The Big Announcement

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

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!

School ends; Life continues...

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

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!

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

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

The Credit Crisis explained...





Key take away: This affects EVERYONE!

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.