Graduation

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

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!

Academics @ Chicago Booth

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.

Back Back Back

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

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

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.

Find me a job

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

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

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

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!

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.

Talking about GSB

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...

A truly Golbal MBA?

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!!!

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

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.

Employed - finally!!!

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???

More blogging

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.

The MIA quarter

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

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...

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...