etc and etc...

Where's my Fall???

2009-10-14T16:47:00.006-05:00

I am from Chennai. We have four seasons. Hot, Hotter, Hottest, and one where it rains. I moved to Chicago. I was promised I'd experience the real four seasons. I've seen them all. Cold, Colder, Coldest, and one where the sun teases us between rain showers. As much as i enjoy cold weather (I honestly do), can a brother enjoy some variety please!!!

This last month (yeah I post once a month these days) has been all about the weather.
And all that resting and relaxing.
And a lot of cooking - the internet is full of information goldmines!
And discovering more of Chicago - thanks to all my friends.
And the movies - thank you Hollywood for a fairly decent summer line-up. NetFlix rocks.
And the PlayStation3 - thank you Sony for the new device, and the drop in prices.
And the books.

Yeah - I said books. I started this summer with this grand plan to finish writing a biographical book. Given how long the break has been (Four more weeks to go) I've been inspired with two other plots that I'm seriously considering writing. These are fiction plots, and hence completely uncharted waters for me. But I'm excited about the plots - so I might at least try. The first book hasn't made as much progress as I'd like to claim - but it has made some good progress. I'm only working on that book for now - the fiction books need a LOT of research that I haven't even started looking into. This is going to be a great winter! It's time for that library membership ;)

So all these "activities" kept me occupied during last month. Next month seems to promise more of these activities, and a return to a some analytical, business world stuff - as I prepare to transition into my work. Given how much I've relaxed, I plan to get working on some basics in the next few weeks. Hopefully they'll get me up to speed. I'm really looking forward to start working.

So that's that for now. Till later, stay warm and be nice!

Tic Toc Tic Toc

2009-09-18T21:18:00.007-05:00

The operative word this summer is time! How much time I have, how well I spend my time, how I find ways to kill time and what I gain from all this time I had/have. Clearly, I haven't done enough blogging - but I have definitely done a few things with this time that I had!

First of all - the summer has been a boon in terms of Me-Time! And I needed lots of it. Looking back, I realize that a LOT of things happened since I came back from Chile last year. School, Classes, Job, Friends, Family - things I did, things we did, things people did to me, things people did to themselves, and other things that just happen! Remember how we feel when a very good movie comes to an abrupt end? I felt exactly the same way! A little bit numb, a little bit empty, but a lot to process. I've used the free to time to sit down, look back and put everything in perspective.

Having evaluated last year - I just want to say it has been one hell of an experience! On so many aspects, I've learned so much! I've seen new levels of goodness and badness around me. While I'm grateful for all the good things that happened and all the good people I met, I'm not one to sit here and complain about all the bad stuff that happened and all the bad people I met. I can only control the things I do, and the things I say - so the best way to move forward is to leave the bad stuff (and people) behind and get rid of them from my life. To start focus on myself, who I am, what I can do and what I should do!

All this free time has also helped me catch up with the things I missed doing during business school. I've watched almost all movies released this summer. I'm in the middle of 6 (or 7) different books. I'm writing again - even though I haven't made as much progress with the book as I'd like to claim! I've been hitting the gym frequently. I've started cooking frequently. I'm hanging out with friends, getting in touch with friends I haven't called in a while and making new friends. I've just been doing fun things - I went to a U2 concert, I attended many shows at Millennium Park, I've tried out new restaurants in the city, I've taken more photographs, I've walked around new locations in the city, I went to museums with friends, I've been to new bars! Overall - I feel like life is back!

After a bad period of time, I really feel alive! And I really believe all this Me-Time was absolutely necessary for me to get back to where I am today. Now I'm all fired up to start working and kick some ass! I just can't for November. In the meantime, I am simply going to have a lot of fun!

The return of the juggler

2009-08-13T21:49:00.004-05:00

Three years ago, we met as fellow bloggers and b-school applicants. We survived through the think and thin of business school, and have grown into good friends. The one thing she must have done, but did not - was to blog! But now she's back and blogging.

It is good to have her back and I really look forward to her posts.

I Dont Know What I'm Doing This Summer

2009-07-14T19:59:00.005-05:00

First of all - thanks to JulyDream for helping me with the contact details of her friend who wrote and published a book. It was very nice of her, and her friend was very very helpful. It has definitely given me more direction in my pursuit.

It has been a month since I graduated. So much has happened, and still so little has moved forward (if at all)! I feel like I'm in a stage where I'm leaving one life and moving into another one. Beyond anything, I'm finally entering the this-is-so-boring stage of this summer! Really cannot wait to get busy again.

The city of Chicago has been quite a phenomenon during the summer - with so much happening. Living in this city isn't just about the snow after all! Even with all that's happening, the city has an empty feeling to it - now that almost all the folks who're moving out of Chicago have officially moved out. I'm trying to take advantage of these options, but going alone is kind of boring.

I managed to find a new place to live and I'm VERY excited about my new home! It is pretty close to work, so I can walk when I feel like walking to work. I'm moving there by the end of this month, and hence a lot of other things have been status quo! That kinda makes sense since I'm busy picking furniture for the new place ;) Over the next 15 days, I have loads of things to do - formalities to be completed before I move into my new place.

I also feel like I'm going through one more of my transformation stages. I mean, the process has been happening over the last many months - but I am now in the stage where I see myself different from who I've been over the last few years. The whole journey of business school, with all its ups and downs, has added a lot more to me. Things that happened to me and the people I met over the least few years also adds to the mix. Overall I feel like I've learned a lot more about good and bad, and also know where exactly I stand in that spectrum. I also feel I have a greater sense of clarity in what I want to be, and where my life is headed. Since I have too much time at my disposal, I've been introspecting a lot on these changes; and I must admit I feel pretty good about the things I've learned about me during some difficult times.

Overall - the mood is one of anxiety. Of looking forward to what's ahead. New place; New job; New people - I feel like I'm all set for a new chapter in life. Being the eternal optimist, I'm working hard to take only the positives from the last few months and move forward with new zeal.

And yeah - I do hope to blog more often. Till next time, adios!

The Man in the Mirror

2009-07-01T15:24:00.003-05:00

For many people in my generation, Michael Jackson is arguably the biggest global celebrity of our lives. The music, the moves, the magic - all very hard to replace. His shadow looms so large all along my childhood, and I'm sure all of us have SO many Jackson moments - crying to his songs, trying the moonwalk, wearing the single glove or simply just watching in awe at his performances!

This man will truly be missed, but will truly always be remembered through his music.

The Big Announcement

2009-06-16T22:26:00.006-05:00

Since time immemorial, human race has always used history as one of the important tools of self-discovery, and a basis of vision and evolution. Now, some of us could (and mostly would) quote Napoleon, "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?", to incite doubts on the very basis of the argument! But I'm sure there'll be others who agree with me - without these "fables", we would not have come this far. I truly believe that documenting, and sharing life experiences is not only necessary, but the very requirement of evolution; and in some cases survival. I'm simply saying - if there is a story worth telling, it must be told. It must be taken to the audience who needs that story, to learn from it and build upon it; to write their own story on top of it.

I write this post today, as someone who has accomplished a mission that started three-and-a-half years ago, and as someone who has experienced a lot over that time period. These years, and the experiences, have enriched me with perspectives and viewpoints that will hopefully serve me well in the years to come. In the process, they have also improved me as a human being.

I believe mine is a story worth sharing. I have had one hell of a time over the last many months and I believe there are many things I want to share from those months. I believe I have a unique story to tell. I have had more than my fair share of failures in these years - and I believe that makes my story even more important to share. In short - I believe in my story, and I'm ready to share it.

Yeah folks - that's the big announcement. I'm planning to spend my break writing a book about the last three-and-a-half years of my life. I have never written a book before, but I have read a few. I have never gone through the process of publishing a book. Heck, I don't even know if my writing is publish-worthy!

But I simply believe I have something important to say, and I'm gonna try and tell my story as best as I can. Hopefully some publisher will like it and the book will see the light of the day. If not, I'd have at least spent this time usefully! Most of all, if and when the book does get published, I hope that its readers will learn from my mistakes and have a better experience.

Graduation

2009-06-16T01:13:00.004-05:00

I walked The Walk! University of Chicago held its 498th convocation this weekend. On the lush lawns of the Harper Quadrangle of the University, I received my MBA degree on Sunday along with 550 others from the Class of 2009. We were the first class to graduate from Chicago Booth, following our school's name change last fall. That made the occasion quite historic.

The ceremony was extremely well organized, and very academic. The whole ceremony, from gathering everyone in lines, to the degree awarding ceremony, to the reception after the ceremony - everything happened in a span of six hours. You can read more about it in this enthusiastic post made by a classmate. By the end of it, we ceased to be students and we were back in the real world.

Most of my friends had family and friends who'd come to view the ceremony. I was one of the few people who had no one accompanying them. All the people who I badly wanted to be there - some cannot come, some could not come. It felt strange, having no one to wave at, having no one by your side - and meeting friends, families and partners of my classmates only increased that feeling. I looked past it and tried to have a decent time. Food was great and I was glad I managed to catch up with all the people I wanted to meet before they left for their corners of the world, and ended the day with a nice dinner.

So thus officially ends the four year pursuit of an MBA education. Now it's time to put it to some good use in this mad mad world!

A Long Pause

2009-06-10T21:21:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I had my final final-exam of business school. I also turned in all other work necessary for my courses. So I am officially done with business school. I am an MBA; one of the first 550 from Chicago Booth. The only thing that remains is the graduation walk. My iGoogle countdown says it is 4 days away! Really excited and looking forward to it - considering this is going to be my first (and possibly the only) graduation walk of my life. Hopefully it will be a good day.

Today was the first day after school. After a REALLY long time, my calendar was free for the entire day and is going to be free for a long time. Honestly - this emptiness kills me. And I have five more months of this and I have to get extremely creative and find ways to make use of myself. I want to rest for a few days and then start working on things one after the other. There is SO much I need to do.

As mentioned in the previous post, I've been in an introspective/self-analytical mode for the last few days. I've been looking back at the days. I am planning to publish a post summarizing my business school experience - my lows and highs, and the things I've learned in the past two years. It could happen very soon, considering I have way too much time these days!

There's just so much I want to say though - business school has really been life altering for me in many many ways. I'm really thankful for all the people I've met in school, the moments we shared, the discussions we had, every course-pack i read, every business case i analyzed, every new problem i solved, every interview i prepared for and every bit of merriment my classmates threw at each other! Business school will also always hold a special place in my heart! I can't ask for more.

I'm not saying everything was great - there were many bad moments. As one of my professors like to frequently say about business school, "Isn't it just like life." So very true. But I've learned as much from the low points, as from the more joyful ones. As an entire package, the school played a significant role in changing me into who I am today compared to who I was two years ago! Also, it has given me a better sense of direction and purpose; and brought closure to some of the important things in a person's life. Hopefully I'll do a good job summarizing all of it in a single blog post, but I doubt it.

I also have an exciting decision to share with you all. It is related to business school and the blog. Since I am in an introspective and writing mood, and also since I have too much time at my disposal, I am also considering doing something that I hope would be exciting/useful for everyone. Watch out for a post in that regard too.

Right - too many promises about too many future posts. Time to go watch that DVD!
Take care everyone!

School ends; Life continues...

2009-06-06T08:27:00.008-05:00

This comes exactly three years after the day of my GMAT. A perfectly timed MBA experience! Not a perfect one though :)

I had my last class yesterday. It was a great class to end my two years at Chicago Booth, as it reminded of everything this school stands for - good professors, great analysis and wonderful classmates. As I was joking to someone at the Class Celebration yesterday evening, I feel like I've grown old faster over the last couple of years. Many of us here think that way! In the process, we've also become wiser.

Yesterday, in more ways than one - academically, professionally, personally, socially - summarized the story of my life. The 24 - 30 hour period between Thursday evening and Friday night was filled with huge, life-impacting, unforgettable events and as I sit here on this lazy Saturday morning, musing at all that happened and all that led to all that happened; I can't stop thinking "How did I get here."

I am in a bittersweet mood. What started more than three and a half years ago, the quest for fine business education finally came to an end yesterday. Three and a half years!!! That's a lot of learning and thousands of hours of hard work. That sure is a good reason to celebrate! The Dean's office did time it perfectly in hosting the Class of 2009 Celebration yesterday. It was a wonderful event, and everyone had a lot of fun - with great food.

But as I wandered around the alleys of the Winter Garden in Harper Center while the rest of my class was letting go on the dance floor, the other things in my mind made me sober. The greater challenges ahead of me prevented me from jumping in. For all the insulation supposedly offered by the cocoon of the business school environment from the real world, we all know that the times are a lot less celebratory in nature.

Over the last couple of years - I've been through a lot and quite understandably learned a lot! So it always helps me stand away from a moment, and look at the big picture. The picture in front of me was not good.

Most importantly, my personal life could be a lot better. I could have done some things better, and as a result I find myself in a very difficult situation. At this moment it looks like a fight I'm going to fight for the rest of my life - but I'm fully committed to that fight! This is a lifelong commitment either way! The sooner I win it, the better my life will be - but if, unfortunately, this is going to drag on forever - I'm up for it.

Professionally though - I am standing at the verge of a great opportunity that I hope to make the best use of. But far beyond that - I look at all the things I see in this world, and I wonder what role I could play in improving some of it; any of it! This blog won't be sufficient to list all the issues we face today - there's so many people out there who need so many things, very basic things in some cases, and they all could use so much more help. Here in Chicago, my new home, I am close to so many of these vagaries. I see the results of racial differences, neglected communities, poverty and homelessness! My trip to Africa took me closer to some of the other vagaries - neglected countries and people with a lot less opportunities. I was thinking of the movie "Hotel Rwanda" throughout the trip!

People will argue we're making progress, but we all know that there could be more done. Organizations that are currently working on these issues are far from efficient. I've worked with an organization that tries to create opportunities for people in lesser economies and I've seen the inefficiencies. I've helped and interacted with a few non-profit organizations fighting various causes in America, and I have friends who have worked with them too. I'd like to think I know a little bit. I was recently discussing regarding these issues with a friend on our way to school one day. She had a lot of experience working with such agencies and is very passionate about leading some kind of change, and she was talking about the inefficiencies she had faced so far. My answer was that there's still a lot of work to be done and that kind of work needs a lot of committed people. If you look at the lives of various groups of people around the world - there are way too many complex issues to tear this world apart. This world, and the human race, could be SO much better!

I was not sure if it was the right thing to sit and think about my personal issues and these issues of my fellow homo sapiens at a place where we were supposed to rejoice the achievements of the past two years – but that's exactly what I did. The personal issues obviously weigh in always, but the other stuff has been playing in my mind for a long time. I really see me playing a role to make some kind of change somewhere. I wonder what I could do. I wonder what any of us could do. And oftentimes, I wonder what ALL of us could do.

I started writing this blog to chronicle my life, not just my application and business school experiences. I intend to continue doing just that - chronicle my life, its joys and vagaries all included. As with everything I've done so far, I also intend to discuss my efforts towards some of these goals I want to set for myself, and get public opinion on what I'm doing and how I should proceed.

So there goes two great years of my life. And here's to the rest of it. I hope I continue to work on what I've done so far, and build on that further to do something to help with these challenges that surround us, while continuing the constant search for a hopefully satisfying life!

Academics @ Chicago Booth

2009-04-25T06:38:00.003-05:00

Well - I finally managed to come up with the second edition of @ Chicago Booth. In this post, I wanted to talk about my academic experience @ Chicago Booth. I am half way through my last quarter, so i guess I'm more than 90% (yeah, that's how we roll) qualified to comment about my experience here so far. Really, it only takes a year to figure out this stuff.

Let me start with the bottom line. When people say that Chicago Booth is known for its academic rigor, well, people are NOT lying. I have friends who go to most of the top schools, and all of us get killed with the amount of course work we have. The difference - what other schools achieve with at least 5 courses per semester, Chicago achieves with a maximum of four courses per quarter. The Quarter system changes the dynamics completely. It is intense, quick and extremely productive. I have definitely learned a LOT over the last two years inside the classroom. In this aspect - I have been thoroughly impressed with the school and I'd rate it 4.5 on 5. I don't want to give a perfect 5 because there are minor issues that i wanna touch upon later in this post.

So why is the academic aspect of Chicago Booth so powerful?

Professors - To put it succinctly, they run the show. The school gives them a free hand (with limited instructions around "important" issues like grading) and the professors do a fairly good job of honoring that responsibility. Forget the Nobel prize professors! You'd hardly take any of their courses because they mostly teach advanced concepts and they're ridiculously hard! There are many many other professors, at the cutting edge of research, frequently quoted by most leading journals, respected the world around - who take the most extreme pleasure in imparting all that knowledge into our heads. Just being in a class is oftentimes a great experience.

Material - The extensive research that happens in Chicago is very much obvious in the classrooms. The Chicago approach to teach through empirical evidence and the heavy influence of the Chicago school of economics (both of which i strongly subscribe to) adds a unique flavor to business education inside the classrooms. For someone like me, that is a very very enjoyable prospect! Apart from that, just like all top schools - professors do get creative and add a lot of multimedia and external sources to add their own touch to the classes. Fun Fun!!!

Flexibility - Do you feel like sleeping longer in the morning? Try the evening class for a week! Do you just want to audit a class? Oh mostly welcome! You don't have the prereqs but you think you qualify to take a class? Just talk to the prof! You don't want ANY other accounting class after Acct.101? Sure you can do it. Welcome to the land of "Do what you wanna do". It is a power; It is a responsibility; everyone figures it out; everyone uses it very well. It works out beautifully for everyone, and mostly people feel like they learn more of what they want to learn in school.

Classmates - I know this is cliched; but they definitely do deserve a mention. I have certainly learnt a lot from my classmates, and the knowledge they have brought to the classroom. And I'm pretty sure this is true across all schools.

So the reason for chopping off 0.5 pt from the score above?

Scheduling - Most of the professors teach a maximum of 3 to 5 sections per year. Especially the top ones. Even though the schedule is laid out before the year starts and everyone is given time to prepare their best schedules, with conflicting classes, prerequisites, bid-point matters and preferential issues I feel like students loose some of these classes or the situation forces them to make compromises. Not ideal.

Quality - Very rarely, students end up with professors who are clearly not impressive. In all such situations, the professor under question is a new one the school is trying out and hence the school doesn't have info. Many of these professors improve in the subsequent years following feedback from classes, internal training and by learning from their experienced peers; but the earlier classes of these professors do tend to suck and I don't know how to incubate these new professors in a better way and save these guinea pig batches! I've been a part of a couple such classes!

