In my discussions as a mentor to hundreds of students, I have come across instances where students were unclear as to why they chose to do CA. Some of them chose it because of pressure from parents. Some, because their friends were doing it and they themselves were not sure of their future fields of study. Some of them wanted to take up a profession that would give them lots of money. I have also met students who wanted to do CA because other courses were difficult and getting into good institutions offering engineering, medicine, law, MBA wasn't easy. Having said that, I've also met extremely passionate students who truly want to make themselves experts in auditing, accounting and tax and are therefore pursuing this course.

I am putting this question to you since I want to encourage you to be clear in your goals because remember - "Clarity precedes Mastery." Whatever has been your reason to pursue Chartered Accountancy, it is crucial to understand that this course will be difficult to continue and finish unless YOU have a very strong desire and commitment to complete it. This course is going to test your nerves and make you slog long hours and unless you have an urge to learn and the willingness to work hard, you might find yourself stranded in the middle of the road that leads towards one of the most respected professions in this world - Chartered Accountancy.

Chartered Accountancy is one of the most coveted professional courses because it gives you a complete and holistic knowledge of various facets of the economy, including finance, accounting and taxation. A Chartered Accountant is respected around the world. In my professional life working with BIG 4 consulting firms in India and abroad, I have felt truly blessed to have a degree that not only gives me recognition and respect in my professional and social circles, but also the wealth to give me the good life.

TThe CA Chakravyuha - You are doomed if you don't come out of it!

The journey of a student - that starts right from identifying the CA firm for doing articleship and doesn't finish until you clear the final examinations - is quite arduous, emotional and full of challenges, surprises, wins and losses. The more you get into it, the more you realize it's like a Chakravyuha where at each and at every subsequent level, the fight to survive and succeed becomes tougher.

As some of you may know, in the epic Mahabharata, the Kauravas used the special Chakravyuha formation in the battle of Kurukshetra against the Pandavas. The Chakravyuha is a multi-tier defensive formation that looks like a disc (chakra) when viewed from above. The various vyuhas (military formations) can only be beaten using a counter-measure targeted specifically against the formation. The knowledge of how to penetrate it was limited to only a handful of warriors including Arjuna and his son Abhimanyu. Since Abhimanyu was the only one present when the Kauravas laid the Chakravyuha, he went ahead to crack it. Unfortunately, Abhimanyu only knew how to enter the Chakravyuha, but had never learnt how to come out of it. He was trapped inside and ultimately died, fighting hard for his life.br>
Your life as a CA student starts on a simple note, with the decision to enter it without too much of a difficulty. However, the more you begin to spend time in its ecosystem, the more you realize that it isn't as simple as it looked. And thus, you start to feel the importance of understanding its nuances in a timely manner. The critical decision of doing articleship, selecting the right firm, selecting the field of expertise, joining the coaching classes, handling work, continuing articleship when exams are approaching and preparing a time schedule to manage work, studies and personal life, all culminates in a conundrum. Unless you know the trick of when, how and whom to ask for the right direction, you will end up finding yourself trapped in a Chakravyuha, only to realize later, that you knew how to enter but did not learn to come out of it.

And that's the moment a majority of the CA students wished if they had someone to mentor him or her. Someone, who could not only have taught them the trick to enter the 'CA Chakravyuha', but more importantly, the skills to fight and come out of it successfully.

Do you need a mentor to crack this Chakravyuha

In my professional and personal life I have understood the importance of having a mentor. The mentor can be anyone - your father or mother, your teacher, your friend, your guru or perhaps an unknown person who inspired you with his life. Having a mentor gives you an important perspective because at every stage of life, you are guided and shown the right path. When I take interviews of young students for article training or even qualified Chartered Accountants, I always feel that there is a strong need for them to have mentors. If someone had guided them at the right time and with the right advice, perhaps they could have been much better professionals.

When I started my journey, there was no one to guide me through this tough professional course. Though I was clear in my mind that I wanted to do CA, the right guidance on approaching the CA firms for articleship was unavailable.

Even during the course of articleship training, I always felt a need for someone to mentor me on how to behave in the firm or how to deal with my peers and clients and most importantly, how to manage time between work, studies and personal life.

I was rejected for articleship with two of the BIG4s that I gave interviews with because I had no guidance how to tackle the interview in big firms. It was both embarrassing and disheartening. However, my articleship journey taught me a lot and over that period I worked hard and developed skills to make myself suitable for such firms. Later on, after qualifying as a CA, I got selected and worked in both the BIG4s that had rejected me for articleship.

Whatever I achieved in my life is completely due to my own efforts. The vacuum of not having someone guide me, and my own desire to have a mentor led me to start the blog www.nimishgoel.com. Through this blog I share my experiences and try to help students and young Chartered Accountants get guidance at the right time. I want to thank everyone for making my blog phenomenally successful. It is the overwhelming response I have received that has inspired me to write this book.

Will this book act as a mentor and guide you in the right direction In all likelihood, YES.

In this book, I have shared all the tips I personally believe, if implemented, can radically change your life as a CA student. It's a summarized version of my personal and professional experiences, and the hardships that helped me become a successful Chartered Accountant. Every tip in this book has either been implemented by me or been inspired from the lives of successful professionals. I am sure this book will completely change your outlook towards life as a CA student. After reading it you will be in a position to know almost everything about the world of Chartered Accountants. This book will become a Bible to your journey towards completing Chartered Accountancy and will give you all the right tips and build your skills to not only penetrate, but also crack the 'CA Chakravyuha'. Please keep this book at your side all through your student days and if at any point of time you find yourself stranded in a rocky place, pick it up and refer to the appropriate chapter to get guidance. It is my sincere endeavor to enrich your life with knowledge, confidence and success. At any stage of reading this book, in case you feel the need to talk to me, drop me and e-mail at nimishgoel.blog@gmail.com or visit my blog www.nimishgoel.com.
Nimish Goel