Man Opens Up About 5 "Hidden Costs" Of First-Year At IIM Ahmedabad, Internet Reacts

For many management aspirants, securing a seat at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is the ultimate academic victory. However, a deeply personal account shared online by a student named Vivek Kundu has shed light on the mental and emotional toll that comes after that. Reflecting on his journey, he wrote that despite his impressive academic feat, his first year had "other plans". He framed these challenges as five "hidden costs".

"I debated at Stanford, USA. Grew up in a village, later in Chandigarh. Cracked CAT. Thought I was ready. Year 1 had other plans. The hidden costs came in the form of casualties," he wrote as the caption of the post.

1. Choices: Entering the campus, Kundu was immediately met with many competitions, club applications, and social gatherings in his very first week. In his attempt to do everything, he found himself enjoying nothing.

"The real lesson wasn't time management. It was learning that saying no is a skill, and at IIMA, you learn it quickly or FOMO swallows you whole," he wrote.

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2. Comparison: At an institute where excellence is the baseline rather than the exception, Kundu found himself surrounded by former gazetted officers, IITians, Chartered Accountants, and professionals from corporate giants like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Google.

3. Fear: Academic setbacks hit hard for students who often get top grades. For Kundu, a "C" grade on his first Finance quiz shook his confidence to the core, causing him to briefly avoid the class out of intimidation.

4. Home: The pace of the curriculum took an immediate toll on his personal life. Kundu realised he had gone an entire week without a meaningful conversation with his family, offering only brief, dismissive updates. He then realised that he was neglecting the people who had sacrificed the most for his success.

"New rule: video call home whenever, even 2 minutes. Even just to see their faces. Some rules matter more than any deadline," he wrote.

5. Sleep and Silence: The culture of sleeplessness is often worn as a badge of honour in such elite institutes, where eight hours of rest is treated almost "like a character flaw". Surviving on just four hours of sleep and branding it as "hustle," Kundu quickly noticed a decline in his mental sharpness and clarity.

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Watch the video here: 

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A post shared by Vivek Kundu (@vivekkundu99)

Social media reaction

The video went viral with over 673,000 views. More than 4,000 users liked Kundu's thoughts. Sharing their perspective, one user wrote, "It's a classic case of losing one's own self and authenticity to fit in to realise that being oneself is the only way to lasting happiness, peace and optimised potential. No need to be a rat, my friend, when u are born to rewrite the rules, you have the courage."

"Pressure may seem excessive while you're in it, but it teaches resilience, decision-making under uncertainty, and the ability to keep moving despite setbacks, which stays with you after graduation," another user noted.

"I don't understand one thing... why is sleep deprivation glorified? What kind of God damn discipline is this, inviting a series of physical and mental health issues... everything can be considered but not hurting the health," a third user stated.