Overall - I am thoroughly happy with the academic experience. There are few minor sore points; but in the larger scheme of things they are not that big! At the core aspects of an academic institution, Chicago performs very very strongly!

I am not sure if this post added anything new considering there is SO much info available about schools already. All I'm hoping that this post validates, from a first person perspective, most of the things you've already known about the academic experience @ Chicago Booth.

BoB nomination again!

2009-04-16T11:58:00.005-05:00

A special shoutout to the BoB team for shortlisting me one more time this year. I've been honored with the BoB award two years in a row, and I'm extremely thrilled to be nominated again. I am not very sure about making it to the final list, I have been extremely irregular and blogged very little these days - thanks to a business school that keeps us busy till the very end (and our end is not too far). Also, there is a lot of very active and very good bloggers in that list with me. But i'm happy to even make it to this list.

I have a promise to fulfil - the @Booth series of posts. I'm gonna make that happen in the next few weeks for sure! I dunno how, but i realize I just have to find time. I also have a lot of things to write about - like my amazing Spring Break trip to Africa with a bunch of Boothies. Hopefully I'll find more time to share that experience with you!

Hope everything is fine with everyone, and all of you are living a happy life in your respective quarter of the tiny little world. Hope to speak more to you all in the days to come...

The Third Eye

2009-02-22T11:04:00.002-06:00

I was always a sucker for good photography. I was not too happy with the pictures my fancy digicam produced, but was not sure if I deserved the step up to a quality SLR. Finally I mustered some courage and bought an SLR in the middle of 2008. I am still a novice and have to learn to use it well, to tap into the camera's fullest potential. With business school sucking almost every minute out of my life, I've hardly managed to spend quality time with the device. Still I managed a few good shots over the last few months, and thought I'd publish them to the world - to express my "angle" on things and more importantly to get feedback.

Here's my public gallery

Hopefully I'll improve in the years to come...

The Crisis of Credit - Visualized

2009-02-20T19:43:00.002-06:00

The Credit Crisis explained...

Key take away: This affects EVERYONE!

Back Back Back

2009-02-09T10:39:00.004-06:00

Oh I'm back!

The last few weeks have been crazy. Ever since school started this quarter, it's been like someone took over my life. It is all my doing though, but I dont repent it. How much ever painful the last few weeks have been, they were also a lot of fun!

So what have I been upto - lots of things. First of all, I signed up for four courses this quarter, hoping to have a lighter last quarter. Strangely, ALL four of my courses have a LOT of work. Like one deliverable every week. So with all that reading, writing and group work - academic work this quarter is HEAVY. Then there is the annual New Venture Challenge; my team just submitted our application. And then there is campusCATALYST, where i mentor a group of undergrads who're consulting a Chicago based non-profit.

But the thing that took most of my time these past weeks was also the thing i enjoyed the most - giving mock cases to first years to help prepare them for their interviews. It has been most satisfying to offer feedback to these folks and then watch them come back as better candidates. In the process, I've also learnt that there are a gazillion ways to approach any case. I've learnt a lot of new case tricks from these first years!

Oh with all the work - I managed to exhaust myself beyond belief and promptly fell sick. It was kind of weird though, as I wouldnt get well for like two full weeks.

I'm well now, the cases preps season is over and we dont hear about NVC till end of this month. I feel like I've reclaimed my life, not kidding!!! So now it is time to get working on the promised series of posts.

And oh - i'm going to Africa this spring break. Bloody thrilled about the trip - minus the paper work part :)

LEAD @ Chicago Booth

2008-12-27T18:59:00.010-06:00

Chicago Booth is a lot of things, and some more. I decided to pick LEAD as my first topic, because it is the first thing we do as Chicago students- and something that is expected to have a long lasting influence in developing tomorrow’s leaders; and hence improve our lives for the two years at Booth and beyond.

LEAD starts at CORE, the Booth version of orientation and is designed to help student interaction. One great aspect of LEAD is that it is run by second years - so it connects the incoming class and the returning class both formally and informally.

The program starts with The Leadership Outdoor Experience (LOE) - a three day mandatory retreat to Lake Geneva. It is like boot camp all over - but a lot more fun. The LEAD facilitators (second years) design numerous team building activities for the three days - and by the time we return from LOE, we would know a lot more people than we can remember names of. Also, LEAD is the only program we take as a cohort. The entire class is split into ten cohorts, and each cohort is then split into eight squads. You know your squad and your cohort for the entire two year - and hence chances are that you'll find your closest buddies in these groups. LOE is followed by classroom sessions that touch upon numerous leadership topics like ethics, team building, crisis management, etc. The second years have some autonomy on how they manage these classes and they try to make it fun by using videos, cases and real life examples. The LEAD program finally ends with Golden Gargoyles – an annual event where cohorts make movies from which the best movies will get $$$. Overall - the program is designed to be a fun, enjoyable arena where an individual's strengths and weaknesses are identified, analyzed and opportunities are given to improve on them. This information also helps individuals approach classrooms and other group work as better team players and leaders.

Does the program work - mostly yes. People have a love hate relationship with LEAD. There are many factors at play that lead to mixed reactions from LEAD:

People expect too much from the program - no one is gonna remodel you in 10 weeks. All you will have is the knowledge that you are awesome in some aspect and you also suck at certain areas. You'll have a to-do list, but eventually you gotta work on it. LEAD is 100% a "What You Get Is What You Give". Unfortunately, no MBA student has enough time to invest in LEAD.
The experience is not uniform - second years run the program. They are people. They all have different styles and different approaches. The class is also diverse and has people from different backgrounds and experience levels. The program definitely aims at finding a middle ground - to be valuable to everyone. People sometimes compare their experiences across the table and go bah; which I don’t think is fair - because as a whole, the system works.
The program is very theoretical - this was true in my case. I'd have preferred to do more hands on exercises, to see how I react to situations. To see how my team mates react to situations. I learn the best from such experiences, but we felt we could have more of those than discussion scenarios with PowerPoint slides! Fortunately, this aspect was improved this year for the incoming class - but by how much, I am not sure.
The LEAD program is reflective - this is debatable; but personally I think it is true. The LEAD facils are second years. They haven’t been to the real world, used LEAD skills over a significant period of time, to come back and say "Hey this worked this way". What we hear is "In my prev job, this is how it worked" or "This is how it would work in our future jobs". By how much this dilutes the experience - we don’t know yet. I say yet because, true to GSB style, we have a professor researching on this and we'll know the results in a couple of decades!

Now - all is not bad with LEAD. I said the program mostly works. This is why:

The Learnings - In the very first LEAD class, me and my squad were given a case, asked to solve it and were videotaped! It was hilarious to watch ourselves crack this case. But we also learnt how we behave in a team environment - right from our posture to the tone of our voice to the level of participation. This is just one example - there were numerous instances when I discovered aspects and qualities in me that I did not know I had in me. Fortunately, I've worked on my to-do list. What I hear from my friends (who knew me before school) makes me believe that it has worked. This is the very reason behind LEAD and this is why I said it works.
The People - it is no wonder that I'm good friends with all six of my squad mates, and know everyone in my cohort. It works the same way for all 55 of us in our cohort; and all 55 of us in each cohort. There are also avenues to meet the cohort before us and the cohort after us. We also have a sister cohort and sister squad concept - which was not really a big hit because we did very few exercises with them. There's also a quarter long competition for cohorts - so we compete and get to meet people from other cohorts, under the LEAD banner. This is another motive behind LEAD and the program scores heavily on this aspect.
The feedback - There is a facil attached to each squad. He's in-charge of ensuring that your LEAD experience is the best. One of his responsibilities is to offer you feedback - at carefully designed points in the program - to help you catch things that you missed. There's feedback from your peers - your squad mates. If you stepped on someone's foot - you'll know right there. No hard feelings. Finally, as I’ll explain in the next point, there are numerous moments when the programs trigger the internal feedback system and help you see yourself in a different light.
The opportunities - nowhere else would you get such a risk free environment to test your mettle and see if you've improved. There's the classroom, the cases, the exercises, golden gargoyles, leadership positions inside your cohort, the LEAD challenge - just way too many moments that will show you who you are. Now go work on them...

These are the key aspects of LEAD that I've noticed in the last 18 months. I've seen two batches of LEAD - so I've also seen how the program is evolving. I think it is going in the right direction.

If I take a step back and evaluate its role in my MBA experience, I'd say it is definitely a value add to the program. If you put in a fair amount of time and effort into the program, you'll get a fair amount out of it. And if that is done well, you'll improve as a team player and as a leader - and you'll have enough to handle future situations in school, and beyond, quite well and, dare I say, better than you used to.

@ Chicago Booth

2008-12-16T21:00:00.000-06:00

So I'm 2/3rd an MBA. I finished my fourth quarter finals a week ago and have been chilling out in super-cold Chicago ever since. I've had a great year and a half at business school and am much wiser than i started it a year ago. I have way too many good experiences to share with you all, and way too much wisdom to pass on.

Hence I decided to write a series on my school. This is purely about my school, the only school i attended, and might not be representative of all schools. Also, this is my experience, and is NOT a generalization of Chicago Booth experience. There is no one Chicago Booth experience - each student has a different experience based on his/her choices.

But you're welcome to read mine for whatever it is worth.

In the coming days, i intend to touch upon different aspects of the Chicago Booth experience and I look forward to hearing your opinions, views and comments on those topics. While i do intend to write about all common topics and some more, please let me know if you have any special (or specific) requests.

ChiBus journey comes to an end

2008-12-06T14:16:00.000-06:00

What an experience!!! The last one year has been amazing and Tsu and I have thoroughly enjoyed the fifteen issues we brought out. This week, we picked our two new editors-in-chief and handed over. We're officially done.

Looking back, I'm amazed at how much I've gained through this experience. I've met and befriended some fabulous people, who I would not otherwise have met at such close circles. I've had some great leadership experience which is only bettered by the GBC and not paralleled by any other group. I've had to work with difficult people, handle tricky situations, make tough decisions and be answerable to all 1100 of my classmates. I've also had to give away every second week of my MBA life, slogging inside the hollow burrow that is the ChiBus office. Heck, the day before my interviews, I was in the office :)

It feels kind of weird to not have ChiBus on the calendar. Makes me wanna hang out more with Tsu - I'm glad we're not tired (if not sick) of each other yet! Once next quarter begins I'll realize how much free time I have. I'll need to find other stuff to fill my calendar. But it is also a chance to use the free time to do things I haven't done in a while - like read; and write; and blog; and movies; and sleep!!!

We started with a long list of things to do, and would probably have accomplished the top four or five things on the list - so that's a good feeling. We'd have liked to do more though; but that's how it ends. We have a lot of great memories and some strong friendships to show. Thank you ChiBus.

An End & A Beginning

2008-11-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

I'm 27. It is official - since yesterday! With it, the year of education that was, hopefully, comes to an end.

It's been an interesting period in my life - these last 12 months. Quite naturally - I find myself in an introspective state. Last November started what could be the worst few months of my life. I made some stupid decisions, let myself forget who I am and spiraled down deeper and deeper. By May-June, things had hit rock bottom. Needless to say, many aspects of my life were affected. There are many many events that happened during this last year that I will never be able to forget. And these events will keep reminding me of the choices I made, the decisions I should not have made and how I could let things get worse for myself. Parts of me that I lost in the process, I dont think I will ever be able to recover! May be I just had to. All in the name of growing up...

Then came the summer and the recovery. A quick trip home to touch base with my roots. A time away from most of the things that were causing heartburn. New friends and a new setting. Chile played a huge role in getting myself back on track. It also helped me, for the umpteenth time, reinvent myself in a positive way and get a move on with life. The last few months have been great in many ways and this November, I look up instead of down, with what the future promises to hold!

Most importantly, in those early months, I lost the promise I hold and almost wasted what I am! The moments when people are perilously close to failure reminds people of why they cannot and should not fail; similarly in those dark days I realized why I should not go down this path, why I don't deserve anything that was happening to me and what I should really be. I re-learned myself all over again, shrugged off the chaff that was holding me back and liberated myself from the shackles.

The last few months have been enjoyable, to say the least. I love me more than ever and I am also having a great time with everything I do. The things I don't want to be a part of my life, they are down to a bare minimum, and hopefully will cease to exit pretty soon. The future holds a promise, a promise of me, and I am more focused than ever to honor that promise and deliver on it.

Happy birthday to me...

Employed!!!

2008-11-03T12:11:00.001-06:00

Yes!!! I'm done with recruiting for this year.

Last week was B.U.S.Y!!! I had already interviewed with my top choice company the previous week and was invited for the decision round on Wednesday. I had interviews with five other companies, and each one of them had multiple interviews. After almost 75 hours of heavy heartbeats - my top choice firm got back to me on Saturday to inform me of my offer. I've been in a OMG mode ever since!!!

It's official. I'd be joining Bain & Company in their Chicago office next summer.

I'm super thrilled and just cannot wait to start learning from all the great people i met during my recruitment. Also, finally i get to experience business school as just a student - so i'm looking forward to that too.

Find me a job

2008-10-14T20:22:00.001-05:00

If there is anything that could be both extremely crazy and incomparably gratifying in a business school, it would be recruiting. That is what me and most of my classmates have been doing over the last month or so - yeah we started recruiting a full week before classes started :)

Considering the status of wall street (or whatever is left of it) and the economy at large, we all expected recruiting to be quite difficult. Even though the stakes have been raised in certain areas, recruiting still looks mostly promising. Talk about the advantages of being in a top business school. Basically every firm that is recruiting is in campus.

Investment Banking, as an industry, is in shambles. Even the banks that have survived so far have either taken some beating or have taken on other risky assets. Quite obviously their numbers are gonna be pretty low compared to any year in recent memory. Interestingly, people who have offers from many "strong" banks have also accepted much sooner - hence bringing down the necessity of many banks to recruit. We expect a 30% - 40% drop in IB numbers (and this does not include S&T - which would be much worse).

Interestingly - consulting numbers have been strong. In fact, as an industry, they seem to be increasing recruiting. But the landscape has become very difficult - many of my classmates who have offers from "less strong" banks are uncertain and are looking at consulting careers. The crowd in the consulting events is bigger than ever, says GSB's Career Services. Purely based on demand and supply - i believe this is gonna be very very competitive.

Industry jobs have kicked in and filled the gap created by banking. These job posts have gone up significantly. In turn, this has brought the overall job posts made in our job portal up by 4%. That doesn't make us feel that bad. The good thing that is happening is that people are thinking harder now than ever to see what exactly they want to do. The Career Services has worked extra hard and made sure we have all these options. They brought in more than 30 new companies, and that seems to have helped balance the situation. Overall - we seem to be doing well as of now, and will know better once the final numbers are out by Spring.

I don't see anyone at GSB really concerned about their chances. Instead, there is this optimism that is true to being here. Everyone seems to be believing that if the stock is good, the market will buy. Going by the response from the employers - our belief in us seems to be true.

Classes - first impression

2008-10-01T03:09:00.000-05:00

What am i doing staying awake at 3AM in the morning on a Tuesday night???
I'm celebrating the completion of my first classes for this quarter. Boy, wasn't that fun?!?!

After talking a little about my classes in this post, I figured New Venture Strategy clashed with a few recruiting events. Since i wanted to do a good job in that class, I dropped it and signed up for Managing in Organizations for the Saturday morning class. So my first class for the quarter was actually on this Saturday morning. The other classes were on Monday and Tuesday afternoon.

To begin with, all three classes are with kick-ass professors. They are unbelievably awesome. While Ms. Ginzel held me awake throughout the class even after my partying till 3AM the previous day, Ms. Smith just blew us away (literally) by the way she started her class - she whistled to catch our attention!!! Ms. Bertrand has an attitude that is unbelievably awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed all three classes.

However, I did not enjoy all the work :( I read almost 100 pages of material for each class. Starting next week, each class has some sort of an assignment to be submitted. Since I'm trying to do as much as possible for all classes, I did read everything I was supposed to read and showed up ultra-prepared (and slightly sleepy) for all three classes. It was one long stretch from Friday morning till today afternoon.

So I am celebrating such a successful class week with a movie night. I know - I should be sleeping, but my Netflix DVDs had piled up and I had to do something. So now after two movies, I thought I'd write about it all before I doze off. Any friends reading this, no calling till noon okay...

Recruiting v2.0

2008-09-22T13:44:00.001-05:00

A sunny morning
and Bon Jovi songs
A warm cup of chai
and a WSJ mourning Wall St.
A clean shave
and a hot shower
A pressed attire
and a splash of dash

Everything looks perfect, to begin full time recruiting here at the GSB...

The next few weeks promise to be intense and fun, and hopefully will have a good ending!!!
Good luck to me :)

Back on the fast lane

2008-09-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

Life's been busy! Very busy!!! I had a ton of responsibilities to attend since returning, and I've been mostly successful in attending to each of them.

Classes haven't begun yet, but preparations have. I thought I had my schedule set, but I decided to drop one of the classes since it clashed with many recruitment events. This was a class I was really looking forward to, but the same prof is offering the same class next quarter as well. So I'm now planning to sign up next quarter. Also, now I have to find myself a class in the next round of bidding. I've never had to bid in the third round for a class. So I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of bidding in this round, with fewer classes on offer. Hopefully I'll get the class I'm keen on.

Chibus is happening! When Tsu (my co-editor-in-chief) and I took responsibility of the paper, we had a long list of things to change. We've constantly had to grapple with the pressure of getting the paper out in time, along with all the school work, so we never got to them. Now that we have some time to work on the paper, we have set out to get all of them done before school starts. Some of them, we feel, are very important to get the slumbering team morale back on track and make life easy for our precious staff. Others, are just an effort to improve the paper from what it is. We hope to set the bar a few notches high, and pass on the baton to the next class, who will then find things that we failed to see, and improve things from thereon.

The Class of '10 is here. They've been to the Random Walks and are almost done with CORE. I have met with many of them, and it is good to see so many familiar faces - people I met through the numerous admissions committee activities. It has been a pleasure to pass on the little I've learnt during my first year. AND - I have three mentees!!! I've been spending a LOT of time with them - trying to ease them into their school life. Looks like I have done a decent job so far, I don't think anyone is overwhelmed and I think I've been telling them the right things. They figured out the bidding process and all of them have classes - so that's one hurdle down. Now it is time to handle their recruitment.

