but during the re-elections, I got the opportunity to join the Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) as a member. This was a completely new experience for me because I had never organised events before. Being involved in planning and executing events taught me ownership, teamwork, and how ideas can be converted into meaningful experiences. Apart from academics, XLRI gave me opportunities to participate in case competitions, debates, speak in front of larger audiences, and contribute to different campus activities. These were things I had never explored before, but the environment at XLRI encouraged me to take those steps and challenge myself. The biggest takeaway from my XLRI journey has been discovering new sides of myself. It taught me that growth happens when you step into unfamiliar situations and give yourself the chance to learn. I came to XLRI to learn management, but the experience gave me much more — friendships, confidence, leadership lessons, and memories that will stay with me forever. For me, XLRI has truly been a journey of transformation — a place where every day brought a new challenge, a new opportunity, and a new learning experience.

There are journeys measured in miles, and there are journeys measured in questions. Mine, somehow, has always been the latter. I've always been drawn to questions more than answers, to understanding rather than simply knowing. Looking back, perhaps that's why XLRI felt like home much sooner than I expected. It wasn't just a place that gave me answers; it was a place that encouraged me to ask better questions. My journey before XLRI was driven by curiosity more than certainty. I studied Psychology at Mumbai University because I wanted to understand what shapes people's choices and behaviour. Later, while working in people consulting, I saw those questions evolve into organizational challenges. Why do some teams embrace change while others resist it? Why do strategies that look perfect on paper fail in practice? I entered business school hoping to understand the larger systems behind those questions. What I didn't expect was that XLRI would challenge the way I thought rather than simply expand what I knew. One of the earliest realizations I had was that ambiguity isn't something to overcome, it's something to work with. Almost every classroom discussion left me with more perspectives than I walked in with. There wasn't always a single right answer waiting to be discovered. Instead, there were trade-offs, competing priorities and incomplete information. Over time, I stopped looking for certainty and started appreciating the process of thinking through complexity. That mindset became even more meaningful outside academics. Being elected as one of the two Batch Representatives for our cohort turned abstract ideas about leadership into everyday practice. Representing 180 students meant sitting across the table from faculty, administrators, vendors and fellow students, each with legitimate but often conflicting expectations. There were moments when there wasn't an ideal solution, only the responsibility to make a thoughtful one. It taught me that leadership isn't measured by how visible you are, but by your willingness to listen, take ownership and make decisions even when they are difficult. The same shift reflected in how I approached learning itself. Case competitions stopped feeling like competitions and became opportunities to think differently. Group assignments became exercises in understanding perspectives rather than dividing work. Some of the most valuable lessons came from realizing that a good idea could always become a better one if you were willing to let someone challenge it. My summer internship at Accenture Strategy added another layer to this journey. I worked on building an AI-enabled transformation analytics solution that reimagined how organizations interpret complex survey data, replacing static reports with interactive, decision-ready insights. What stayed with me wasn't the technology itself, but the realization that strategy is ultimately about helping people make better decisions. The challenge was never to eliminate complexity, but to present it with enough clarity that leaders could act with confidence. It echoed something XLRI had been teaching me all along: the quality of decisions often depends on the quality of questions we ask before we reach for answers. Of course, life at XLRI isn't lived only through projects or responsibilities. It's also found in the conversations that begin after class and somehow continue over coffee, in celebrating a friend's internship conversion as enthusiastically as your own, in debating ideas that have nothing to do with grades, and in the comfort of knowing there's always someone willing to listen after a particularly demanding day. Those moments rarely make it to a resume, yet they are the ones that shape you the most. As I prepare for an exchange semester in France, I find myself appreciating this journey even more. XLRI has certainly made me more confident, but confidence isn't what I value most. What I value is perspective. The willingness to stay curious a little longer before rushing to conclusions, the ability to appreciate viewpoints different from my own, and the comfort of knowing that not having all the answers is often where meaningful learning begins. If someone asked me today what life at XLRI has meant to me, I wouldn't describe it as two years of management education. I'd describe it as a place that constantly reminded me that growth begins the moment you become comfortable saying, "I don't know yet, but I'm willing to figure it out." And I think that's a lesson far more enduring than anything written in a textbook. To sum up I think, Perhaps the answers were never the destination. Learning to live with better questions was.

My path to XLRI wasn't the usual one. I was three years into IIM Ranchi's five-year IPM program when I decided to walk away with just the BBA and skip the MBA there entirely. CAT, XAT, an admit to XLRI's BM program, and a decision to leave Ranchi behind. In hindsight, it was the best decision I've made so far. As a fresher, walking into an MBA was more daunting than usual, but I got lucky almost immediately. I found my closest friends in the first week here, and they're still my people today. I also got into the Sports Committee, which had been on my bucket list before I even landed on campus. What followed was one of my favourite parts of B-school: helping host the college's biggest sporting event and, on a more personal note, starting XLRI's women's futsal team from scratch. I used to play futsal back in school and undergrad, so getting to build something like this from the ground up and then captain it felt full circle. We went on to win tournaments, and I got to travel to sports fests at MDI and IIM Lucknow, experiences I genuinely wouldn't have had anywhere else. Case comps were another big part of the journey. My friends and I took part in the Accenture Strategy B-School Challenge, got selected as campus finalists, and ended up traveling to Jamshedpur to present in front of senior executives at AccStrat. We came out as first runners-up, which got us PPIs for our summer internships. It's the kind of thing I didn't think I'd get to do this early into B-school, and it still feels like one of my proudest moments here. On the professional side, I interned with Standard Chartered Bank, stepping into banking, a completely new domain for me, and came out having learned a lot, luckily with a full-time offer to show for it. If I'm being honest, the first term at XLRI was brutal. The pressure was unlike anything I'd faced before, and the adjustment was real. But what got me through it was watching everyone around me grind just as hard, for placements, for committees, for whatever they were chasing, and somehow still show up for each other. A lot of that culture comes from the seniors here, who go out of their way to mentor juniors through placement prep and are just generally around whenever you need them, no real strings attached. That's the thing about student life at XLRI. It doesn't let up, but in a good way. Between the committees, the fests, the case comps, and everything in between, there's genuinely not a single boring week on this campus. It packs in everything you could want from an MBA into what are easily the toughest but most rewarding years of your life.

I came in having already started a business but without really understanding what I was building. XLRI filled those gaps in ways I didn't expect. The peer group here is genuinely something else. Everyone's motivated, everyone's trying and that energy is contagious. You end up having two hour conversations about ideas just because the person next to you is as into it as you are. Case comps, fests, late nights, it all hits different when the people around you actually care. The professors are brilliant but surprisingly grounded. They challenge you without making you feel small, which matters more than it sounds. I'm still in the middle of this journey and I already know it's changed how I think. That's enough for me.