Good Bye America

So finally, its time to leave the US and go back to my home, India. I have spent good time here while studying and working. Its a great country with excellent facilities, but I have been wanting to go back for a while. I know it will be difficult to adjust initially, but I hope it will be fine. Anyways, for next 1 yr, I might not get time to think or crib about various limitations in India.

I will be going to IIMB in Apr 1st week. We will have inauguration and orientation on 3rd and 4th Apr and classes will be starting from Apr 6th. Not much time left. I did not do much pre MBA preparation and hoping to pick it up there directly.

As the feeling is sinking in, I am getting both excited and apprehended. I do not know how it going to be and what economy will look like after an year. But at the same time, I am really excited with this next step in my life, which I hope will give a big boost to my career.

Keep watching this space for my experiences at IIMB with its one year MBA. Can't Wait!

Preparatory Material

It's been a while since the Preparatory Material on Quantitative Methods and Statistics from IIMB was sitting in my Inbox. Last week I started reading it. The initial material was pretty easy based on general fundamentals of sets, statistics, probability, permutations and combination, etc and I could skim through it quickly. However, what followed was such a dense material, I hardly could not understand much. Normal distribution, poisson's distribution, binomial distribution, chi distribution, t, F distribution, Null hypothesis - all sounded very interesting but just went over my head. I mean, I could understand what is going on, but when I looked at the material again, could not remember a thing.

How much is really useful? Will we have to really understand this stuff and use it in some course?

I could understand the application of the material though. It gave me an idea on how the surveys are done, and how they come to conclusion based on such a small sample data. Lots of math going behind it. Interesting!

MBA in a Day!

I read this book by Steven Stralser. It's a good read for those who want to get a crux of what is taught in B-School and especially useful for those who want to start a business or very busy in life and do not have time to go for B-School. Obviously, you cannot learn what the school teaches over a period of 1,2 or 3 years, but it has quite relevant and practical information. Moreover, it is very easy to understand and give lot of actionable insights to help approach business practically.

Also, as a BSchool aspirant, I found it quite interesting and gave me fair idea about various terminologies in negotiations, marketing, finance, accounting. It contains 14 chapters each addressing different part of core business areas such as organization behavior, marketing, accounting, finance, micro and macro economics. In addition to that, it addresses some of the core soft skills such as Ethics, team building, leadership.

On the hindsight, I am wondering if I had read this book earlier, I could have probably written my essays and talked about career goals in a better language or say in better business language. Just wondering :)

Decided

After giving lot of thoughts and pondering over for several weeks and taking in stock the current economic situation, I have decided that I am going to join IIMB for EPGP.

I have spoken to many students, and browsed through profiles of several alumni, and I think ASU does not excite me. Although, I would have definitely gone if I did not have any other offer. Anyways, most of the internationals at ASU have only 3-4 years of experience and just want to go anywhere the school takes it. And in the end, Supply Chain does not excite me, and there is not point of doing anything else at ASU, especially as an international student.

I am quite inclined towards finance, but with this economic scenario, I might be leaning towards marketing. And with the news of BoA rescinding offers from international students, I am guessing other banks and financial institutions will follow suit. I am not very positive of job opportunities for international students after 2 yrs of MBA, especially, if you are not doing it from one of the top 5 Schools or perhaps from top 10.

Although, the job scene at Indian schools is not that rosy either. I am hearing news that IIMA grads are struggling for jobs and especially those seeking to go in finance and banking, are taking jobs in PSU - nationalized banks etc. Woow, that will be some experience. Working in nationalized banks and adjusting to slow and lethargic lifestyle. Perhaps, IIM grads will change the culture and bring much needed sense of responsibility and dynamic culture in Indian banks.

But, still India offers a much more sense of security and better prospects. IIM Bangalore is not a bad place to be. The professors are committed and the batch is pretty dynamic. Though the facilities they are providing are not up to the mark, but given that it is the first year, they are doing it appreciatively well.

So, IIMB it is for me and I am getting ready to pack my bags. Lot of work. I hope I will manage in next 2-3 weeks.

Wharton Interview Experience

So, I was invited to Wharton a day before its final mid-decision deadline. To my horror, there were no on-campus interview slots available. I called the office, and found out that they can create a slot for me, but that will be mid-term time and so you cannot sit in class etc. So I decided to go with Hub interview in SF. After some hiccups in that too, I finally got a slot.
I reached 20 min before time, but they were running late. Till 5 min after my interview was suppose to start, the previous person was interviewing. Finally, we started around 20 min late.
Interview started with the introduction, and her apology for being late. She seemed to be very friendly person and I was at ease immediately. She explained me the process and that the interview is blind etc etc. And then we started with usual question. No curve ball.
1. Walk me through your resume
2. What after MBA - I mentioned my long term and short term goals
3. Why MBA - done
4. Why Now - Faltered a bit
5. Why Wharton - Spoke a lot
6. How will you contribute to Wharton - this gave me enough opportunity share my so many community service work. She was happy to hear that - or at least pretended to be happy
7. Teamwork example
8. Leadership style and example
9. In your past review, what area of improvements were suggested
10. Anything else you want ad com to know? - I covered most of the things, but still talked about interesting community service activity we are doing.
11. Any questions - I asked couple of questions

Overall, very satisfactory, and similar to Kellogg, I was able to talk about everything I did. Though, I think I could have answered Why Now a little better, as I had prepared for that questions but still faltered there. Anyways, lets see what happens. I really loved the experience and as many say, would love to go to this school :)

Terror attacks in Pakistan

Every time there is any terror attack in Pakistan, all the cricketers and politicians gave assurance that everyone loves cricket and cricketers and they will never be affected or attacked.

And this time, they have gone out to prove them wrong and opened fire on Sri Lankan Cricket team. In this sad event, 8 of the Sri Lankan players are injured. Fortunately none of them is serious. This is going to impact future of Pakistan cricket. Already most of the cricket playing nations refused to tour Pakistan. Only team from sub-continent were open to tour. After Mumbai terror attacks, India canceled its tour, and now this attack is final nail in the coffin. Immediate affect is SL canceling this tour and I do not think they are going to come again at least for few years. It might also result in formal boycott of Pakistan visit by ICC. Pakistan cricket is already in shambles, this will just make it die.

This also reflects poorly on Pakistan government handling of terrorism. They have received billions of dollars from US to combat terrorism, but have not done anything yet. This time it has come to bite them at their own house.