Oh yeah - I'm recruiting as well. So I've been spending the rest of my time on trying to prepare myself better. Given the current economic situations, recruiting is gonna be difficult. Hopefully I'm prepared well. Companies are in campus starting Monday!!! The on-campus-recruiting process ends by mid Nov and I hope to have a job by then. I've been spending quality hours everyday, trying to sort out things and seeking advice/help from friends, classmates and GSB Career Services folks. So far so good and hopefully things will work out the way I want them to work out. Good luck me!!!

As you can see - things are happening. I'm back to the state I'm most comfortable and most satiated - juggling a ton of exciting things and keeping myself constantly occupied. Feeling constantly pushed, but enjoying that stretch.

Life is fast! Life is busy!! Life is fun!!!

Good to be back!

2008-09-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

It is indeed good to be back. There are aspects of Chile i miss though - especially good Sushi and Spanish presentations! Overall - I'm certainly kicked about being back.

Things have started rolling and my calendar is full of a million things already. The Class of 2010 is here and I've been meeting many people from the class for different reasons. I have three mentees to begin with - and hope I'm doing a decent job of helping them with their first few days in GSB. That is on top of my priority list at the moment - at least till i get busy with recruiting.

Oh yeah - recruiting. Recruiting starts for second years on September 22nd; which is like 2 weeks away. While i cant believe that i find myself again at the tryst of another gruelling, tiring 3 months - I am really looking forward to starting the process. After one year of business school and an exciting 10 weeks at internship - I think i have better clarity on things i want and those that i don't want. And it is even more exciting to get back to recruiting with that clarity. Or so i think. We'll see...

Classes start on September 25th. I got all the classes i wanted to sign up for. I have three great courses with awesome professors - Competitive Strategy, New Venture Strategy and Financial Statement Analysis. I'm pretty thrilled about this quarter. I just need to be disciplined enough to be able to do well in the courses, along with recruiting.

Oh, and yeah! I met with my ChiBus co-editor-in-chief and we brainstormed about the things we want to do over the first few weeks. So i have a ChiBus to-do list that i need to sort out pretty soon. Hopefully we'll achieve those things within the aggressive timeline we set for ourselves.

So - second year is a few weeks away, but i already feel like second year has started. I guess it is only good to have a head start and keep working as hard as i could. Hopefully this will be a great year.

ExpertCollective - A Review

2008-09-07T10:43:00.002-05:00

So a few weeks ago Josh Hohman from ExpertCollective had left a note on my blog regarding a survey compilation that he thought would be useful for MBA applicants. He was requesting me to review this report so that it could reach potential applicants. I read the free report and found the material interesting - so i decided to review the full report.

While I was in the preliminary stages of applying to business schools, one of the primary hurdles was to find genuine and personal information about the school from people in the school - staff and students alike. This, I understand, is a considerable issue for international applicants like me. This report aims at providing an answer to that issue.

Format:
The report basically has students of various business schools answering a standard set of nine questions. The students are from Stanford GSB, HBS, Columbia Business School. There's also a mini profile of each student - giving us the GPA range (ranges of 0.5), GMAT range (range of 50) and the pre-MBA professional background of the student.

The free report has 6 students - 2 each from Stanford, HBS and Columbia.
The full report has 35 students - 28 from Stanford, 3 HBS and 4 Columbia.

Pros:
The format is no-frills. The questions are not usual and are focused on helping an applicant as against getting a profile of the student. The report does not have a lot from the same person, but the standard questions allow the reader to easily compare across profiles. There is no unnecessary fluff in the whole report - just one interview after another one. Pretty sleek and effective.

Cons:
The list of questions is not extensive; but i'm not sure how to fit in more questions without making the report heavy. Also, standardized is not gonna help people with individual questions - but that is a standardized report anyway. The biggest drwaback for me is that the full report is heavy on Stanford. 28 out of the 35 responses are from Stanford.

Verdict:
It might be useful if you cannot visit schools - but as of now, I can imagine this being helpful only for Stanford applicants. I am not sure of the price - so thats for you to check as well. People have different price points! Bottom line - download the free report and check for yourself.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated to the person or the website mentioned in this review. I'm doing this simple to point applicants to a resource that they could find useful. Please dont hold me responsible for your experiences with this website or the resource under discussion.

A job through my blog???

2008-09-07T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've been quite irregular in checking the email id mentioned in the blog. Even more so in the recent few days, as there's a ton of housekeeping work i had to do after reaching Chicago. And there's so much catching-up-with-buddies to do. After a week - I'm king of breathing easy.

I was thinking of the mails since yesterday and today morning i was motivated to follow up on all the mails. Among the pile, i find this one mail from a certain feedcompany. They are part of a recruiting initiative currently underway at Deloitte - Born2Consult.

So the deal is that i share this video (it is quite funny - take a look) and feedcompany would forward my resume to Deloitte. Quite neat eh! Many things have happened to me through the blog - finding a job was something I'd have never thought about. Blogging does give something back, apart from the pure pleasure of writing :)

Enjoy the video and wish me luck...

Home good home!!!

2008-09-01T09:53:00.001-05:00

I'm back in Chicago.

The flight went well. Me reached in one piece. All bags came through safe. Home is in good condition after the sublet. Chicago is hot and happening. People speak to me in English. Good to be back!

Internship: Week 10

2008-08-30T15:18:00.001-05:00

It is over. An exciting and enriching 10 week stay in the República de Chile. Time to move to Chicago.

The last week was relatively less intense, compared to how the rest of the summer spanned. The first three days were quite hectic though, what with the team scrapping together the final pieces of the presentation; examining the slides for the umpteenth time, to find if we can spruce it up a wee bit; anxious about how the board would react to the recommendations. Eventually - the hard work paid off.

The presentation was completed on Wednesday, and we did not face any major issue in getting approval. Once the presentation was approved - I was set free. I had Thursday and Friday for myself. Absolutely nothing to do. In fact, it kind of felt weird to not have anything at work. But the million farewells made sure I was busy!!!

I had a series of feedback sessions and it was interesting to hear what people saw in me. I was very curious, considering the completely different cultural and organizational setup i was working in. Overall - it went quite well. I had a tonne of feedback to offer and it was all received very well. What remains to be seen is how this small company, set for major growth, copes up with the challenges of growth and how it incorporates our recommendations in the process. They've promised to keep me updated!!! I'm anxious to see how it works out.

So thus ends another chapter in the bschool story. I've learnt a lot over these 10 weeks. I cant wait to return to Chicago and put them in good use - I will be there in about half a day! And then, life moves on to the GSB drill.

Internship: Week 9

2008-08-25T09:10:00.000-05:00

The penultimate week of the internship was a really busy one! I was working hard to try and wind up the project this week so that my last week would be relatively free! Looks like I've almost managed to do that. Almost!!!

I received all necessary information in the defined time lines! All too well. The consultant proved difficult right till the end, and gave us a bunch of so-so guesstimates. We already had our own bunch of guesstimates and found his set to be quite different from what we had. That meant that we had a string of meetings to try and reach mutually agreeable numbers. It took us two days!

My colleague who was working on the model needed extensive help. I did many parts of the model and redid many other things she did. There were a lot of logic questions she had no answers for and the two of us had to run around the office to get a lot of information she had missed. Overall - it was a very fun exercise, and we managed to have a satisfying model by the weekend. Even more, the model now proves that all our initial hypothesis are right - so we're quite thrilled.

With all that done, I'm working on fine tuning the presentation for the board presentation this week. I presented the content to my CEO and he's quite happy with what he saw. I have a review today evening with a few General Managers, and once i answer their questions satisfactorily - I am all set to face the board for the second time. We have addressed a lot of questions from the previous board meeting and hopefully the board will like our answers. Cant wait for Wednesday.

I'm planning to officially finish the internship on Wednesday, after the board meeting. I'll still have to drop in on Thursday and Friday to transition my work and bid adieu to all the wonderful people I've met here - but I want to do that on my schedule and not have the binding to be at the work place during work hours. I'm hoping a few lunches would help me complete the farewells.

Speaking of farewells, my CEO is out of the country on a business trip. We bid adieu after the review session on Friday. We had a mutual feedback session and it went exceedingly well. I wont be meeting him again.

I celebrated this internship with a weekend trip to Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Isla Negra! I also completed my Chilean ambition of visiting all 3 of Pablo Neruda's homes!!! Quite a humbling experience. Last but not least, I had tonnes of fantabulous sea food from all 3 coastal towns. I'm not exaggerating, but over the weekend, I've tasted some of the best sea food I've ever had!!!

So I'm almost done, with one more week to go in this country. Hopefully everything will go smoothly over the week and I'll find myself is Chicago on Sunday noon! I just cant wait for that!!!

As anniversaries go...

2008-08-17T19:08:00.000-05:00

I just remembered - It's been a year since i left for Chicago as an aspiring MBA student. I have been in a rare introspective mood this weekend. I've lived some kind of an exciting life over the course of my first year at GSB and the internship. Things have changed - for both the good and the bad - and in the process, I have changed!!! Since change is the only constant thing ever, I'm not surprised at the change; but comparing what i was last August to what I am now - I really am surprised what the last year has brought upon me.

It is quite difficult to write this post without giving away too much of myself. Especially to people who know me personally. Still, I feel obligated to write this post, to chronicle this moment in this journal, at least for the sake of posterity! So I'm gonna be as discrete and riddled as possible!

Bottom line: I have had a great year. There have been long durations when i failed to notice it enough to appreciate how great it was. But sitting at my home here in Santiago - when i look back, I must certainly agree that it has been a good year. Business school is a one-of-its-kind beast. At least in my case, the last one year has been quite transformational. Inside the classrooms - yes! Certainly!!! Somehow i managed to entangle myself in a lot of good and bad things outside the classrooms. That, coupled with the great GSB classes, mean that these 12 months have taught me a LOT more, on a LOT many fronts, than ever.

Looking at myself today - I must admit there are changes. The perspectives on a million things (and the very act of having one), the outlook towards life and business and everything in between, professional and personal aspirations, a few core beliefs and the belief on what's core, responsibilities - including the very definition of a responsibility, plans on every front including how & what i plan for, the personality and the person - all of these have changed.

Then there are the causes behind these changes. The Experiences. The successes and the failures; the acceptances and the rejections; the realizations and the denials! The People!!! Friends - old, new and the non-friends, professors, colleagues, group mates, class mates, peers, bloggers, people i meet through the blog, people i meet through GSB - everyone has contributed to this. Some less than the others and some more! But you are featured, at least as the source for a tiny little step (or mis-step) that took me here. And to you all, I am grateful for helping me with that step at that time!

So what am I now? What is this change I am talking about?
Am I a better man today than what I was last year? I cant answer that? I'm partial when i rate myself!
A Good man or a Bad one? I don't know! Who am I to draw the lines?
But am I happier now than last year? Certainly yes! More than i could remember in quite a while!
And in the end - isn't it the only thing that matters!

Here's to all my second year friends' first years at their respective business schools and the corresponding changes it has brought about in them.

Change sure does sound like the flavor of the season!!!

Internship: Week 8

2008-08-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

This was the week of the farewells!!! Six people I've met in the last two months finished their work and took off to their respective destinations. By Thursday night, our social network had been effectively brought down to less than half the size it was a week ago. This was also a four day week. Friday, 15th August, was a Chilean National Holiday for Assumption of Mary.

In more closer circles to me - this was the last week for the French guy from BCG who was working with me. So he finished his part and left for Buenos Aires. So here I am, two more weeks of internship, left to tie all loose ends and bring the project to a grand closure. I'd be making my final recommendations to the board during my last week.

The week went by in a jiffy. We had a string of parties during the weekend and the weekly After Office was good this week. So we were sore throughout the week. On top of that, the French guy and me wanted to bring everything to near closure before he left. So we were literally cramming up five weeks of work into the last three weeks. I'm glad we've covered most of it.

So next week - i wait for inputs from a consultant (who's proving to be increasingly difficult to work with) and some evaluations from a colleague who's been given almost everything required to complete the work. Once i get these information, I will have to analyze everything, draw conclusions, make necessary changes in our recommendations and prepare the final presentation deck. As I'm nearing the end of the internship, I'm also planning to set up two-way feedback meetings with my CEO sometime next week. So, all going well, i must bring the internship to a logical closure by the end of next week.

I'm hoping to keep my last week relatively light for two reasons: (1) The presentation is on Wednesday, so there's not a lot of time left once the week starts, (2) There is a bunch of GSBites in Chile for their Random Walk and i want to hang out with them.

Hopefully - it will all work to plan.

Der Feeder

2008-08-15T09:51:00.001-05:00

Alright. I was asked to add the RSS Feeder for the blog.

I guess i am spoilt with the sophisticated live bookmarking available in Firefox 3. Seriously, you guys need to upgrade to this wonder browser. It just makes web-life SO simple :)

Nevertheless - I've added the RSS feed tool on the Right side pane.

Talking about GSB

2008-08-11T12:14:00.003-05:00

GSB just updated the online student profiles page with profiles from Class of 2009 students, including yours truly. For prospective applicants, this is a great way to hear real people talk about the school, as against reading published or printed material. So get your headphones out and start watching...

India(n) wins Olympic Gold

2008-08-11T07:16:00.000-05:00

India's Abhinav Bindra won the first individual gold medal for my country in 61 years in the Men's 10m Air Rifle event at Beijing Olympics. It is one of those moments when you feel instinctively ecstatic; and in a short while start to ponder about the million questions yet to be answered. Lets give it to the man, he has really defeated multiple odds. He really deserves all accolades that comes his way - Congrats Abhinav. You really have earned the love and applause of the billion and more Indians world wide.

You have also earned instant overreaction from the Indian Media, Politicians and general public that will come your way in the next few days! Having lived in India for the best part of 25 years, I can visualize the mindless euphoria that would follow. And everyone would forget the fact that this gold medal took 61 years coming and was not a result of a system but the sheer brilliance of an individual!

No one gave the Indian athletes any chance of winning medals, let alone a Gold, in the Olympics. To quote Suresh Kalmadi, president of the Indian Olympics Association, India should not "expect too many medals in China." The IOA and SAI are hardly worthy of supporting, let alone creating, world class athletes. There have been multiple complaints of shabby politics, favoritism and all sorts of discrimination against athletes. The latest was when Indian weightlifter Monica Devi apparently failed a drugs test and was pulled out literally hours before boarding a flight to Beijing, only to clear the same test when it was too late to play in the event. A CBI probe is looming at the biggest sports bodies of India. The national hockey team, the only Olympic gold winner for India till Abhinav, did not even qualify to Olympics this time. There has been literally no improvement in grass root level development of games. There seems to be no clear planning or execution in improving sports in India. Very often, athletes leave India and travel to other nations to train before key events - that act explains the state of the facilities. The lesser we talk about the individual sports bodies, the better.

The point I am trying to make is that this is hardly India's Gold medal. This is simply an Indian's Gold medal. In 61 years of Independence, we have not made significant strides in our quest for sports supremacy. And the people in the important positions certainly have their priorities wrong. Everyone who can talk will talk about Abhinav. He will receive a million accolades and pose with every important person in India who wants to bask in his glory. But soon, he will be forgotten and the nation will move on to the next political scandal or the biggest summer blockbuster. Including the people who could use this moment and this person to spur the imagination of a country and take steps towards creating the necessary infrastructure and providing fair opportunities to create more gold medal winners. They will claim their share in Abhinav's success, consider their job done and move on.

I believe that Abhinav has earned everything that will come his way in the next few months and perhaps many more. In a system that does not promise any podium finishers, he managed to stand on top of the podium and gave us Indians on of those rare moments of listening to our national anthem at the Olympics. I congratulate and salute him for his achievement.

Internship: Week 7

2008-08-10T23:54:00.000-05:00

This week was a drag! Really, after our Maipo escapades, everyone was so exhausted. Slowly but steadily, everyone started falling sick and by Friday - everyone was in pretty bad shape. Things weren't that good with me though, as i felt too sick on Wednesday and had to take a day off. Still had to work a bit from home. I was still in bad shape on Friday!!!

Work wise - this week was busy as hell. The five week plan became a three and then two week plan as things totally went out of control. The strategy recommendations we were working on, we were instructed, had to be ready at least by Monday of week 8. Our manager settled for a draft version, but it had to be ready on Monday because he was presenting it to our biggest client on Monday. Meanwhile, the CEO did his bit to ask us to forward the same draft to a representative from the office in the region with the most difficult business environment for our clients, making it a really lucrative/important office for us. Talk about pressure.

My consultant friend and me crammed all week and managed to get the stuff ready by Thursday. A lot of the recommendations still need to be validated and financially evaluated, which we are working on. We still need pricing information, which we'd hopefully get in a week. Hopefully, the the timeline for these processed and the negotiations with the clients coincides so that we will have concrete plans when the clients are ready to proceed. We also need to get the board's buy in on the final plan. I'm presenting to the board again on my last day at work! I guess it is a great way to bring the internship to a grand closure.

The weekend was fun. I was introduced to Poker, which i found quite fun. I even won the game that night ;) Six of our friends are leaving home this week, so we celebrated together on Saturday. All of us are understandably sore from the action, but are all set for another week of gruelling work. At least this is a short week, with Friday being a national holiday in Chile.

Hanging by a thread...

2008-08-04T12:39:00.001-05:00

I went on a weekend trip to Maipo Valley, also called Valle del Maipo, a lush region located in the South of Santiago. It is a long stretch of small villages along the Maipo River, that originates from the Maipo volcano and flows through the numerous mountains of the Andes. The valley is famous for its numerous vineyards, including the Maipo section of the famous Concho y Toro Winery.

We were planning this trip for at least a week. A classmate from GSB is with me in Santiago, working with a different entrepreneur. Her friend flew in from Canada for a week and that was our the motivation for the trip. What a great trip it turned out to be. The original plan was for the friend to reach Santiago at 7:30, we start from Santiago at 10, reach our destination (more on that later) and do all the stuff we could potentially do - horse back riding on the natural forests, bathe in hot-springs, visit a few vineyards, cook Asado on that altitude, etc. What eventually did happen is worth a huge novel.

To begin with, the flight of our friend got delayed and he missed his connecting flight in Atlanta. So it turned out that he was to come on Sunday instead of Saturday. On Friday, we went out dining with out friends in Santiago. After a heavy dinner, we decided to attend a show done by a Bon Jovi cover band. The show turned out to be awesome and we sang along with the cover band dudes till 3AM. When we hit the sack, we had time for 5 hrs of sleep before the weekend adventure.

