MBA 'Gyaan' Givers
Tuesday, December 23, 2003Vacation Time
The long hiatus between the posts has been due to the 2nd term exams and the ensuing holidays for all of us doing our first year. Venkat, Satish, et al have gone home for their holidays, but I am still here in Cal "fighting the long fight" as we dont have holidays this time.
So I thought I'd break this inertia of no posts for a long time with a post about the academic rigour here. Many people, including me, wonder what kind of work, what kind of effort is required at top B-Schools, the IIMs for example. I had many ideas - some of thems got from friends, alumni of these institutes , etc. So, here goes my penny's worth.
Right from the time you come in, you are told, and this message is reinforced throughout your stay here - "There is a high direct correlation between your CG(grades) and your placement". Most of the top jobs - the i Banks, plum assignments in MNCs, etc. mostly go to the top rankers, and it is definitely not an easy task to be even among the top 20% of your batch. 2 terms are over here, and I have a reasonable idea of the top performers in my batch, and the amount of work or "fight" as they call it is simply amazing! All the more so because this effort just does not happen during the exam week, grading is continuous. Class quizzes, assignments, projects, attendance, exams, everything contribute to your grades, and performing consistently in all of these requires huge efforts. These guys take painfully meticulous notes in class, this means attending most or all classes, and let me tell you, focussing through continuous 1 hour 45 minute classes is gruelling. Spending hours everyday, including many night outs before quizzes and exams, the effort put in is simply awe inspiring.
Well, all this is for the toppers. What about regular people like me and you(?). A CG upwards of 6 (I can hear some people screaming 6.5) is considered decent. And that is my target too. This means attending most of the classes, identifying people who take good notes so that you can photocopy them, get a comparative advantage in some subject (anything Software related for me) where you are quite strong, and you will be able to swap what we call "crashers" or tutorials with guys who are strong in other subjects. You will also have to put in quite a few painful night-outs before the exams.
In my opinion, the requirements from a person are - a strong quant ability (a must, at least at IIMC), ability to absorb a lot of info, filter it out and retain the crux, ability to memorize stuff(sad, but true- muggin does help), ability to identify when and how much effort is needed - differs from person to person.
So, do you have it in you?
A site campaigning against Offshoring to Bangalore!!! Derogatory. I read in Business World sometime back that for every $100 US invests in India, $133 goes back. True! There are job displacements happening. Why dont you match our cost-quality-competency with yours? For all those who may perceive that we are overly dependent on US for software, may be yes, at the moment. But, I am bullish about the thought of moving-up-the-value-chain. Sooner or later, the BPOs would do it, and slowly become independent of US's dependency for software business. It will happen.
How I wasnt able to crack CAT
We learn more from failures than from success..atleast this is true for me. I cant tell you what to do to bell the CAT but I can surely tell you what mistakes I made so that u guys can avoid it. This blog should help most to those people who are on the verge of clearing the cut offs and getting calls from IIMs but just miss it by a short distance because of some silly mistakes or not attempting the paper properly as I was always there in that slot.
IIMs & CAT...Guess I would have heard about them somewhere in 12th or 1st yr of engg (I am an ECE graduate) but had no intention of appearing for them as I was one of those many who wanted to give GRE, apply for MS, get admissions, go to US and settle there. I did the first three of these and had admits from 3 decent univ (Drexel, Syracuse & RIT) but never applied for VISA. There were so many reasons like I felt I shudnt pursue masters in technical field as I am not good in it, bad state of US economy, no aid (I had partial aid offer from RIT), and kinda change of heart when I interacted with people studying/staying in USA (Srihari Yamanoor doing at Stanford is one of them, He has been one of the biggest influences on me in recent times) & chucked this whole idea of going to states.
At this stage I felt that an MBA should be the next step that would suit my interests and give a boost to my career to the next level. I started preparing for CAT & other exams in august 2002 & looked at coaching classes in the city (Chandigarh). I went to IMS for a week but left it & joined a lesser known institute Matermind & that turned out to be the biggest blunder in the preparations. The faculty wasnt good & students were not THAT competitive. I dont mean here that if I was in IMS/Time/CL, I would have been in IIM as the result depends on the person & not the institute. Finally left the insti in september end without gaining much, now there wasnt much time left for CAT 2002.
LESSON -
BE decisive and stick to ur decision. prefer joining regular classes at IMS/Time/PT/CL/CF etc rather than elsewhere. If u can study on ur own regularly then u may skip these..
I finally enrolled for Professional Tutorials test series & found it really good, I also gave few mock SimCats and CL mock exams. My scores were always in the almost there range with sometime clearing the cut offs and some time missing it. In the last 1.5 months I just did mock exams & revisions of the same (inspite of having 2 yr old full course material of IMS and notes of CL I never practiced from them) . My so called course for CAT wasnt complete but while giving mock exams I was realising that I can crack CAT if I select questions better, manage time better & avoid silly mistakes.
LESSON - Practice makes a man perfect ! Work Hard
Perhaps I knew inside after looking at my performances in mock CATs that I might or might not make it so I just wanted 24 Nov to be one of my good days when I clear the cut offs...but it didnt happen. I did the same mistakes there, silly mistakes (in quants), improper time management (DI-45+ mins, QA-30 mins) and less mental toughness. I knew I wouldnt make it...My CAT percentile was 94.1 finally with 99.98 in DI. I messed it all up...
LESSON - mental toughness, time management, self-believe are the most important.
I appeared for other exams also & had interview calls from FMS, JMET (Rank-155) for IITs (mumbai, delhi & kharagpur),NMIMS, SCMHRD, IMT & SIBM. Finally I converted IIT-Kharagpur, NMIMS & Scmhrd and came here at NMIMS.
I took gd/pi coaching from PT-Chandigarh again and it helped a lot in improving my performance for the same.
NMIMS is great place and one of the best institutes in the country but IT IS NOT IIM. This does matter a lot, I dont wanna sound pessisimistic but the reality is these things matter a lot at every stage be it the quality of students, faculty, facilities, placements and in short whole life is difference. I have had my chance those who would give CAT this yr & in the years to come can still make the difference to their lives. Please start working harder & harder to pursue ur dream and leave this chalta hain attitude. I have seen so many so called average intelligent students going to IIMs & really good brainy people loosing out.
Hard work & Smart work go hand in hand.
I'll write about happenings at NMIMS especially the annual meet Pragana 2003 in the next blog....
Rajat Khungar
www.rajatkhungar.blogspot.com
