Dedicated to all software engineers who take up CAT.

CAT-Common Admission Test. Probably the toughest exam to crack in the world today. The major chunks of people who take up CAT are Software Engineers with an experience of 0-3 years. I have been also a part of this "Junta". Here are five reasons why software engineers treat writing CAT as “religion".

The first reason is some people hate to code. These are the group of people who don't get a shit out of Mainframe, Java or Dot Net. These are the people who are still confused between the difference of "Classes" and “Objects". These are the people who get at least ten errors per line of code they write. These are the group of people
who hate to hear terms such as "Defect","Enhancement","Unit Testing".

The second reason why people take up cat is "joblessness". Yes people on "Bench". Some of these guys wanted to be hot shot computer programmers but end up just playing computer games to pass their free time. One of my friends used to dream of joining "Google" one day. He got a campus placement in one of the well known software companies of India. He was so good that he topped in his training batch. But would u believe me this guy is on "Bench" for the past one and a half years. First week on bench he played computer games. Second week he spoke to his Project Manager and asked him to install some software so that he can learn something. His Project Manager denied him giving a reason "Project Cost". Third week he just felt "helpless" sitting idle in office. Fourth week he decided to take Up CAT.

The third reason is "Money & Opportunities". As most of you would have been reading in various magazines and internet websites that average salaries in leading B-schools are more than 10 lacs pa. I can bet that any Software Engineer in any of the software service majors in this country cannot reach this figure in the next five years. Frankly speaking I feel that the job of software engineers is equal in challenge to the job of B-school grads. If the challenge is same ...why not the salaries...? When software engineers don’t get an answer to this question, one day they decide to go for the bucks...and join a B-school.

The fourth reason is the reason which caused "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata".
Yes you got it right "girlfriends". One of my roommates got a call from his baby just before his CAT exams and she said "do well at least for me". This guy got so excited that he ended up attempting 65 out of 75 questions in CAT this year. Another friend of mine says that he wants to pursue a technical career but he says that his girlfriend wants him to doManagement. She told him that her brother has a MBA degree from a top B-school, so he should also have one. Bullshit!! If I were my friend I would
have ditched her that day coz you cannot get any silly reason for taking up CAT
than this.

The last reason is "Following the crowd." These groups of people write CAT because everyone else around them is writing. These are the people who perform the worst in the exam and give a push up to other people percentiles.

Whatever is the reason, one fine Sunday morning in November they would all
assemble in some examination center in some part of the country to take up a
challenge called as "CAT”.