All of us woke up at 10! Frantic preparation and multiple phone calls later, we find ourselves at the car rental place, Alamo, at 11AM. They took literally 2 hours (I'm not exaggerating) to give us a car. This, after reserving a car the previous day. So we started towards Maipo at 1PM, hoping to reach there at 2:30PM - the trip usually takes a little more than 1 hr. After maneuvering through Santiago's mid-Saturday traffic, we reach the base of the Andes and drive up to San José de Maipo, a small town on the way to Cajón del Maipo, our eventual destination. The time was already 2:15PM. We call the contact person at our hotel, and this is how the discussion went:

Us: Hey, we are the people who made reservations for the night. We're at San José de Maipo.
He: Oh great! It snowed last night. You cant drive the last 500 m. Hope you have an SUV.
Us: What! We have a mid-size-sedan. We'll come over in some time.
He: Uh, what? Sedan??? Good luck!

Really - we "felt" him grinning!!!

From San José de Maipo, we had to travel in 10 kms of tarmac and 19 kms of dirt track to reach Cajón del Maipo! The dirt track is basically a narrow strip on the mountains, where there was snow and water everywhere coz of the overnight rain. We set on our journey, and wriggled through really rough 15 kms of, when the car in front of us stopped. The driver walked towards us and, to our utter shock, declared "You have a flat tire"!!! We replaced our care tire at an altitude of 1800m, in between two huge mountains, with snow all around us. In spite of our situation, we were still overawed by the view around us. It was quite breathtaking!

We eventually fixed the tire and managed to go to T-500m of our night stay - Lo Valdes Mountain Refugio! We struggled for another 30 minutes to find a way/place to park our car. Shovelling 2ms of snow with bare hands at an altitude of 2000m to create parking space for our car definitely goes down at my most memorable experience ever. The tire-change experience comes a close second! After we parked our cars, we set on foot to the Refugio, only to find really bad pathways, with puddles of ice-cold water. We almost gave up after 200m - when the owner of the Refugio met us with his vehicle as he was going out. He gave us a ride up, during which i managed to freeze both my hands pretty badly - that really hurt. Eventually - we got to the place at 6PM and set our beds for the night. And guess what, there was snow everywhere and walking around was supposedly life threatening. We were told that we cant do anything that we planned to do. We had traveled 100kms, scaled 2000m and went through all of that suffering for literally nothing :)

The view in front of us made up for all our miseries. It was unbelievable and the best thing I've ever seen in all my life. We were really overjoyed and buoyed up by the experience of just being in such a picturesque place. The Refugio was on a small cliff, with huge mountains (some scaling above 6000m) all around us. One word - Awesome!!! But the sun sank behind the mountains pretty soon. So we finished dinner, hung around a bit and slept at 11 - when the place shuts down its generator and goes completely dark. Our mobiles had no coverage. The only connection we had to the world was a telephone line. Lying on my bed, tired from the day's activities, I felt like i was in a different world altogether and it was quite refreshingly liberating to shun all the modern bondage and be there as just a human being - me for myself!

True to our tiredness, we woke up at 8AM. We had instructed our now forgotten friend to take a taxi to San José de Maipo, but he was supposed to be there at 10:30AM. There was no snow during the night - so the snow from the previous night had frozen into ice. Driving was gonna be hell. We had to leave as soon as possible. The view outside, with the morning sun, was spellbinding. I'm running out of words to describe it. We could have stayed there for a week. We enjoyed the morning view in all its glory, finished our breakfast and left the place in a hurry. The owner of the Refugio gave us a ride to our car and all of us felt that he was holding back a huge laughter after he saw our car. He had this smug look at screamed "No kidding"! Oh well!!!

Our tires were in pretty shape and none of us were confident about crossing the dirt track without busting a tire. All sorts of contingency plans were being discussed and we were checking our tires every tenth minute. After another painstakingly agonizing two hours on the roads, with some really adept car maneuvering by our friend (I'm really impressed. she did a really great job) we reached San José de Maipo and met our friend who had been waiting there for two hours.

We just had to do something than just driving around. So we drove back a few kilometers and found a spot where they had horse back riding along the shores of the Maipo river. We finished formalities and then the guy at the place mounted us on the horses. To our total shock, we then realized, he let us handle the horses. HE DID NOT COME WITH US!!! In hindsight, it was fun to learn to communicate with and handle the horse - but the first 10 mins were scary as hell. The horses were hungry and they would stop at every sign of food - and just wont listen to us. My best moment was when my horse finally gave up and started galloping full speed at random - only for this owner guy to chase us me in another horse and bring my horse under control!!! In all possibility, i could have gone pale white through my brown skin!!!

So we at least did horse back riding. We were hungry after the trip and returned to have lunch at San José de Maipo. We merrily ordered Asado and waited for the food - for two hours. And the food was crap. It was just that kind of a weekend. We also managed to repair the tire at San José de Maipo. Once we finished lunch, it was late in the day and to started our descent to Santiago for some much needed rest. We made it to Santiago at 6:30PM and dropped the car at the renting place, to bring an eventful trip to a tame closure.

Really - that was one hell of a weekend!!! Even though nothing went as planned, we had a lot of fun. I guess it is boring if things go by plan ;)

Some shots from Valle de Maipo

And finally, the crazy tourist :)

Internship: Week 6

2008-08-04T11:08:00.000-05:00

I'd like to call this The Week of a million meetings. Seriously, that is all that we did this week. Though, through the meeting mayhem, we managed to get loads of work done! We also have our task cut out for my remaining four weeks in Chile. Busy times ahead.

The week started with a review of what happened at the board meeting. Me and the consultant intern had some important questions to answer, and we also had to decide on steps to proceed. We brainstormed all of Monday to give a structure to our approach and we had a draft ready by end of Monday. We then dug deeper into individual problems and assigned responsibilities across the five member team that we have. It was two of us, trying to define every \one's role.

As we analyzed more, new questions kept coming up and we needed to literally run on our heels to complete many tasks. Eventually, towards the end of the week, we had analyzed most of our tasks and had tangible deliverables. There is still some uncertainty regarding some tasks, but we decided to take a look at them at the end of next week, so that we will have more information. We'll be working on the remaining stuff throughout this week, apart from working on our individual responsibilities. This is pretty much what we did throughout the week!

After a week of working hard, we played hard too. Trip to Neruda's home in Santiago was a really thrilling experience. I plan to write about the trip after i visit his two other homes in Valparaiso, near Santiago. My friends and I attended a Bon Jovi Cover Band concert, which was good fun. And then, we went on a weekend trip to Maipo, which turned out to be an experience of a life time!!! A detailed post about the Maipo trip to follow...

Internship: Week 5

2008-07-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

That was a busy week again. This was the last week of my friend from HBS, and so we were slogging throughout the week to put together a presentation which is to be presented to the board at the end of Week 6. The initial deadline to finish the presentation was Wednesday. We had a board member visiting the office on Friday, so we decided to do a test run when all of us were around. This meant that we cut our deadlines by technically three days and effectively five days (taking the weekend into account).

We finally did manage to get the presentation ready by Thursday morning, and even had time to get it reviewed by our General Manager of Strategy as well as the BCG consultant who works with us. We decided that most of the feedback will be incorporated during week 6, since we did not wanna majorly tinker with the slides. On Friday, we had a 3 hour session with the board member, the CEO and the entire Strategy Development team. We were pushed for information and reasoning behind each of our suggestions and many hypothetical situations, but overall the analysis and the recommendations were very well received and the board member and CEO were very satisfied and highly impressed with our work.

Now we have to implement the other comments into the presentation, add some more slides on global strategies and make it ready for this Thursday. Also, most of the presentation is in Spanish (I'm in Chile remember) with my part in English. The HBS guy is a Spaniard, so it all went smoothly. Apparently, one of the board member does not speak English and with my friend gone, I am gonna handle the entire presentation. So someone is translating my slides into Spanish, to give printouts to this particular board member, while I'm taking notes for all the slides into English so that i have reference points during the presentation. Oh the travails of working in Chile :)

I also meet with my General Manager tomorrow, to discuss future steps after the presentation. We know what to do, but we're short of time and I am hoping to allot responsibilities accordingly. Also, we need to work on a transition schedule, because the team will shrink down from five members to just two by the time i leave. I might also have lunch with my CEO sometime during the week - something I'm really looking forward to. Here's to another week of crazy and exciting fun at my work place!!!

A truly Global MBA - v2.0

2008-07-26T10:45:00.001-05:00

This is a list of the food I consumed over the course of the week...

Sunday - Oriental food at Asian Bistro (albeit a bit Chileanized)
Monday - Authentic Spanish Tapas (the taste of that Spanish Tortilla is still lingering in my mouth...)
Tuesday - Yummy Japanese Sushi (Santiago has fresh sea food, so the sushi is great)
Wednesday - Italian Pizza (purchased from the truly American Pizza Hut though)
Thursday - Greasy Desi food (yeah! Indian food in Santiago)
Thursday Night - Chilean Asado (loads of great meat)
Friday - Sandwiches (okay - where did this originate from?)

As you can say, quite a busy week eh...

Internship: Week 4

2008-07-20T20:49:00.000-05:00

This week was a start-stop-start kind of week, and the one where I've had the most fun yet. Wednesday was a holiday, as it was the day of the feast for Our Lady of Mount Carmel (or Mary, the mother of Jesus). A mid-week holiday always disturbs the momentum you gain, and this one was no different. We still managed to achieve our milestones for the week.

Work was busy as usual. We are submitting level 1 recommendations to the board in Week 6, for which we have a preliminary presentation in Week 5. Our aim was to finalize the presentation and get things done by the end of this week. Also, we had recommended a client survey, to validate our conclusions, and the client survey was due on Friday. We needed to be ready with that information on Friday. Everything went on well.

There are three Indians (two from Chicago GSB and one from Babson) doing their summer internship in Chile. This Friday, the three of us got together to prepare Indian dinner for the rest of our friends in Chile. It was a three hour long ordeal in the small kitchen/living room of the Babson dude, but it was well worth the trouble. The extensive menu of Chicken Tikka Masala, Fried Vegetables, Rice, Breads and Raitha came out very very well and was well received by the international audience.

This was followed by a day long trip to a nearby vineyard on Saturday. During the trip, we tasted different types of wine, travelled in a Steam Engine Train, saw a little bit of Chilean folk dancing and witnessed a huge sprawl of vineyard space from tall cliffs. Quite a day to remember.

Week five thus begins, and it promises to be one more busy week as we prepare for the presentation on Friday. This week is also the last for the other intern from HBS, so it is gonna be one of farewell.

Internship: Week 3

2008-07-14T09:37:00.002-05:00

Last week was hectic, and that is an understatement. My first assignment was coming to a closure – I just had one more interview to do and then assimilate all information. I'd already completed the out of order requests that came my way. But then, when you are working for a start up, there is never a day when things go by your plan. I was pulled into two meetings where everyone talked in Spanish and I was like :-o One of these meetings, I was informed like 15 minutes before the meeting, and they have me a stack of papers to read up and be prepared before the meeting! The other meeting was almost four hours long! Oh well – the joys of Entrepreneurship! Anyway – I did manage to have the interview and finish the write up, only for the General Manager to schedule a review meeting on Tuesday. Am I cribbing too much here? I actually love this job and this on-the-needle experience :)

My second assignment was given to me in Week 2, and it was so interesting, I started working on it already. I'm trying to top load myself, so that I won't be stressed during the last few weeks of my internship. But that's making my days quite busy. This task involved a lot of research – I mean lots!!! I gathered content for a day and was reading it for the next three days. That plenty. The good news is that I have the write up 75% ready already, and it is satisfying to have covered as much when the task officially begins only today! But I have a suspicion that these guys will find a way to keep me busy throughout!

Finally the whole initiative is coming together. We had a discussion with the team and worked on how we're gonna present our recommendations to the board and how the individual pieces each of us are working on fit into the overall story. That discussion's given a lot of perspective and direction, and the team was glad that we're in good shape. In fact, our CEO was so glad that he sponsored two of our lunches last week ;)

Overall – week 4 is gonna be more work. This Wednesday is a holiday, so that would be a welcome break. We are entering the business area of the internship and, going by the first three weeks, it promises to be good fun and a lot of learning.

Chilean blogshots - Part 1: Santiago

2008-07-09T16:42:00.002-05:00

It was Saturday morning.

So I've been in Chile for two weeks and haven't really seen anything but office and home. I was dying to see parts of the city. It was also a very sad situation because by design or by fate, I do not have a camera with me. I'd given the old one to my brother and I could not buy the new one in time for the trip. I've been damning myself for that mistake – this city is very nice and there are so many nice shots I could visualize. Okay – enough cribbing!

So on Saturday my classmate from GSB who also happens to intern in Santiago called up and we made plans to explore some part of the city. So we discussed and consulted people and numerous guides (we always make a fuss) and finally decided on Plaza de Armas in the center of Santiago.

Santiago has a decent metro system and we took the Red line to the la moneda stop, from where Plaza de Armas is a nice walk through an array of government buildings.

Right outside the station – we found a Burger King. Before we crossed two blocks – we saw three Burger King Outlets. This city is has SO much American fast food. You cannot walk 3 blocks without seeing a KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut or a McDonald. Even though I was hungry, we decide to skip the Amrican options and walked further.

The first building we saw was the presidential palace, El Palacio de la Moneda. This is a Chilean National Monument and historical building, closely tied to a lot of historical events in Chile. The President works here. It was surprisingly easy to get access to walk on the patios of the palace – ask one of the guards and you're all set to enter; with camera! To go inside the building, we need ID proof and have to go through a security check. Still, we were allowed to take cameras without any question. May be I am overreacting here. The palace has a gorgeous fountain inside and there are beautiful cast metal structures to capture your imagination. But the best part of entering into the building was the Orange trees. I've never seen one in my life – and these trees were loaded with ripe oranges!

In front of the presidential palace is a huge park and there are many government buildings around the palace. My friend and I walked through these buildings and reached one of those Chilean market places which was SO full of people, we were thrilled. The place had concrete roads, benches in the middle of these roads and all shops were very very colorful. My friend went crazy taking "I was here" pictures :) We then grabbed a quick bite at a nearby café (which surprisingly had an English menu, but less than average food) and walked further. On the way, we also purchased the biggest and the tastiest dark grapes I've ever seen. Delicious!!!

Plaza de Armas is quite a phenomenon. It is like an open fair – and there was so much cheap (I mean really cheap) artwork you could buy here, we were really amazed. This is like the everyday or weekend carnival of Santiago. We enjoyed every moment we spent there. The place also has a huge park with a lot of trees (imagine a concrete square, with concrete roads, having a thick bunch of trees – an oasis of sorts really) and there were small shops under these trees selling all sorts of stuff. Heck, there was a small hall where people were busy playing Chess! We spent almost 30 – 45 minutes just gaping at the buzzing energy and diversity of the place.

Our last stop for the day was the Mercado Central, a huge and busy market place (lots of seafood and meat being sold here). Just an old school market place that amazed me with its scale. We ended the evening by walking into one of the many tiny little restaurants in this place and tasting Ceviche. It was the best thing I'd eaten since I'd set my foot on Chilean soil. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes sea food – it was the best closure to the evening.

More about Santiago and Chile, as and when more weekend tours happen :)

PS: Check this page for a virtual tour of central Santiago. This is a HUGE place and will probably take like a day to explore. We only explored parts of it.

PPS: A lot of things are inferred, given my poor Spanish skills. If something needs correction, please let me know and I'll change it.

Internship: Week 2

2008-07-07T10:26:00.000-05:00

This firm sure has a LOT of work to do. I am a member of this unique group called "Development Group" and we added one more person to this group last week. This person is a BCG consultant and will spend 6 weeks in Santiago with us. Everyone i meet is so surprised that the firm needs three people to work on its next version - but in reality, it does. Actually, we've been involved in deep conversations on how the firm will manage the milestones we set for it once all of us leave. So I'm not surprised at all.

It is not just this we discuss about. The three of us discuss anything and everything about how we want to take this wonderful firm to the next level. It may well seem like we are creating opportunities for the firm. The truth is that this is a company brimming with possibilities and we are just trying to prevent and save the company from doing mistakes. We are, in effect, trying to give the company a meaning, a direction and tell them what makes sense and what does not. Very importantly, we are trying to help them see how in the long run, these decisions will place them better than just taking up everything that comes their way.

Needless to say, I am learning a LOT and enjoying myself in the process. The fun of exploring a new city and a new culture also adds to the really good time I'm having here. This weekend we were busy socializing, with a dinner on Friday, sight seeing on Saturday and another dinner on Sunday. I'm also meeting a diverse group of really interesting people in the process and am learning on multiple fronts from them.

Overall - this promises to be a summer (well, it is winter in Chile) to remember and even though I am constantly tired with all the work and socializing, I am certainly enjoying every moment of it.

A consultant's moment

2008-07-02T15:57:00.000-05:00

Everyday, my friend from HBS and I have lunch at a Sandwich place near our work place. The food is unbelievably fresh, healthy and incredibly yummy! We have a heavy lunch (as is the culture of Chile) and on our way back to office, we have honey-roasted-nuts for dessert ;) This stuff is apparently available in New York City too - and is sold by a Chilean!

Yesterday, the two of us suddenly ventured into estimating how much the nut-vendor earned per day! We went around on a sound discussion (we have about 3 blocks to walk to reach office) and by the end of it, we had brought in standard deviation, the bell curve, estimated population of Santiago, estimated floating population in this touristy city, % of them in downtown, approximate "office hours" for the nut-vendor, number of packs he could make in an hour, number of packs people could consume in an hour, and perhaps many other parameters. The analysis fast and furious - for understandably no reason. Finally - we settled at an excessive estimate of a revenue of 150000 Chilean Pesos (approximately US$300) for the nut vendor per day.

During our dessert time today, we got curious and asked him.
His answer: 120000 Chilean Pesos (approximately US$240).

Considering it was a blind estimate - not bad eh...

The ScoreTop Fiasco

2008-07-01T19:21:00.000-05:00

The story came to existence when GMAC shutdown the website and then BW covered the story (BW Story 1). The initial estimate of around 1000 violators by GMAC was then increased to 6000 and it made big news; BW published another article (BW Story 2) and there is a huge debate in their forums (BW discussion thread). GMAC tried to answer some questions with a ScoreTop FAQ, but I guess it still left a lot of questions unanswered.

