First month at B-School
The process for getting into a B-School is not as simple as people think. It is after all a post graduate course. It requires a lot of preparation and effort being put. I particularly did not get enough time for all this. I was a working professional when I decided to join a B-School and learn how things happen in the upper management in a corporate level. My work did not allow me more than seven hours per day for myself. With the project deadline approaching I had to burn even more midnight oil in my office. Finally I could only get three weeks before the exam to prepare for Common Admission Test (CAT). And it is no surprise that It did not go very well. I took a lot of practice tests and got acquainted with the question patterns and time management in the exam but that was not enough. You are competing with people who spend five to six months in solid preparation for the D-Day.
I got shortlisted and received a call for GD/PI from very few B-Schools. Most of which I did not want to go. I had only one thing in my mind — “Its okay. If not this year, next year”. I finally decided to attend only one of the interviews and fortunately I made it there — MDI, Gurgaon. I talked to my friends and other alumni from the institution to inquire about the program (Post graduate Programme in International Management) and the institute in general and finally decided to join.
MDI, Gurgaon has a big campus located on the Gurgaon — Delhi Expressway, strategically located having access to the corporate sector in Gurgaon. College is big, lush green and constructed in 17 acres in the heart of the city. It was those Delhi summers those welcomed me so yes, I had a really warm welcome ;) But still it had a pleasant aura and I connected with the place almost instantly. Boarding school is nothing new to me. I started recollecting all those memories I had in my grad school. I felt nostalgic for a while and I was excited to relive all those experiences again. After all, how may people get such an opportunity? The architecture in the campus is simple and minimalist which gives you a fresh and open feeling towards things. It reiterates freedom of thought and expression which are very important for a person in today’s world to express their thoughts and achieve their goals. By evening, my registration process was done and I am all set to start the B-School life.
B-Schools are hectic. Students have a lot of workload. But I started experiencing this right from the first day. Rather 4 hours into the campus. The first instance being when we received our academic calendar for the year. The course work for International management program is very well tailored for experienced professionals who can grasp and apply the knowledge with ease. As a result the pace of the course is higher than a normal management program. Needless to say learning curve is very steep and the class is very competitive. The academic calendar spoke volumes about the our schedule and the amount of sleep we could get.
Apart from academics there is a lot of happening in campus. There are so many fests and events planned for throughout the year that you will be a part of one even before you get out of the previous one. Organizing these events takes a dedicated team and its efforts for making it a success. There are clubs and committees that form and a stringent screening procedure to get into one. And then there are assignments from the courses. I gave more presentations in the first one month than I did in my entire life before this. You give so many presentations that you are bound to improve your skills. I can clearly see that change from the first one to the last one in the term. Needless to say your efficiency increases. After five presentations I know exactly where to look for the information, what is relevant, what is presentable and how to speak.
Before long you have your midterms and then end-term examinations. The course work is very comprehensive. You can’t push it for the last day before the exam like one could have done in graduation. It has to be dealt with everyday to be ready for the class the next day. The course structure is also planned very well that there is learning at every step. The pedagogy follows a case study based learning. We get to handle real life problems, how they were tackled and how they were efficient or not. It really makes you put on your thinking hat and gives practical exposure.
All in all I am pretty sure I am going to have a lot to take away from MDI and ESCP Madrid after these two years. I am excited to encounter and learn something new everyday here. And I am pretty sure, with this adventure I will be a changed, more empowered and confident man in the end.