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 How to tackle your CA exam
It’s August now and only two months are left for the CA exams. There are many nervous people out there who are going to make their first attempt and frustrated people who are going to make their 2nd, 3rd … attempt. This article is an interview with Sherry Samuel Oommen on motivation, dealing with the exam and handling and converting failure into success.
A brief bio
Sherry Samuel Oomen is a 24-year-old working as an executive in Ernst & Young, Chennai. He worked for Arthur Andersen for two years and then joined Ernst & Young after the merger of the two companies. He is a chartered accountant. In this article, Sherry Samuel Oomen intends to pen down his personal views on how to overcome failure and make winning great |
Against all odds
Jack Welch, the, retired chairman and executive officer of GE, in his book titled ‘Winning’, writes “I think winning is great. Not good - great. Because when companies win, people thrive and grow. There are more job opportunities". A statement, simple yet profound, carries with it a lot of substance!!
The rationale in the statement applies even in the context of doing something as “minuscule” in the larger context of life like completing the Chartered Accountancy course.
Looking back to the latter years of the last millennium, destiny had me in a spot of bother, that being of choosing a career. The options I had were either to pursue law (since I enjoyed theatre and debating) or an MBA or a course with boasts of having a "2 per cent" pass percentage, namely the Chartered Accountancy course. As luck would have it, I joined the course hoping to be amongst the "2 per cent" of those who passed and you guessed it right, I decided to pursue the CA course, totally unaware of what was in store for me.
I enrolled myself for the course like any other student only to find myself lost at the sight of the six textbooks of reasonable "weight" (as some of my teachers coined "pillow sized"). Having seen my cousins pursue medicine, I was amazed seeing the size of the textbooks when compared to the books that my cousins studied while pursuing medicine. Going by the size of the textbooks, I wondered, "Is the Chartered Accountancy course all that difficult?"
With the above thought, I opened the study material on "Information Technology" with profound reverence only to realise that the font size of the text perhaps deserved a magnifying glass. Thus began my tête-à-tête with the CA course.
I got myself enrolled for classes and started the course initially with a lot of enthusiasm, which suddenly seemed to die away as I failed to understand one important truth of the course: No one motivatees you better than yourself.
The clock started ticking, exams were nearing. It was now that I again realised that time and tide wait for none. I did my exams well (at least I thought so) and awaited with bated breath for the declaration of results. Boy, after exams, time flies even quicker!!!
Then came the D-Day, the day when I would know the result of my hard work. As luck would have it, I aggregated close to 70 per cent in Group 1 but lost out in Group 2 since I scored 37 in a paper that first caught my attention, namely, Information Technology. I was totally distraught. Personally, I felt the course was heartless... "Couldn't they give me three more marks and save me the pain of doing Group 2 again"? This was the first time that I ever tasted failure in studies. My journey through the CA course has been full of ups and downs.
Fear of failure
The feeling of having failed, especially after having put in a lot of effort, is to simply say, miserable. Close friends and relatives who were initially sympathetic of the effort I was putting in during my study holidays, starting doubting the late nights I had put in once results were declared. Unfortunately, however unfair this seems, the world fathoms one’s efforts by the results. This is life, dear friend, and one has to accept it.
Despite having secured a university rank in my bachelors degree, the "fear of failure" dawned on me like an overencompassing cloud. With candour I admit that even I succumbed to the fear. The "fear of failure" was turning out to be cancerous, virtually controlling my mind, body and soul. For the first time in my life, I was apprehensive... I feared failure like never before. Little did I realise that the course that I had opted for demanded that I be strong and courageous, ready to face the battle, for one can't fight a modern day war with bows and arrows!!
When failure strikes
Failure, like any emergency, could be unexpected (I assume that you guys study hard). I never planned to fail, but it happened. No great shakes... people do fail sometime or the other. What matters is not how you fall but how quickly you rise and walk. This to me is a true test of courage and attitude and I will definitely vouch for it.
One statement of Henry Ford that has helped me a lot, and I quote, "One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again".
The question that was before me now was, "How do I ‘intelligently’ begin again?”
As in the case of prosperous "tested" business houses that have withstood gruelling competition and tests of survival, the best way to address any kind of failure is to have a "mission" statement backed with "values" that are principle based directed towards achieving the mission.
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