This is hot topic in probably all business schools. This site is a disgrace. The well-being of the site highly depended on a snow-balling effect, in test takers coming back and reporting scores. Of course, it is well documented that Mr. Lei Shi himself appeared for the GMAT thrice, but that's hardly sufficient to run the site for 5 years. The mere existence of the site for well over five years is a clear reflection of the times we live in. When people are desperate, most of them take the easy way out. But guess what, Karma hits back!!!

It is ridiculous to see the perspectives thrown around in numerous discussions. "Test takers were innocent" say many - they're clearly not on firm footing. "How could GMAC cancel my score. I will sue them if they do so." say others - not knowing it wont stand the test of law. "Will my percentile score improve?" or "Will I get off the waitlist because of this" - question a few self centered ones! Some even have the audacity to publicly say "I scored well and got into a M7 school purely because of this website. If they cancel scores, I'll never be able to score the same again", not knowing that GMAC is never letting them sit for the exam again. Even more audacious is when someone says to this person "Don't worry! You haven't done anything wrong." Some even argue "These students must be kicked out because one of the qualities of a successful business person is to do a mistake well and leave no trace; and they have failed in that regard." I've been lost in this maze and don't know what's worse...

My opinion is certainly not going to change anything, but to me this is straight forward. In my eyes, anyone who signed up for the VIP membership has violated GMACs test policies. They clearly had an unfair advantage that others did not have. It was all but common knowledge that the JJs had live GMAT questions. Actually, this has been settled beyond debate in the court of law - the very reason why the website is down. I wouldn't be surprised if GMAC cancels scores of all 6000 students who signed up for the VIP access. But that decision involves a lot of subjective evaluation and would be a bit too rash from GMAC. I'm sure GMAC is more sensible than that. There are violators who went on to post questions in the forum from their tests - and these guys are definitely getting their scores cancelled. In theory, most of these VIP members could be students or alumni of top business schools in USA and hence the repercussions of GMAC cancelling a bunch of scores could be intimidating.

I believe GMAC will certainly cancel scores of many people, otherwise the point of the whole exercise is lost and the signal that it wants to send to such websites will not be sent. I am quite curious to see how this unfolds. If you had a VIP membership, pray!

Internship: Week 1

2008-06-29T19:27:00.000-05:00

There is a novelty to advising C-level executives of growing firms, even if they are from relatively small firms, and I am going to experience that novelty throughout my summer. My typical day involves multiple interactions with the General Managers of various departments of the firm i work for and also a few meetings with the CEO. In my first week, I've also met all the members of the Board of Directors and discussed about the firm with them. I feel like i am and could add a LOT of value to this firm, which we believe is at the brink of explosive growth. All going well, this promises to be a great summer experience.

I am here in this firm basically because the CEO wants to take things to the next step and he's asked a 40+ consultant to investigate on what has to be done. This consultant has put together a short term group - that includes two interns: me and another person from HBS. The two of us want to leave this place with clear directives in place, so that this person can aide the CEO in making the changes we recommend. We obviously need to get the Board's buy-in before we leave. That, believe me, makes for a really exciting summer.

I've gotten to know Santiago better over the last week. I've stopped using the expensive cabs and have started using the highly efficient and affordable Metro for everyday commute. I'm picking up Spanish words and have started using them whenever possible. I've explored a little bit of the city and have started making plans for short trips around Santiago. I've learnt how hospitable Chileans are and am growing to like this culture and the way everything is done here. Overall, it is a lot of learning in 10 weeks - but I am sure the experience will help me in numerous ways!

I'll close this post with an interesting fact: The last summer i saw was Chennai August 2007 and if i do spend time in a summery place next year, I'd have spent two years without seeing summer. For someone born and brought up in Chennai, that's crazy!!!

From one winter to another

2008-06-24T13:17:00.000-05:00

Chile is cold. This is winter here and i was shocked the moment i walked out of the airport and saw snow on the roofs of all cars! This winter is not like the winter i encountered in Brazil. This is harsher. But the winter means that i see snow capped mountains circling around Santiago, and my 19th floor apartment looks right into these mountains through a string of skyscrapers - making a wonderful sight to wake up to.

Santiago is a nice city and I've had a good two days here in the capital of Chile. The city breathes in Spanish and Spanish only - too bad for me! I really need to learn Spanish. It is going to be very difficult to get my way around the city and live here for 10 more weeks without learning the language. I'm picking up words and recollecting those I've learnt earlier - but the curve is harshly steep! The plan is to learn enough to communicate smoothly by the end of the internship.

My internship began three hours after my 40 hr flight journey ended and i was able to keep up the entire day because of the exciting conversations all day along. This is a great opportunity to positively impact a company that is ripe with opportunities and I'm very glad i made this choice. The next 10 weeks i will be working on taking this company to the next level and hopefully get the CEO to invest in the infrastructure and man-power required to do so. In my first few conversations with him, he seems to be more than willing to listen to us.

Us? Yeah - i have a partner, at least for the next five weeks. There is a Harvard half-MBA who has been here for three weeks and will return in five weeks. He's a Spaniard and speaks fluent Spanish, so i seek his help to talk to people around. Yesterday, we were involved in a wonderful conversation about what we can do for this company and we'd walk out happy if we can achieve the things we discussed. He's done some great work in the last three weeks and we hope to take that forward in the next 10 weeks. We'll see how that goes.

I feel like August 2007 in Chicago - new city and not many friends. I've made a few friends in the last two days, but i need a translator to talk to most of them. There is a bunch of interns in the city and we need to meet up pretty soon and start exploring the city and Chile. More updates as it happens...

10 days in the Metro

2008-06-16T02:15:00.000-05:00

I'm home! Been here for 4 days now. Have done SO much work. It is fun to catch up with Chennai roads and the mad rush of traffic. And it is more fun to be reunited with my motorbike :)

Exam week was crazy. I gave a final Monday morning, finished off a take home that took me almost 25 hrs and gave a client presentation that was well received. On the way back, i met with almost half the Indian GSB admits in Delhi (including my mentee) and had some good conversations! Looking forward to September to spend more time with them, but looks like recruitment starts very very soon! So we'll see :)

I'm flying out this Saturday, contingent to the issue of the Chilean Visa. My agents say it should be fine. I'm very keen to begin the internship but am certainly not looking forward to the 40 hour flight from Chennai to Santiago.

I'm hosting a GSB mixer in Santiago. Hopefully there will be a decent turn out. If there's any native from Santiago here, any suggestions for a place to arrange an informal meetup???

Wind on your face...

2008-06-07T19:21:00.000-05:00

This might sound mundane for many of you, but I just realized how blissful it is to experience a ride with the wind flowing on your face. Especially if the ride happens to be right next to a beautiful water body like Lake Michigan. To really understand what it means, you must have experienced the Chicago weather. Not just the winter, but the stop-gap method in which it transitions from winter to summer.

That's right, Spring is not a long-term affair in the windy city. There's really 10 - 15 days of spring, not continuous; and then the sultry summer is here. I just happened to be in the right place (inside a car on the lake shore drive) at the best time possible - a springy dusk. My heart weeped like a kid whose candy was stolen, when the car took the exit closest to my destination.

In one blissful moment, I suddenly felt at home.

A truly Golbal MBA?

2008-06-05T15:23:00.000-05:00

One half of my status line in facebook reads "Iday is gonna live in 3 continents over the next 30 days!"

My journey across the globe and back starts this Tuesday, only after i finish one in-class final, one take-home final and one client presentation in 30 hours. And i have another case writeup to turn in after i reach home. I dont even know the miles i would have clocked at the end of the journey, during which i would have flown over (and actually set my foot on) 4 continents, 4 Countries and 6 Cities. I would have also met one of my mentees (first year GSB student), a bunch of first years, some old and new friends, my summer employers (and exciting Chilean) entrepreneur, other entrepreneurs in the region, GSB alum in Chile and nearby, a group of exciting people from different b-schools working with other entrepreneurs in Chile (and hopefully Argentina too), prospective applicants from Chile at a GSB event and make a lot of Chilean friends. I'll also work in an industry completely different from my earlier experience and in an economy unlike India or USA. The take-aways are numerous.

I'm excited to say the least.

The other half of the status line: "A truly global MBA experience..."

Half an MBA!!!

2008-05-25T14:10:00.001-05:00

It is quite surprising, but year one of Business school is about to end. The obvious question at this juncture is this: "Three quarters of GSB - has it been all that i expected it to be?" I must admit - I certainly learnt more than i thought i would learn in Business schools. I certainly plan to do a year-1 review at some point of time in the near future.

Life has turned on its head with a few recent domestic developments. One of those c'est la vie moments! It brought with it its own fair share of realizations and revelations though!!! Things are better now for everyone, and will hopefully continue to improve.

Life in school is as busy as usual. It is hard to believe we are done with 9 out of the 15 issues of Chibus we are responsible for. It has been a great experience so far and I'm definitely enjoying my time inside the tiny Chibus office. Yours truly danced at the GSB Follies - the annual artsy show put together by students. I also enjoyed my first skydiving experience at a pad near Chicago. It was totally breathtaking (quite literally) and I would totally do it a million times!

Taking four courses at the GSB leads to a lot of burn out! I'm right in the middle of one and am SO looking forward to bring this quarter to closure. It also, i guess, makes one focus more on academics and this has arguably been my best performing quarter yet. Hopefully the grades befit the effort :)

I'm flying to Chennai for about 10 days after the finals, and flying to Chile straight from there. I'm still working out my Chilean visa though. Looks like i dont have enough time to get a Visa in Chicago. So I'm planning to apply for the visa in Chennai. Hopefully the process will be as smooth as it was for the Brazil visa.

So - looks like I'm right in the middle of a million things; and that exactly is business school :) Still cannot believe I'm gonna be half-an-MBA in 2 weeks, but I cannot complain. I've loved the experience so far and certainly look forward to the second half of the roller coaster ride.

India Business Conference @ GSB

2008-05-19T01:31:00.000-05:00

The South Asia Business Group of Chicago GSB hosted the Annual India Business Conference on Saturday. GSB Sutras, a classmate, just published a comprehensive writeup about the day in his blog.

BoB results 2008

2008-04-29T10:26:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to winners of BoB 2008 - July Dream (applicant) and m@ (student). Enjoy your new iPod touch guys! Also, congratulations to all the others who made it to the final list. It has been a great pleasure reading your blogs and i hope to continue reading them...

Employed - finally!!!

2008-04-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

I just accepted the offer for my summer internship! I had time till Wednesday to decide, but after a few rounds of introspection i figured I'm already decided on this one and so i did not want to keep my recruiters waiting. So finally my internship search comes to an end, and the wait was certainly worth the job I finally got.

Contrary to popular belief (churned by my own posts i must admit), I will not be interning at an Investment Bank. Instead, I will be working with an Entrepreneur in Chile to help expand his business. In theory, I will be working for a firm in NYC that works with entrepreneurs in emerging economies. It promises to be a great learning experience, quite unconventional, challenging and with significantly higher responsibilities. I really am looking forward to the summer in Chile.

The internship search, for me, has been a great learning experience and has helped me understand a few important things that i did not know about myself. Very importantly, it made me stare at failure, provided more clarity to what i want to do long-term in my career, opened my eyes to numerous other opportunities that i found very interesting, and re-affirmed that there are many roads to Rome!

I am planning on writing a book about it at some point of time. Title suggestions anyone???

BoB 2007-2008 Nomination

2008-04-13T15:35:00.000-05:00

I have been nominated, once again, for ClearAdmit BoB. This time, it is under the student bloggers list. Thank you ClearAdmit; I very much appreciate the recognition. And congratulations to all the other nominees.

I believe this is a great time to ruminate on the past 12 months, as far as the blogging goes. I should admit, i intended to blog a LOT more than i did. There are many Chicago GSB experiences i wish i could have spent more time and words on, but it did not happen so. I clearly underestimated the time commitments of a Bschool life. Having said that, i should also admit that given the crazy schedule of a GSB life, i am surprised myself i blogged as much as I did. I'm just doing SO many things at school, and I hope i gave a peek into my life in the Windy City.

As promises go, I am trying to get my life back in order. I believe i am almost there, and once done i should waste lesser time on thinking about myself and more on things i love to do - blogging included. There is definitely more to GSB-life, and I hope to bring more to you guys in the months to come.

More blogging

2008-04-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

Being a well-known blogger, well, brings more blogging.

I have been entrusted with the responsibility of managing the blog for the upcoming India Business Conference, organized by the South Asian Business Group of Chicago GSB. The blog went live a few days ago, and is quite fun. If you follow Indian Business, keep an eye open for updates on the conference through the blog.

Best of Blogging 07-08

2008-03-30T14:05:00.000-05:00

The annual BoB is around the corner. Check out ClearAdmit's post on this here.
There's a good bunch of nice B-school bloggers around. I'm curious to see who makes the first cut and then the final cut. April's gonna be exciting this way ;)

The MIA quarter

2008-03-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

These days, I haven't been blogging as frequently or as well as I'd like to blog. True to its reputation, winter quarter proved to be very very hectic. Academics went up a notch or two, we got involved in numerous activities in school and occasionally, there are things and people to catch up with. If i could do a snapshot of the last three months, it would be full! Such has been this quarter. I'll try to capture what happened, as succinctly as possible.

Academics: This quarter ended up being as painful as i thought it would be. If you remember, i had two accounting courses and the other one was investments. I thoroughly enjoyed (call me a geek) the intense arithmetic, especially in investments, and the accounting courses helped me learn accounting at a much deeper and wider level, after basic accounting in autumn quarter. If i read a annual report, i can make a LOT of sense today, and also derive a lot of conclusions about the firm. It was a LOT of work though, especially towards the end, what with one of the profs teaching the entire course through assignments! I also attended an excel based financial modeling seminar, which surprisingly ended up being super fun. Besides all the accounting i learned, the course on Investments turned out to be really enjoyable. This prof talked formula as if it was his mother tongue; he was better in this language than English, much to the chagrin of many of my classmates! I was enjoying a feeling of dejavu, as he reminded me of of my engineering days, including the cheap thrills when i could recite formulas from the top of my head ;) Irrespective of the grades, this was a fulfilling quarter in terms of what i learned.

Internship: I saw someone asking me the question in the previous post, and the short answer is "No. I don't have a job yet." I went through on campus recruiting, interviewed with a few firms (big name banks included) but unfortunately things did not work out for me. I still value the experience as it helped me learn a lot of things i would eventually use in my career, and it also helped me re-assess myself and go at recruiting all the more harder. It also took me to sides of GSB's career services that i would have never seen. Not to sound boastful - GSB's career services team is absolutely fabulous. Now i see why Economist rated them so high. As for my internship search, i am working on a set of exciting opportunities. Hopefully i will have good news to share soon.

Chibus: This deserves special mention. We're 33% done, unless we delay transition next year, which we intend to do. Being responsible for Chibus has been the single most important experience for me at GSB. It has helped me meet people i probably would not have met otherwise. It is enriching me with experiences which i would have certainly not had. It has offered me perspectives of the kind that would have required a few more years for me to learn. All in about 10 weeks! I love it and cant wait to work on the next issue!!!

Winter Quarter: I've been through a lot this quarter. I gave myself the time to assimilate and absorb the things i learned about myself. I started the quarter as a wreck and today, i feel better than i have felt in quite some time. Both personally and professionally, I've found myself in situations where i was forced to ask really deep and difficult questions to myself, in places where i had to reassess my beliefs and opinions about people, and i believe i made the right decisions. To sum it up, i think this quarter completed what started sometime last quarter - to help me learn about myself, and to improve upon what i saw. I believe I've done that well. Time will tell.

Spring Quarter: I have a packed quarter ahead. I have four courses - Corporation Finance, Economics and Policy of TMT (with Mr. Goolsbee, economic adviser to the famous-person-i-met-in-the-elevator), Marketing Strategy and New Venture Lab. I am super psyched about NVL. I got the project i SO wanted to do and I am sure i am gonna learn a lot, while having good fun, with the project. I'm quite excited about the other courses too, so overall it looks promising.

So with four courses, Chibus and recruitment - I guess I'm gonna be the same infrequent blogger in this quarter too. I am gonna make a genuine attempt at being more frequent that last quarter though. I missed blogging this quarter :)

Good luck R2-ers

2008-03-17T07:18:00.001-05:00

This is finals week, and things are understandably crazy. I have an exam in exactly 39 minutes...

GSB R2 results are out this week and i guess they would start calling people from today. I dont have first hand information, but that is what happened last year. I remember being there, and I just wanted to wish everyone on the other side of the bridge very good luck. I hope to see you on our side very soon.

If you happen to get in and think i can help you in your decision anyway, feel free to drop a line.

Update: I'm not sure if it is my insomnia, or if there has been a change in dates, but the results will be out only on 26th, says this page. Still - my wishes stay :)

I'm alive, yeah...

2008-03-14T02:29:00.002-05:00

I know. Long time, no see!!! Life has been hectic. This quarter has been a great turning point coz i have been forced to introspect a lot and ask difficult questions to myself. After brooding on them for quite a while, i believe that i am beginning to hear answers from within. My first real winter has been an unforgettable experience.

I've been reading a lot these days. Course material of course. I'm doing that a lot more this week coz I have my winter quarter finals next week. Apart from that, I have been using many forms of media to read/hear/see a lot. The Economist Audio Edition is a GREAT tool. I've been able to cover a lot more of the magazine this way, than the traditional book-reading way. Highly recommended. I also signed up for HBR, and the issues being discussed and the perspectives are really really good. Not that HBR needs by support - but I'm just declaring myself to be an official entry into the really long list of HBR fans.

A few days ago, i happened to find out the podcast on CNBC's "The Business of Innovation". Ignore the "in house innovation expert" though, i find him irritating. But i guess he's there for shock value! The show is very well packaged, with very relevant examples, discussed important topics on innovation and it's got me hooked on to it.

I know i really haven't written anything about this quarter. I am struggling to find time to write something for the blog. I finish my exams next week and I promise a quarter round up for sure. May be more than one post.

A few points before i go:
Admit Weekend 1 happened last weekend. It was great - i met a lot of people who i met during the admission process. I look forward to seeing them all back in September.
Second round results are around the corner. Goo luck to everyone who's been waiting with crossed fingers.
Spring is here. Yaaaaay....
I'll be in California for Spring Break. If any one is around and wanna catch up for coffee/drinks - leave a comment.
I've got a great but hectic spring quarter with 4 course. More on that later, once things get confirmed.

