Team-work and GMP

Working in teams is a necessity in GMP.
Today was a perfect example for this. We have a quiz tomorrow and the textbook
has 12 chapters (approx 600 pages of fine-print text) devoted to the quiz topics.

Given this situation, it is impossible for any of us to do it all on our own.
The inevitable solution was to break up the task into 2-chapters per person
and do a group-sharing session (GSS) where each of us explained the chapter contents in detail. With this input, it becomes manageable to have a good grasp of the quiz
topics.

I am just back from a 5-hour GSS and feel a lot more confident about tomorrow's quiz.

1 month done in GMP

It only seemed like yesterday that the plane from Kolkata landed in JSR and I showed up in campus. But in the midst of working on my Math assignment today, I realized that it is close to 1 month since I joined GMP.

To continue where I left off in my previous post, the weekend adventure program organized by TASF (Tata adventure sports foundation) was great. On the first day, we got a chance to meet Madam Bachendri Pal, India's first woman to scale Mt.Everest. It was amazing to see the video of her Everest expedition shot close to 25 years back when Mrs.Gandhi was the Prime Minister. On a more modest but neverthless important level, in the course of 3 days, our GMP group cleared a number of obstacle exercises including rafting, rock-climbing and caving.

Courses-wise, the belt is being tightened starting this week. We have a couple of mid-term exams within the next week. Hopefully, I should do better than the quizzes I had thus far.

Last Sunday I got a chance to break away from all this sequence of assignments, studies and meetings by going to Bishtupur to celebrate a fellow GMPian's birthday.
I often refer to Bishtupur to friends and family as the "downtown" area of Jamshedpur. There is basically just one big road in the place with a few shops that vaguely attempt to capture the spirit of Commercial street in Bangalore. Of course our marketing prof might scowl at my attempt to compare two different "consumer segments", but kya kare..."Yeh Dil Mange More". Neverthless, we had a good time in the Cafe Coffee Day joint there filled with cake cutting/pasting, Freppe's and imitation acts of students and faculty alike.

Got to catch some sleep now...ciao !

XLRI.....here I come !!!

After several deliberations, obstacles and confusions, I am finally able to share the happy news that I will be matriculating at XLRI-Jamshedpur for the 1-Year MBA.

Due to extremely critical personal reasons, I will be joining the program by July 1st instead of the actual start date of June 12th. The admissions committee was kind enough to understand my situation and grant me a 2-week extension.

There is plenty of work to do in the next 2 months before joining school.
I will be winding up after a 4.5 year stay in the US. So have to clear out some stuff, sell my car, buy some stuff for my friends and relatives back home, prepare for the arrival of our newborn etc, etc.

At work, I am still in negotiations with my management to get a 1-month exemption in notice period. I am required to give a 3-month notice, but the result came only by March end and I got the 2-week extension only by April-3rd week.
I am hoping my company will waive 1 month of the notice period, given my circumstances.

From my discussions with admitted candidates, I know I will be amidst a very diverse and talented group. I hope that I will catch up on 2-weeks of missed classes and adjust to the new setting.

I am looking forward eagerly to return to India and be in a learning environment for a while.

As they say, no one "gets it all". In my case, I have to rush back just a few weeks after our kiddo is born. I was hoping I would get to spend a lot of time in the first few months after our baby is born. But I will miss seeing our newborn for a couple of months till such time my wife joins me in JSR. I am also aware that the course load will be hectic and remains to be seen how I managed a hectic course load with spending quality time with family.

I will also miss Edison and US, where I have stayed for close to 4 years. The long walks in Roosevelt park, seeing the Manhattan skyline by my window everyday, the mumbai-local-like 8:16 NJ Transit train in the morning and of course my colleagues and friends here, are all things I will miss dearly. Anyways, I hope that sometime in the future I will stop by this part of the country and checkout how things are at that time.

XLRI GMP 2008 Interview

Thought I should debrief on my XLRI GMP Interview that happened this morning at 1:30AM EST !!!!

I guess the time says it all....I was feeling sleepy and dozed of at 10:00 PM. Got up at 12:00 midnight and glanced through my resume and the usual interview questions and responses that are now hard-wired in my brain.

I waited until 12:30....no call.
I got irritated (and sleepy) and called the XLRI adcom office. The person on the other end promised that I would get a call in the next 30 minutes. At 1:15AM, I got the call....finally !

Following is the interview summary :

Adcom : Tell me about yourself
Me : Very briefly talked about where I grew up and where I work. (Could have expanded a bit).

Adcom : You have mentioned GAP analysis in your resume. Talk about it and what exactly you did.
Me : Gave a bird's eye view of what I did, deliberately avoiding technical details.
But Adcom was keen on delving into very specific technical details and even asked about the choice of technology. Lasted about 10 minutes here I think, before they moved on.

Adcom : You work in Business intelligence project now. How is this different from your earlier project.
Me : raved about how I have progressed from a purely technical role to one where I have insight into how the business benefits out of the systems I develop.
Adcom really went into this one, asking what kind of business understanding I had gainied. Explained this to a limited extent. Could have picked a better example.

That's it. They added that adcom office will keep me posted on when the results will come out.

Good luck to others who are waiting for results.

Apps in progress

Working on my NUS Essays....I think I can nail this one down in a week utmost. I already have a good idea on what I want to talk about for the 3 questions, just needs some polishing.
Will then have to start Kelloggs and UCLA. I am seriously considering if I should even try Haas. From everything I hear, the place is soooooooo selective ! Will do some research.

Talking about research, I found that there are so many 1 year MBA options in India/Asia :
- XLRI (GMP....around 60 students)...current batch has GMAT betwen 680-740.
Avg 5 years exp. Good mix of students I believe.
- SP Jain (Singapore and Dubai campus) good...but students more on the younger side <=3 yrs
- IIM A, B (PGPEX) (Very heavy exp...9+ years !) ruled out

But somehow my mindset is in studying with a diverse class setting. So will stick with the current plan.