That's it for now. Take care everyone.
Let me dig deep into Futures & Forwards & Options...

Taming the brat...

2008-02-22T11:22:00.001-06:00

GSB really is. Or perhaps I am growing up ;)

Quoting one of my closest friends - "I love the way B-school is turning out to be a life changing experience"!!!

A Forrest Gump Like moment...

2008-02-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

So today morning, earphones in place, MSS pouring her blissful voice (Kurai Ondrum Illai) into my ecosystem, I walked out of home to meet a friend at school. I live in the 18th floor, and the elevator stops very soon on its descent to the lobby. Enter two burly men, and behind them someone very very familiar. Someone who has been, a year ago, little known in America, let alone the world. Someone who's been sweeping victories all over America in the recent few days. Someone who could potentially be Mr. First Citizen of USA in a year's time.

Mr. Barack Obama.

We exchanged greetings and knowing smiles. I was too overwhelmed, and the elevator journey too short, to talk anything.

For some strange reason i was reminded of Forrest Gump, his moments and his journey. I smiled to myself and started walking. Kurai Ondrum Illai...

Winter - Finally!!!

2008-02-10T12:49:00.000-06:00

It supposedly feels like -30 degree C outside. The Lake is freezing right in front of my eyes, or may be not!!! This is the coolest it has got this year - and i am stuck in my room preparing for tomorrow's midterm. Once it is over, i am gonna hit the roads and suck up to the cold :D

I know - i am strange. I like, no I LOVE, the dead cold of the winter!!!

BTW - here's the view of Lake Michigan from my home.

It looks still and it definitely looks cold! What will it feel like to stand at its shores, when it is in this kind of a sullen mood??? I intend to find out soon and I'll let all you once i know ;)

My first editorial

2008-01-28T00:40:00.000-06:00

It is up here. Nothing spectacular.
Definitely not as spectacular as the way it was written.

We feel that the paper was handed over at a wrong time. The evil combination of recruitment is and class work is killing enough. To handle production of the paper in between all this is fun only in hindsight!!!

Chi-buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2008-01-17T08:03:00.000-06:00

7:30 AM today, on a call with my publisher...
Me: Well, thanks for all the help! Have a good night!
She: (After a pregnant pause) Well. To you too.
Me: Oh Wait! Did i just say Good Night???
She: (Chuckle) Yeah!!!

It has been that kind of a week. With classes and recruitment at their rigorous best, B school is back again. In the middle of all this, we just submitted our first edition of ChiBus for print. The paper should be in our hands today noon and i cannot describe the excitement and fear. Since people are busy with recruitment, it was just me and my co-editor in chief from start to finish, with considerable help from three other souls. End result: near sleepless nights for the last three days. The best part was when i wrote my first editorial in the bus on my way home. I had to suit up and attend a recruitment event and the bus journey was the only time i had in between. It was crazy fun!!!

Well, i hope the paper came out alright. We'll know this evening.

I'm gonna crash now. Good day folks.
Later...

Talk about timing

2008-01-12T23:20:00.000-06:00

I'm down with a fever. The doctor on call @ Uchicago-hospitals says it could be some sort of viral infection. I had to skip a career services event today, where i was scheduled to have a mock interview. Our interview week starts in about 10 days. I have a bunch of mocks lined up during next week.

I've fallen sick at exactly the wrong time!!!

After 15 hours of sleep (and that's quite a waste of time actually, considering what's happening around), after taking medicine prescribed by the doctor and some comforting phone calls from friends - i feel slightly better. I have SO much work to do; i am actually looking at an all-nighter. Like everyone at school, I have a tough 3 weeks ahead. Three classes to which i have vowed my fullest possible commitment, recruitment, Chibus (our first issue coming out next week) and customizing myself (as clearadmit put it) - makes for an overflowing calender. I still enjoy doing it all, just hoping my health would return to normal soon.

I believe it is recruiting time at almost all schools, with fellow first year bloggers blogging their experiences and perspectives. Here's wishing them all good luck in their respective job searches. Hope you'll find the job of your liking, and come out with posts about the same in February.

Winter Quarter begins...

2008-01-09T23:48:00.000-06:00

The winter quarter of the first year is the sum of a defining few weeks in the life of a GSB student. This is when we start realizing the potential of the customizable curriculum and this is when most of us get our internship offers. The quarter starts in anxiety and ends with jubilation and a mood of celebration! I am looking forward to the next 10 weeks.

I waited to post about my courses, because i wanted to sit through one class before commenting on them. I have signed up for three courses this quarter - Accounting & Financial Analysis I (also called footnote accounting), Accounting & Financial Analysis II (also called M&A accounting) and Investments. After a quarter of fighting through a particularly less exciting Microeconomics (the face-value excitement fizzed out) and a quantitatively dull Accounting course, I feel totally at home this quarter with the three math heavy courses i have signed up for. We're also applying a lot of what we learnt in accounting in the previous quarter, so that is kind of fun as well.

With these courses though, there is a key differences - the work load is heavy! I feel terribly bad about the this part because we have really good work to do but i don't see how we can humanly handle course work and recruitment. I really want to give these courses the time they deserve and i see that it is gonna be a huge case of time management, at least early on in this quarter. I am gonna give it a good shot though.

At the recruitment front, things have started happening again. Interviews are scheduled to begin on 22nd and we have a series of mock interviews starting this Saturday. I am smack in the middle of preparation, and so is everyone else. The mocks will be a great testing ground to foolproof answers and interview strategies before the real ones come home.

In a strange sense I am enjoying being in the midst of all the excitement, after the four week long break from business school. The break was good in a lot of other ways - self introspection and all that jazz. I found a few flaws in me as a person, decided to work on them and i guess i already see positive changes. Too soon to judge if they have changed me, but i intend to improve on what i am seeing. Let's see where this takes me!!!

Here's to a great 2008...

2007-12-31T18:54:00.000-06:00

In a few hours from now, I will leave home, only to return next year. It is that time of the year! It is party time - time to welcome the New Year in style – dancing, full of happiness, yelling hopeful wishes and praises for the things the New Year promises to bring with it.

Having seen as many new years as I have seen in my life, I am learning to understand life better. I look back at the recent many New Year Eve's i have had and I see a mix of all sorts of emotions. I especially compare it to last new year's eve, and look at all the things i have learnt and experienced over the last 12 months. This year has been unbelievably educative. I have had some of my best experiences over the last 365 days. Really, at this point, the plan for next year would be to imbibe all the learnings i have had this year and improve into a better person.

I see that nothing is constant in life - as cliched as it might sound. I see that one keeps learning new things every day, even more so while at business school, and one has to try make improvements all the time. Every year - some of our theories and beliefs get proved, some get disproved and some modified. In the process ,we also form new beliefs and theories - to be meddled with next year. Every man, as an individual entity, evolves every single day; every single year. Fundamentally though, it is very important to live the moment, enjoy the times, stop worrying about anything at all, and try to be more happier today than you were yesterday! At the end that is what matters :)

I would like to quote this line from a hindi movie that i watched recently - "hamari filmon ki tharah hamari zindagi mein bhi, end thak sabh kuch theek ho jatha hai." A literal translation of that would be - like in these movies, even in our lives, by the time the show ends everything gets alright.

So live the moment, live this NYE and live it out tonight. Have so much fun and enjoy so well that you can say that tonight, you were more happy than any other day in your life. So that tomorrow, you can wake up and try to beat that!!!

So here is to a great 2008! Cheers to everyone!!!

Me, Myself and My Other Self

2007-12-29T17:11:00.000-06:00

This is gonna be a rant. I am in that kind of a mood!!!

I have witnessed a vicious circle. A circle that spans across more than 10 years. Ten long years, during which i have fallen, risen and fallen again. No one is to blame. I am responsible.

I guess every time i join an educational institution, i somehow get into some sort of mess. High School, Undergrad and now Bschool. Different types of mess. Each one worse than the earlier. One constant thing is that, however complicated the mess is, everything gets alright in the end. Yes, every time, there is an end, albeit too late. Not necessarily a good/happy ending - but an ending all the same. Another constant thing is, i march on. With my wounds and with my scars, i march on. I lose a lot in the process, and feel terribly bad about it. I keep feeling bad about it, till i dont feel anything about it - and this for me takes a LONG time. I am going through one now, hoping it will end soon. That constant thing called "end" that i just mentioned above, i cant see it!!! I will see it though, eventually...

I am sure everyone goes through tough phases in life, and that these phases, in a way, are good for an individual in the longer run. But you feel terribly bad when you look back at the reason for your mess, and realize that if you had stuck to your learnings from your previous experiences, you could have avoided the mess. Also, when you look back and see that you have complicated things for yourself, and the other person involved, by trying to be someone you are not, everything looks so ridiculous. Right now, i am feeling ridiulously messed up because for a long time, i have been trying to be someone i am not.

Now that i realize these things, i am going through a series of what ifs and what nots. But then, ifs and buts dont make life. Facts do. And the fact is, the vicious cycle has struck once too often in my life. It is too clear as to what i need to do, I need to get back to what works for me. I have to start being myself again.

Those are my marching orders, as i begin to march on to an after life where i hopefully handle things in a better way...

GSB round 1 results

2007-12-22T15:44:00.000-06:00

I know i am late by a few days. Better late than never i guess...

Admission round 1 results were out on Wednesday and i vividly remember the feeling of receiving the phone call from Chicago. I also remember my other dings and how bad they felt.

So congratulations to all those who got admitted to the class of 2010. If you decide to matriculate at GSB, i can promise you, you are in for the an awesome time. If you decide to join elsewhere, you would still have an awesome time :) And commiserations to those who received bad news. Hopefully you will hear good news from your other applications.

For those on wait list, i know it is a tricky and painful wait. Forrest Gump, a classmate at GSB, has posted a nice set of pointers that you might find useful.

The best way to spend a night on the winter break...

2007-12-21T11:34:00.001-06:00

...is to swing to Bhangra beats. Thats what a bunch of us GSBers did yesterday night at Desiparty in Chicago. DJ Rekha from NYC was the special attraction for the night. Thanks to the friend who informed us of the event, we had an awesome time last night.

The music started alright - it was typical Bhangra. It was not too upscale though - the first 30 - 45 mins was actually a dud. The music sounded very repetitive. As time went by, the music got better. The trouble was that they kept playing Bhangra all the time. Once they started mixing Bhangra with a few bollywood numbers and Western pop music, the impact of the Bhangra music became more evident. The night went on till 4 and I stayed the entire length, even thought everyone who came with me left around 2.

Dance is a huge passion for me. So much so that I believe that it is my best mode of expression, the most natural mode in fact. I believe in totally letting go on the dance floor. Many of my best moments ever have been on the dance floor. So, why am i rambling about all this here? Because i had the most fun on the dance floor yesterday at the party. The best i could remember. Reason - good company. In my GSB classmates, I found the best dancing company I could ask for. Some of them are arguably the best i have seen in GSB so far. Dancing with them was just unbelievably awesome. The result was that yesterday night was "fultu" fun!!! Thanks for the fun folks, and I am definitely looking forward to many more dances during my stay at GSB.

The unforgettable NYC trip

2007-12-19T12:40:00.000-06:00

Seven days in the big apple, my first trip to perhaps the most famous city in the world, and a lot of things happened.

Sunday was a dud. I was supposed to go meet a friend and as a result of some confusion, it was called off. I was then not let into my hotel room because my GSB friend who had booked the room had not included my name in the list of occupants. Three hours in the lounge, and after a few frantic phone calls, and the hotel guys finally let me in. The rest of the day was spent catching up with much needed sleep, because i was partying all night on Saturday :) Later that evening, i caught up with friends over phone, with one conversation turning out to be especially memorable!!!

The weekdays were loaded. This year's Bank Week was more organized than the previous ones, but it was still hectic. Our schedule had 6 events on Monday, 3 on Tuesday and 6 on Wednesday. Life was converted into a series of runs from one bank to another bank, meeting people and trying to learn more and more about the banks, the teams and the people. It was, in a way, a kind of immersion into the whole banking experience. I liked that part of it. I would have preferred to have spent more time in each bank - a "Day in the Bank" kind of setup would have been better. With just 90 minutes per bank, i somehow felt it was much lesser time at each bank. We had arranged for informational interviews on Thursday and Friday, which were hectic days again.

My hotel was very close to Park Avenue, which i call to be the new Wall Street. So commute was not an issue, but i had to walk a lot. But NYC is such a walkable city, i so loved walking around. Friday evening, my legs were hurting, but that is when i walked almost 100 streets to go from my hotel to NYU Stern and then all the way back to my hotel. A friend had hosted a holiday party on Friday evening and the week winded down with warm discussions.

Had plans to visit Statue of Liberty on Saturday, but canceled that as well coz of time constraints. Next time. Flew back to Chicago amidst heavy snow fall on Saturday and have been cherishing the snow ever since. Three weeks of winter break and it should be normal service at school very soon.

A quarter later...

2007-12-08T10:59:00.000-06:00

I am 1/6th MBA. Not officially yet, as the grades arent out yet, but i have done well enough in all papers to be sure enough to say that i am done! We had our "Finals Week" this week, and i was done on Wednesday. Fall Quarter is over and now it is time for the Winter Break (not yet, but still). What a relief!!! I have three days to catch up with self, friends and others, before i pack my bags and run to NYC for Bank Week.

In retrospect, this quarter has been a quarter of learning - of multiple dimensions. In learning people, in learning my strengths, in digging out my weaknesses, in trying to be as academic as i used to be, in learning new levels of time management, in understanding and playing the recruitment game well, in handling relationships and, in many ways, learning more about myself than i knew earlier. When i look back at the quarter, i realize that this quarter had thwarted a lot of evaluations i had about myself. I have had my fair share of mistakes, amidst enough and more success stories, and I am glad i did most of the mistakes now than later, because i have the time and resources to improve going forward. Sometimes it has been tough, trying to figure out why things are the way they are, but in the end the learning has always been worth the pain.

Bschool is a strange experience where you grow into a confident individual who can literally take on the world, but also learn to be humble about yourself (this is not necessarily true for everyone). Bschool is also difficult in the sense that this is a place that will put you through the toughest test you've ever faced - but only to prepare you for tougher tests that you'd face in the future. Without your knowledge, you will stretch yourself in multiple areas, and in the process improve yourself in all those areas, provided you handle it well. I am seeing that happening to myself (and a lot of my friends), and hence i am glad i made this decision. But beware - dont take this for granted. Bschool is a fair game - WYGIWYG.

Finals were tough - I had three in three days. In spite of GND and a demanding recruitment process, it was good (yeah, good) to see people put in a lot of effort into the finals. I was done by Wednesday and have been partying ever since. Believe it or not, we did have a TNDC this Friday, and with a huge turnout! In true GSB spirit, everyone was stretching their boozing limits, and the night was long, with lots of crazy stories that can't go on print ;) One of my friends from the Brazil Random Walk hosted a holiday dinner for us yesterday evening. I stuffed myself with awesome food and it was good to catch up with the group again (missed you though, RK). Went out to another party from there, which got cut short, and we ended the night watching a movie in a friend's home.

We have plans to do an Indian lunch today at Devon (looking forward to the Pani Puris) and then i should pack my bags for the trip to NYC. I fly out tomorrow, for my first visit to NYC, a city i have been loving for a really really long time. Sounds like the perfect story when i say "my first quarter in Bschool started at Rio and ended in NYC". Bank week has a crazy schedule, what with covering 15 odd banks in days. I am definitely looking forward to meeting the bankers and make new connections and strengthen existing ones. Hopefully the week will be informative and productive. And of course, there are huge party plans next Friday.

I return from NYC on Saturday, and look forward to a three week hiatus from all things Bschool. No, wait - there interview preps to take care of :) Such is life at Bschool...

Editorially Elated...

2007-11-27T22:59:00.000-06:00

That's my status in Facebook since Monday morning!

Reason: I have been chosen as one of the two Editors in chief of the Journal of Chicago GSB, ChiBus.

ChiBus was my first peek into the life at GSB and i fell for it at first sight. It is very representative of the culture of the school and i would recommend all applicants to regularly read the online version of the journal. It definitely helped me learn more about the school.

At GSB, I decided to get involved in things i love to do, rather than taking up "resume filler" roles. I worked for the present ChiBus team, wrote articles, helped them during production and absolutely loved the work. So i decided to lead the ChiBus effort for the next one year and applied last week when they called for applications. The present team also felt i would do a good job and so I got the positive response Monday morning. It really feels great. I am genuinely excited...

My co-editor-in-chief is an amazingly sweet girl. We've worked for ChiBus right from the beginning and we've worked together as partners for two days - I really enjoy working with her. Also, ChiBus is really a group of about 20 people. We are now trying to put together our team for the next 12 months and we're adding some nice people to the group. If everything goes per plan, ChiBus promises to be a lot of fun and a great experience. I am definitely looking forward to it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T12:02:00.000-06:00

To all the readers, a very happy thanksgiving day. Hope all of you enjoy the welcome break and take enough and more rest during the long weekend.

It started snowing in Chicago today and the sight is fabulous!!! I am not sure if i will use the same description for the snow as we go deep into the winter, when the snow gets thicker. But i guess the sight of the first snow every winter is just as beautiful as it is today!!! Considering this is the first time i am seeing snowfall, it is all the more endearing!!!

Golden Gargoyles 2007

2007-11-18T11:53:00.000-06:00

It was party time yesterday, as GSB celebrated the 2007 version of the annual Golden Gargoyles Awards. It was a long fun filled night - I am still recovering!!!

Now, for a bit of background. Each class in GSB is split into ten cohorts. The only class we attend as a cohort is LEAD. We dont have a class or section based course experience, because of the completely customizable curriculum. As a part of LEAD, each cohort makes cohort videos, which are then evaluated under various categories and awards will be distributed, a la the Golden Globe Awards. The best cohort video also gets the biggie award of the night.

But there is more - this is also the place where the LEAD facilitators (second years who conduct the LEAD program for us) freak out. They dance and sing and party - it was just awesome. This year's Golden Gargoyles had the 90's theme - so there was a buzz in the air even before the show began.

The show did begin, with a medley dance show by the facils - all famous songs from the 90s. They'd put in so much effort into this, it was very well done. The dances were definitely not perfect dances, but they were really really cute. Cute works! We should really appreciate the enthusiasm of the facils in putting up such a good show.

In between the dances, the winners were being awarded with the Golden Gargoyle in typical award ceremony style, acceptance speeches included. Some of the videos were freaking awesome, in both concept and the way it was shot. It was amazing to see how these guys created screen magic with the limited resources they possessed - awesome! As i mentioned in my earlier post, this year we also did a commercial for the brand Diageo. The commercials were so good, the company chose two winners instead of one.

The day ended with an open dance floor - i did a lot of dancing! The food was amazing and the liquids were flowing all over the place - Diageo, with its full array of drinks, was making their presence felt. The show ended at 1AM and some of us moved from there to a nearby bar to continue the fun. It was a really long night...

The long overdue post...

2007-11-17T10:04:00.000-06:00

B school is fun. There is just so much happening.

I "celebrated" my uneventful 26th birthday on the 10th. The celebratory cake cutting at the stroke of 12 among classmates, and a few important fone calls promised a good day. But the rest of the day was filled with void. Perhaps the worst bday i have had in recent years. Some of my college buddies came to meet me in the evening, and ganjaturtle joined us later. But i was already bugged so badly that i just cud not cheer myself up. We went out shopping and the day ended, quite aptly, with a bad dinner and more disappointments later on. A forgettable Saturday - that pretty much rounded up a tumultuous week.

Winter is here, and believe me, i was not prepared for the gloom. It is definitely not for the faint hearted. When i arrived - I had the glorious lake Michigan in front of my eyes every morning when i woke up. Now i have to see a huge, dark, depressing and at times scary water body and it is definitely not the best sight to begin ur day with. Days are short, you feel like 9PM when it is just 5PM and activity levels are clearly at an all time low. This is my first real winter, and i am definitely looking forward to my encounters with the snow. But the depressing darkness of the winter - it took some time getting used to. I still don't think I've learnt to handle it. Good company is absolutely essential, but not always available coz of the crazy schedules.

As i mentioned earlier, recruitment activities are moving full steam at GSB. Things are kind of back to normal, as we don't have 3 presentations a day to handle anymore. Now we are at a stage when we reach out to banks, get to learn each other and take things forward. I am enjoying the process of meeting all the bankers, learning more about the industry and the bankers as such. Quite unsurprisingly, most of them are candid about the work they do, the hardships they face and the riches they reap. It is a high octane job - and the more i talk to bankers and banks, the more i believe i am cut out for the job in many aspects

Speaking of banks and bankers, the Investment Banking Group of GSB organized the annual IBG conference at the Hyatt Regency - McCormick Place on Nov 16th. The event was entirely enjoyable, with round tables and panel presentations and lot of opportunities to meet and interact with the bankers. All top banks had huge presence and, as one of my classmates put it, it was "...like a buffet dinner"!

In between the stressful recruitment activities and the depressing winter mood, we have the annual Golden Gargoyles event planned for today. The 10 cohorts of the GSB class have slogged their butts over the last few weeks to come up with Cohort Videos. This year, we also did a commercial shoot for Diageo, and they're gonna pick and use the best commercial on display. The evening has the 80's theme (i still don't know what to wear) and we are gonna watch the second year LEAD facilitators perform for us. Promises to be a fun evening.

So - there goes one more week and another week full of work load lies ahead of me. Till next time, be good and be happy folks...

Chicago school visits & interviews

2007-11-09T12:11:00.000-06:00

The first round admissions program is in full stream. I was again at the GSB Live greeter program today morning. At least two people knew me through the blog, and it would have been great if they'd mentioned about their arrival before hand - it would have allowed me plan my schedule and spend some time with them. I am meeting one of them late in the evening to try answer his questions.

Interviews are starting next week i guess. I just signed up for a bunch of "pacifier" programs - if selected, i will be meeting interviewees before their interview and try to help them through the interview. So again, if anyone is dropping by, leave a note! I would be glad to help with whatever i could do. If anyone needs any info about any part of the process, please leave a note (with an email id) and i will get in touch with u ASAP.

To all the folks all over the world, doing their interviews in the next few weeks - Good luck. You are one step closer - so take prepare well and i hope you get to hear positive news very soon.

Happy Birthday Juggler

2007-11-08T14:16:00.001-06:00

Join me in wishing Juggler on her birthday, as we find her (true to her name) juggling the numerous Bschool activities at Wharton. She looks a little zapped at the moment, but i'm sure she'll feel better than ever very soon.

So listen gal - here's wishing you a very very happy birthday!!!
May you have a great year and a wonderful life ahead :)

A day in the life of a wannabe i-banker’s @ GSB

2007-10-30T08:57:00.001-05:00

Recruitment has officially begun at GSB. I had my first taste of the hectic schedule ahead of us. I guess the first day was intentionally planned to be so, so that we could know what was in store for us for the rest of the season.

So, without further ado, here is my yesterday...

3:00 AM - After preparing for events (read up companies etc) and the rest of day (classes etc) hit the bed.
7:00 AM- Wake up unwillingly. Hit the shower, and get ready for the day. Breakfast like a king, you will need to stock up fuel.
8:00 AM - Read up more about companies etc. Pat self on the back for not opting for a Monday morning class.
11:00 AM - Catch up with classmates who are attending the same event. Move to location of event.
11:45 AM - First event begins - stare at the room where a number of bankers from a global i-bank are talking to huge groups of people. Find someone you consider to be interesting and discuss all-things-under-the-sun (including economy, finance, banking and recruiting of course) to him/her.
12:00 noon - Presentation starts, followed by speech from famous banker.
12:30 PM - Speech ends. Get back to talking to people.
1:15 PM - Excuse self out, run to classroom to sit for accounting mid-quarter exam. Yeah you heard that right - mid-quarter exam!!!
1:30 PM - Start 90 min long mid-quarter. Solve expert accounting questions using balance sheets, income statements, statement of cash flows and GAAP policies! Baah...
3:00 PM - Learn from TA that professor is due only at 3:30. Run to cafeteria to grab some lunch. Feel REALLY like a banker as you wolf down the food in the available 15 minutes.
3:30 PM - Attend accounting class.
4:30 PM - Run to a different location, two blocks from school, for next set of recruiting events.
4:45 PM - Multi bank recruitment event begins - meet people from 4 different mid-market banks. Discuss with the bankers about what they do and what they have in offering.
6:30 PM - Event ends. Gather friends who are attending next event. Thank the buddy who offered a ride to the downtown steak place where event is happening.
8:30 PM - Cocktail event of a bigger mid-market bank starts. Hold discussions with these bankers and try to get answer for your questions/doubts.
11:30 PM - Return home, thanking that the day is over, scared about what lies tomorrow.
12:00 midnight - Start preparing for the next day. Thank the professor who gives take-home mid-quarters!!!
12:45 AM - Wait! When did i fall asleep???

Weekly digest?!?!?!

2007-10-22T20:25:00.000-05:00

That is what this blog is turning into, as i mostly paste one post a week, trying to fit in all the stuff that's happening in my MBA life. This time, it has been a full 10 days!!! Needless to say, life is busy.

Since a lot of things happened over the last 10 days, in pure MBA style, i am gonna jot down stuff in bullet points ;)

Yours truly participated in the prelims of the Chicago GSB National IPO challenge and learnt how to do a really bad DCF valuation of a firm. Nevertheless, it was a great learning experience in financial modeling and team dynamics!
The 30 days of fasting ended and i celebrated Ramadan inside a study room inside Harper Center of Chicago GSB. Ramadan and IPO challenge prelims were on the same day!!!
Joined GSB-DSAC and have been handling a barrage of emails from them. If anyone is attending the GSB live event this Friday (or visiting GSB any other time), leave a note in the comments section and I'll be glad to meet ya
Attended numerous Lunch 'n' Learns and enjoyed free (and useful) information from bank representatives, while munching free food
Went out with my cohort (name: Phoenix) to a nice bar
Attended IBG Bar night and partied with fellow wannabe bankers. Also, met second years and got myself overloaded with info about their internship experiences
Did i say i went to both of these on the same night!!!
Met a new bunch of first and second years at a "Cold Call Dinner" organized by the GSB GBC.
Partied out at my first proper TNDC
Again, did i say i went to both of these on the same night!!!!!!
Delivered a speech about "pick up lines" in my LEAD class
Attended a Mocktail (that simulates the recruiting cocktail events) session held by Career Services.
Had a nice quite dinner with my squad mates
Spoke about my Brazil Random walk in LEAD related ACT seminar
Played my first soccer game for GSB - a practice game with UChicago law school
Slogged on my resume, after review comments from many people

Things to look forward to:

Multiple assignments due this week and the next
Midterms in a week's time
First school tour for DSAC on Wednesday morning (again, anyone coming on Wednesday???)
Resume review with Career Advisor
First GSB live session on Friday (again, ???)
Soccer game at Kellogg on Saturday (i might drop out coz of the midterms)
Official beginning of recruitment on Monday (read: Life goes OUT OF CONTROL)

Till the next post...

A "sound" man...

2007-10-14T10:03:00.000-05:00

My love with speakers continues...
Just ordered this Sony component speaker system!!!

Actually, I've been eyeing this for quite some time. Can't wait to get my hands on the beauty ;)

I really missed the Creative speakers i had back home. This one definitely looks all set to fill the void :)

Who owns my time???

2007-10-10T18:02:00.000-05:00

Oh the crazy hours!!!

I was given enough notice about the complete lack of control of one's time in Bschool, but what's happening is beyond my wildest nightmares. Gladly, i am managing to keep my head above water, just managing. It takes a lot of effort. Again, as pointed out by one of my buddies in the comment section of the previous post, I am enjoying it all the same.

Yeah - I said i enjoyed being so hazed. It is probably because in a Bschool you only do what you love to do. The operative word is love. You will not even be able to do things you like, coz there will be so many things you'd like. Agreed - that could just be me, with my varied interests. But there are SO many options, it is impossible for anyone to not like more than what they can handle. Knowing your priorities correctly, and always remembering to use that knowledge is a survival requirement. It is very easy to find yourself with too much on your plate, and as a result get blown to smithereens!!! That would make you hate yourself and the Bschool experience.

I work for ChiBus, the GSB student journal. For those who are keen to apply to Chi-GSB, this is a great resource to know what is happening at the school and also to take a look at the culture of the students and school. It helped me immensely during my application days, and i hope it will be helpful for you guys too.

I also intend to join the GSB soccer club sometime this week. I did not join yet, as i was fasting for Ramadan and there was no way i could practice. Now that we celebrate Ramadan on Saturday, i will be up for practice from next week. They practice twice a week and there are competitions to look forward to in the near future. I am looking forward to getting myself dirty on the field, after almost 5 long years.

RythEmix is the GSB dance club and we get together every Saturday for about two hours of practice. I am dancing after quite a while and i almost forgot what a wonderful experience it is. It feels great to be able to get back to dancing. I am not sure if I'm good enough to do shows (check the videos in the website to see how good these guys are), but I'm sure gonna try!!!

Finally, I have signed up to volunteer for DSAC. Work hasn't begun at DSAC, at least for us first years, till now. We have a briefing session next week and i expect things to get busy once that happens. This is one position i am very passionate about and i believe i can (and need to) make a difference to the selection policies at GSB. Lets see how it goes.

Just in case anyone forgot to count, there is the crazy course work to handle. GSB doesn't get the "School with the most rigorous academic experience" tag for nothing. One has to prep for classes. If not, you will hate the classes.

Then there are the social events. TNDCs have started. LPFs are being organized every week. Every Wednesday we have Coffee with the dean. People have birthdays to celebrate. People have anniversaries to celebrate. Wait; people actually need no reasons celebrate. When celebration becomes the reason for celebration, one realizes one is in a hazy maze of party after party after party. AND, i hear a second year cribbing that their class is way better than ours in terms of partying. I know - it is contrary to what another second year person said about the two classes. But i now see that it is an individual opinion :) Bottom line - we all party.

Last (but most important of all) - there are the recruiting events. Chicago lets companies in for recruiting purposes only in late October or early November. But companies find other ways to talk to us. During the last few weeks, we have had many companies visit the campus for Lunch 'n' Learns, which are informational sessions to help people know about what the companies and their employees do. We had a resume review week this week. We now need to incorporate comments and get the new ones ready, before the next review week, and then get them reviewed by friends, and then get them reviewed by mentors, and then nit-pick them for ages hoping every word in the document means a million things. This journey has just begun.

Now - that's a long list. I dint intend to intimidate people with such a long list, but this is a list of all things i am doing/will be doing. Others do other stuff. Everyone must be up for it. I am enjoying this ride thoroughly. It is definitely difficult. Whoever said "Getting into a Bschool is the easy part", said it right. But life is much more fun when there is so much happening. I see the stark difference between how it is and how it used to be, and I'd rather keep it as it is today. And i am not alone in that thought.

The only problem is that a day only has 24 hrs. I haven't slept for more than 36 hrs flat now and sleep is quite a premium at GSB. If someone can share some of their free time, i can probably do some more things that i love...

First week of classes

2007-09-28T14:12:00.000-05:00

It was rough. It was fun. It is over.

The academic rigor of GSB was one of the things that made the school attractive to me, and i am experiencing it first hand. It is redundant to talk about the profs in the school, as the whole MBA/business world knows about the faculty in GSB. As someone who sat thru three classes conducted by some of these professors, I should accept that they did beat my expectations. I'm more impressed by their approach towards conducting a session in the class - it is very engaging and makes one think beyond the obvious questions. I'm thoroughly enjoying the classrooms.

This week was fruitful in a lot more ways too. I joined a bunch of clubs in school (professional, social, sports and fun) and their events have started happening. GSBs famous TNDCs have begun and so are the numerous social events organised by the many groups one would be a part of. My calender is getting cluttered with hoards of entries and life has changed into a series of hops from one thing to another. I am enjoying the ride though. It is definitely fun, just that one must know his priorities and know what he/she is adding to his/her plate. It could go totally wrong if you get carried away with the multitude of options any top Bschool would offer.

Looking forward, i can see that the concept of a weekend is slowly vanishing away. Very soon, this will be 24/7 and then a lot more than that. Considering that recruiting hasn't even begun yet, the future looks BUSY.

We have a cohort level sports challenge (the first in a series i guess) this evening, I am yet to write that article for ChiBus i am supposed to submit very soon and I should find time to do that winter shopping I have been postponing for quite some time. I also have to submit a write up to my LEAD facilitators and a dance class to attend. All this and I haven't even brought up the topic of class work. I should get going...

Th next week will be rougher, will be more fun and it will get over in a week too :)

CORE 2007 ends...

2007-09-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

The 20 day long orientation at the Chicago GSB ended today evening with a "Coffee with the dean" session at Winter Garden in the Charles M. Harper Center of GSB. In the words of Stacey, this event "signals a transition into life as a first-year". For me though, it is a welcome relief from the mad rush of CORE. It has really been a few weeks of crammed up activities, and I haven't found anyone who hasn't found the going tough.

This week saw the class getting busy with a bunch of cases for LEAD. The sight of ppl grouping around in different corners of the winter garden and discussing the pros and cons of the case - it was quite exciting. People had different opinions about how their case sessions went - mainly because their experiences were different. I have some very good/important take-aways from these sessions, so i feel pretty positive about them.

Tuesday was Career Immersion day - our first interaction with the corporate world as students. The day had presentations and panel discussions by members of different industries. I attended the Investment banking panel/presentation and Entrepreneurship+PE/VC panel/presentation. It was a neutral day with a both positive and boring moments. Career services plans to attend many more sessions, which will go much deeper, during the course of the year and I am looking forward to them.

Classes start tomorrow. I have no class till Monday. All my profs have a ton of pre-work listed out already, so i guess my weekend (i mean, Fri-Sat-Sun) is gonna be busy. Still, i am excited about getting back to student life after so many years. Classes should be fun...

Bidding results, soccer and semi-formal event...

2007-09-16T19:29:00.000-05:00

I got all my courses. What more, i was the least successful bidder in my costliest course. If that's Greek and Latin, it means that i have got my courses in the most efficient way possible. That's game well played! That's one more step closer to classes.

After a long time, i played soccer on Thursday with some of my classmates. It was pure fun, the same way it used to be more than 4 years ago, when i played for my undergrad team. Just that this time i played with a group of people from different parts of the world, and each brought a different flavor to the field. Looking forward to more such games, and time to enroll in the GSB soccer club.

We attended our first LEAD classroom session on Friday. It was an excruciating 4 hour session, but it was good for the most part. The session discussed leadership in the perspective of different groups of people - students, alumni, recruiters, etc - and also laid the platform for the future classroom sessions. The whole LEAD program is facilitated by second years who went through more than 400 hrs of training, and their commitment to the cause is simply amazing.

In between all of this, i managed to sign up for the AdComm. So, i'll be posting more updates from the AdComm in this blog, and will also be posting pointers to other areas of information. We have a club day this week and i should sign up for a few student clubs very soon and get things going.

On Saturday, the whole of GSB descended on the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago for a Semi-formal evening. From roaming around in denims and GSB T-shirts, the guys took out their suits and ties (some even in their kilts), with the ladies wowing everyone in their attires (one Indian student had worn a lovely saree) - there was a semblance of order this time to this event. The aquarium has a huge collection of aquatic life and looking at all the animal life from close quarters was a great experience. Later in the evening, the floor was opened for dancing and I am still tired with all the dancing i did.

We have a heavy week ahead of us, with classroom sessions and other events everyday. In three days, CORE 2007 would be complete and classes would begin. Cant wait...

First few days of school

2007-09-11T18:46:00.000-05:00

The Class of 2009 at the Chicago GSB began their two year roller-coaster journey on the 4th of September at the Rockefeller Chapel in the University of Chicago.

It started with the welcome addresses by dean Edward Snyder and a follow up speech by deputy dean Stacey Kole. Since then, we've been attending one information session after another and another. The amount of information we have been absorbing is overwhelming, but if you say that to any MBA student, they'd say - welcome to bizz school :) I have somehow managed to handle all the information, the many networking events and even the process of getting to know the lives of more than 550 people in about a week and a half.

A lot to handle, one might say (and many might accept). But believe me, it is pure fun!!!

As a part of LEAD, we visited Lake Lawn Resort in Wisconsin last week for a three day retreat and it was a blast. We had a session of high-rope courses and we also had a chance to do entry level zip-lining. The second years organized a carnival and casino type event (which ended in a dance floor) and that was a lot of fun too (Hey- i made my first golf shot, threw the rugby ball and learnt a bit if Craps, apart from many other things). Finally, there were team building events that were very very interesting and helped us really learn something about team dynamics. Lot of unofficial partying on the sides as well. During all this, I should have met atleast 250 of the 550 of my classmates, at one event or the other. Three days of absolute fun, which meant that we spent the weekend recuperating ;)

Our class, supposedly, has already built a reputation for being a heavily partying one (info shared by a second year) and i am sure that we will only be adding to that in the months to come. Just too many parties ;)

Finally, we got to some serious business on Saturday, when bidding opened. Bidding has been on the top of every one's priority chart for the last few days and it FINALLY feels like being in school. GSB's bidding system is very complex and takes some getting used to. I have put down my bids and I'll know the fate of my bids on Thursday. I really hope (and at this point of time believe) that i will get all my first choice classes.

This week had a few less significant info sessions, apart from some LEAD classroom programming. I think things will pick up again later this week, once the bidding window closes. With a semi-formal on Saturday, i am sure we have a nice weekend to look forward to.

GSB class of 2009

2007-09-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

Check out the statistics page to know about the class of 2009.

Iday got an iPhone

2007-09-01T14:03:00.001-05:00

and it absolutely rocks...

I'm really amazed by the intuitive design of the GUI. There are very few products in which you expect something somewhere and then actually find what you expect in the place you expect to find it. iPhone gives you that in most, if not all, places. Beyond the cool looks, the snazzy works and all the jazz, the iPhone is a very well designed customer device that serves most, if not all, of an individual's needs.

I heart iPhone!!!

Update: Apple slashed the price of iPhones by $200. So the 4GB version costs just $300 now (which i think is an amazing deal). Since my purchase was done within the last 14 days, i was eligible for a refund of the $200. So it worked out to be really cool for me, but this price slash is creating a lot of negative feedback for Apple. Personally, i think what Apple screwed it up this time. And to follow it up with a $100 Apple coupon (as against a genuine refund) is screw up no:2 within a week. I already hear stories of angry Apple fans changing/reconsidering their loyalties (coz they think Apple took them for a $200 ride) and many public hate mails et al written to Steve Jobs. I'm interested to see how this goes forward.

Random Walk - Brazil

2007-08-30T03:50:00.000-05:00

Aug 18 2007 - Aug 25 2007

7 days of absolute fun and pleasure in the land of coffee, soccer, the samba and world famous beaches - Brazil.

Brazilian steak houses, playing with the waves (ip anema, copacabana and buzios), sleeping on sands, hours of beer-pong sessions, random bar hopping, a crazy hang-gliding jump, four wonderful hours in the sea, the best discotheques in Rio, Corcovado and The statue of Christ Redeeme r - Random Walk Brazil produced probably some of the most enjoyable days I've ever had.

Good enough to relax one of the spirits of the blog and post pictures of others. Here is the group of 16 that makes the GSB RW Brazil 2007 party.

So this is what happened...

Aug 18 2007
Departure
Rio is two time zones away from Chicago and approximately 12 hrs away. We traveled by Delta Airways - Chicago to Atlanta and Atlanta to Rio. It is pretty much like taking the overnight train from Chennai to Bangalore, only here you wake up to see a touch down among trees in a muggy Winter day in Rio.

Aug 19 2007
Ipanema
We were picked out of the airport by Maria, our tour guide. We then traveled to Ipanema Plaza, where we stayed for the next 2 days. The hotel is 20 yards from the famous Ipanema beach and our first day was spent living with the waves in this beach. We had a pre-arranged Brazilian Steak House dinner to attend, following which we tried to taste a bit of the Brazilian night life - with very little success. Sunday nights, apparently, are not the happening ones in Brazil.

Aug 20 2007
Hang Gliding, Impromptu Songs & Dancing the night away...
This was the Crazy day. We woke up and traveled to São Conrado, a nearby cliff for a hang gliding session. The jump was bloody awesome - to put it mildly. I'll upload the video on youtube sometime soon. We returned from the jump, and spent the rest of the day in relaxing and playing beer pong.

We went to a restaurant in downtown Rio for our dinner. During dinner, one of my tour mates decided to infuse some fizz into the tour and decided to sing for the group. The fact that the restaurant also had live music helped her and we were witness to two good songs, sung quite well indeed! From here, we decided to go to a discotheque and reached one halfway up the same cliff from where we performed the hang gliding jumps. The place played some lively music and we had awesome fun dancing the night away...

Aug 20 2007
Buzios
Buzios is a 2.5 hr drive away from Rio. We traveled in a bus and viewed the amazing Brazilian countryside all the way. Buzios is also a small resort town, with a good retro look to it. We stayed at the Buzios-Perola (meaning pearl of Buzios), a very impressive resort. The first day in Buzios was spent in leisure and more beer pong sessions.

Aug 21 2007
Catamaran tour & more Impromptu songs
This was to be a day in the sea. We spent four long wonderful hours in the beach, with nothing but the sea in sight. The Buzios has lot of small land patches around in the sea and some of them make for wonderful little beaches - very private. The tour took us to many of these and we were lost in nature's glory. We even spent time in one of the beaches, which i think was by far the most scenic of all.

We returned in the evening and had dinner in another Brazilian style restaurant, where they had live music again. This time, another participant sang a few songs for us with the band.

Aug 22 2007
Beach Day
Thursday had no activity in the list and so we hit the beach. We spent time playing with the waves again, and some of the guys tried some surfing in those really strong waves. We also played some volleyball in the beach, which was good fun as well.

In the evening, we had dinner in another Brazilian style restaurant, and tried searching for some good dance bars, but returned to our rooms after multiple failed attempts.

Aug 24 2007
Bye Bye Buzios, Brazilian Sea food & Baronetti
We headed back to Rio on Friday morning, and reached our hotel around noon. We immediately jumped into our beds for some rest as we knew that our last night in Brazil would be long.

We had dinner arranged for us at a very nice Brazilian Sea Food restaurant. The food was yummy and the setting of the place done very well. We enjoyed our food and were also shown glimpses of Brazilian Samba dancing. The spring festival must really be quite a spectacle.

By this time the guys had come out with a short list of all discotheques in Brazil and heard opinions of multiple people on what would be the best place to go. Baronetti stood on top of every one's list, and so we headed there. True to every one's suggestion - the place was very awesome and the group had a rocking time, dancing till 5 in the morning.

Aug 25 2007
Corcovado & off to the windy city...
The last day in Brazil started with a trip to the Corcovado and the Statue of Christ Redeemer. We travelled by bus to the foothills and took a train from there to the top. The status is an awesome sight in itself, and the view of Rio from atop the Corcovado is just breathtaking. We had more Brazilian food on the way back to our hotel, where we slept the remaining of the day.

Our flight was at 11:30 PM and we were dropped at the airport by our travel guide. Twelve hours later, we were in O'Hare and an hour later, I was home...

We've had so much fun at Brazil that most of us are still recuperating from the trip. I can fall asleep a any place at any time of the day, and i am positively sure that this is not jet lag. Many of us fell sick and are now much better.

Whatever it took, the Brazil trip was worth every penny and and every second of it. If i were to do it again, I will - just give me the same group of people!!!

Have i lost weight???

2007-08-18T07:09:00.000-05:00

The first few days in USA have been crazy, and a lot of fun of course!!! There's been a lot of running around, walking, hard work (read carpentry), less sleep (intentional), random food and what not! I am sure i have lost a few pounds ;)

After reaching the USA on the 14th evening, I went to the University and school on the last3 days, and i have been walking like a mad dog that's lost its lunch. The fact is, the U of Chi campus is amazingly HUGE. So it takes a lot of walking to get from point A to point B. Considering that the university campus is amazingly beautiful, with lot of greenery and wonderful lawns - i shouldn't really be complaining. The university is a nice collection of old styled buildings (but just in the exteriors. the interiors are as modern as u'd get them) and beautiful gardens. In between all these old style buildings and the many homes nearby - the modern GSB building really stands out.

I had to visit the Office of International affairs once everyday in the last 3 days, to register my arrival and get a few signatures and supporting documents that would be helpful during the trip to Brazil. I visited the school and i must admit that it does stand up to its reputation of being a very very good looking building. We just randomly checked a few places/rooms, since we dint have a lot of time. The cafe in the school serves awesome food, but is a bit pricey. Otherwise, things look good. I want classes to start!!!

In between all this, I picked up my laptop from my classmate (actually - the classmate lugged it to a club where i was partying and delivered it to me. so it isnt "i picked" really) and i SO love it. speaking abt gadgets, I guess i will most probably be going the iPhone way. There are a few things to think abt, before i shell out the dough. Let's see...

Since i had almost no time for any of the furniture companies to deliver the furnitures to my home (f i order online i.e.), my home is still unfurnished. I still sleep on the carpet. There are a lot of domestic things to take care of - but they can all wait till i get back from the trip.

We had a kick-off party yday in a downtown club yday, and I've finally met my trip mates. It is already 8:30 AM here and i should meet them in the airport at 1:30 PM, and i still haven't packed. No, I still don't know what to pack ;)

So, off i go to handle packing woes part 2...

In the Windy City

2007-08-15T09:05:00.000-05:00

I reached Chicago yesterday evening [CDT of course ;)] after a long and tiring flight journey from Chennai. The short version of it is that the entire journey was good and hassle free. The flights were on time, I could bring all that i had packed in my two bags, my bags reached Chicago in 99.99% good condition and I had no issues/delays at Immigration (time taken = 5 mins) or Customs (time taken = 5 seconds).

A classmate had booked a cab for me already, so reaching my apartment wasnt too difficult. The studio is awesome, has a good view of Lake Michigan and the resident area and I'm feeling at home already.

I have a long version coming up very soon, with more description and pics of course ;) But that has to wait till i get things set up over here, and perhaps for the Brazil Random Walk to get over as well.

All set to move

2007-08-12T12:35:00.001-05:00

After months and months of planning, preparation, essays, data sheets and interviews, and eight months after the famous Chicago GSB admit call came in, and after getting to know most of my class through emails and facebook groups and orkut and what not - it is now time for the real thing. In less than 30 hrs, i will board my British Airways flight to Chicago.

Packing is 95% done, i still have to wrap up minor things in the cabin luggage. All the entries in the multiple to-do lists have a "done" marked against them. I still have one more dawn and one more dusk to see in my home city, and then i move to a new city and to my new home.

Flying to Chicago on Tuesday night, flying out to Rio on Saturday evening and flying back to Chicago after a week - I'm looking forward to every step in what is gonna be a long journey before i settle in one place. Hopefully, I will have a lot of fun in the next week or so, and i am sure the fun factor is only gonna keep exponentially increasing over the next year and 9 months.

The last week has been a bundle of farewell events, and the dinner with friends from high school clearly tops the list. It is definitely difficult to bid adieu to folks with whom u literally grew up :) I guess i have officially said "bye" to all the people i should say bye to. Tomorrow, some more phone calls, some more "bye byes", and then I'm whoosh...

My first Laptop

2007-08-02T18:01:00.000-05:00

I just ordered my first laptop, with lot of help from a classmate who's in Chicago.

It is a Lenovo Thinkpad T61. If everything goes on well, the laptop should reach the first destination in abt a week or so, from where i pick it up on reaching Chicago.

Cant wait :)

The week that was...

2007-08-02T03:47:00.000-05:00

It is less than 2 weeks for my flight to Chicago and a lot has been happening.

I traveled to Bangalore for the weekend. There were a few college friends there whom i wanted to meet and bid farewell before i took off to the Windy City. I did meet them and had a real gala time or so to say. I also met two other friends who have been very influential in my life at different stages - and I was meeting both of them after a very long time. It was very good to meet them in person and spend time with them.

Bangalore is a city that i never liked, and the city has given me back as much as i have given it :) Guess the city wanted to give me a farewell gift as well, and hence i came back with multiple complications in my body. A throat infection, a minor stomach infection, a slight cold and a bad fever!!! After a visit to the doctor and two days of rest, i felt much better today morning. Since I lost 2 days in taking rest, i had to get up when possible and get things done. So i did some shopping today, completed a few minor tasks and visited some more friends to bid farewell.

I feel much better now. Tomorrow and the weekend, my mom has lined up appointments in the homes of numerous relatives. The fact that some of these appointments require me to make cross country rides doesn't help at all. Anyway, it is something that must be done and hopefully i will have fun riding around the city, after days of inactivity coz of the fever et al :)

PS: An update on my previous post, yesterday i got to know that i will not be able to avail the 3rd luggage offer from British Airways, because i booked the tickets through my company's travel agent. So I am back to packing my world into two bags :(

Packing woes

2007-07-24T07:12:00.000-05:00

I started packing. Yeah, i know i still have 3 weeks before i fly to Chicago - but i wanted to know if i had spare room in the bags.

And boy, am i glad i did this now! I don't know how one can pack his/her world in two bags, with all those limitations on dimensions and weight!!! Since I'm flying British Airways, i have an option to carry a third bag with me, thanks to the students package. So I guess I'm fine. Two bags is just not enough!!!

I just packed all my clothes and find both the bags almost full, one with a max capacity of 25KGs and the other with a max capacity of 32 KGs. I don't even know if the bags now weigh under 23 KGs, BA's weight limit. I still have a lot of other stuff to pack in.

Looks like i got some serious packing decisions to make.

Jobless

2007-07-20T23:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my last day at work! So, now i am officially unemployed :D

The last week has been awesome! My manager's been ultra proactive about getting all my separation formalities done, so much that he kept calling all concerned people almost everyday (something i shud have been doing) over the last one week and ensured that everything was ready on Friday. He is VERY VERY famous for his promptness and the effortlessly smooth way in which he gets his tasks done! So, this was nothing new, but worth a mention for sure :)

Last week threw a few pleasant surprises as well. My mentor (whom you all know very well by now) hosted a surprise farewell lunch for me on Wednesday. In all 4 years that i have seen him, he's done this for very few people - there are only 2 that i can remember :) As if the gesture was not enough in itself, he also gifted me a Swiss army knife, and a few honest pats on the back with some nice words for the future!

Thursday i hosted a lunch for my team members and that was fun too. My manager, who has hardly attended any outside gatherings over the last 2 yrs, attended both the lunches (with pressing commitments on both days) and that was a pleasant surprise too. The team members were all very warm in their farewell, and i also received a cool gift voucher as a parting gift.

Overall, the 4 yr long experience with my ex-company has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride, as i went thru the few highs and many lows of being employed in an Indian IT services company. Nevertheless, the experience has certainly improved me - both as a person and as a professional.

That's one chapter of life closed and I really look forward to the beginning of the next in a few week's time.

Now, I'm all set to do one of my favorite activities for the next few weeks - shopping!!! Then comes packing and then flying :)

The house hunt

2007-07-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

It is over! I now have an address in the USA!!!

This is the first time i have chosen a house without seeing it! But the high-rise i chose has been a perennial favorite of GSB students over the years. I was also lucky to have a classmate from India go visit the high-rise and other alternatives in the neighborhood. I'm purely going with her evaluation, but i am sure i can go with it.

The apartment is too high, higher than anywhere i've ever been! Shud be cool...
Cant wait to get to it in four week's time.

Running around...

2007-07-16T02:01:00.000-05:00

I'm into the last week at work (yaaay) and, very strangely, i really look forward to the day when i can say i am officially jobless. Work surely has been a lull and motivation at workplace is at an all time low. Eventhough i hate being without work at office (which actually feels very weird at times), that is where i see myself everyday. I do have bits and pieces of work to do and many transition of responsibilities as well, apart from cleaning my desk and archiving data for backup. Plainly, it sucks :) But then, u gotta do what u gotta do!!!

There are a few updates related to the MBA side of life.

I finally got the tourist visa to the Federative Republic of Brazil i needed for my Random Walk. The procedure to get one is very simple - visit the Brazilian Embassy's website and thou shalt know everything. In short - u fill in the app and send it (along with a covering letter and all support documents) to the embassy in Delhi. I'd applied early this month through an agent and I was made to chase my HRs (yeah - in my company, u have to search for them. they don't have the basic courtesy to reply fone calls and tell u that they saw ur emails when u finally do meet them) for a few days to get some letter (stating that i have resigned and when my last working day will be) which the Embassy required. Eventually - the company said they wont issue such a letter. I then had to get my manager and HR-manager attest my resignation letter and also made them state my last working day, which luckily the embassy accepted. All's well that ends well!!!

I was finally allotted an apartment. It is a huge (635 sq.ft) studio in the 18th floor of a high rise that is 2 miles from the school. The height and the size of the apartment means that i pay a whopping rent of $1100 per month. Now i am all set to work out how, sitting here in Chennai, i proceed with the paper work involved in signing the lease for the apartment. Gosh - will the paper work ever cease...

In news related to GSB, i will be talking to a counselor from the Dean's Student Office, regarding my plans for the course work. Since Chicago GSB has a completely customizable curriculum, you find more support for people in this regard and support starts much earlier - as soon as 2 months before school. This, i believe, is a great thing - as i can clarify all doubts i have regarding the course work and try to zero in on what i can do and what i cannot do. I really want to know what can be done (how far one can stretch himself) and what cannot be done (something like common mistakes). This is especially helpful for someone like me, coz i decided that i want to make the fullest use of the academic rigor GSB is so famous for, but at the same time i dont want to overload myself with too much on my plate. I have some plans regarding the curriculum, and I have many doubts as well. I really look forward to the call on Wednesday.

In between crazy emails from classmates, frequent chats with other classmates, farewells to friends who're flying out to their respective schools, farewells to colleagues who wont see me in my seat from next week, burning dough at shopping malls, puncturing self with the numerous immunization shots, checking up with lists to ensure that i've got everything i need, contemplating on when to really start packing and all the other things related to moving to a new continent - i can see that my new life at GSB is now very close.

Less than a month to go before i fly to the Windy City. Cant' wait :)

Blakstone to acquire Hilton!!!

2007-07-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

Check this out!!!

There is something in the article that caught my attention "Like other hotel chains, Hilton in recent years has moved to emphasize managing hotels rather than owning them." There is another article (and the same text for most of the part) that mentions many such acquisitions, and also says that many more are possible.

Looks like the market is really ripe and up for the taking, provided the price that has to be paid for it is paid (in cash perhaps). I definitely believe that this could be true of many other industries and there is a beautiful synergy in letting the money managers (whose primary intention is to make money) to manage the funds and letting the management guys (whose primary intention is to manage) to run the place.

Anybody's got a few billion dollars???
I need to buy a hotel chain!!! What's for sale today???