Business case competitions - a lost ca(u)se

Hi

Work for me has started in full swing. 6 modules is tough. I started with an Asia Pacific meeting at 11, we had a project presentation from 12 to 1, class upto 3, a fund management meeting from 3 to 4, marketing club meeting from 4 to 5.30, another fund management meeting from 5.30 to 6.30, a Channels meeting from 5.30 to 6.30 and then I headed back home. Amidst all this there are a number of other activities. Amidst the chaos there are mails from biz case competitions which I would like to enter. And have been wanting to since I joined NUS.

We did take a decent shot at a couple of competitions. In my first term, I tried to enter the IIMPact competition. We had a team of four and we tried to come up with a business plans which would save our environment. Our efforts went nowhere. The best we could do was the concept of a eco-friendly cup which could be used for targeted advertising. Eventually an NUS team won the competition.

We did better @ Intaglio, IIM Calcutta's business case competition. We were a team of 3 this time and we created the go-to market strategy for a shoe company. It was the product of a week's hard work. We were selected but the finals but we couldn't make a mark there. The sad part was I was stuck in China and couldn't go with my team. So, my dream of making it to a business case competition remains.

IIM Lucknow's treatise was my parting shot. I came up with the Educational reforms for a modern India. I was waitlisted for the finals but I was stuck in China at that time. So, it didn't go any further.

So, the dream remains and I wonder whether I will fulfill it. Meanwhile I open my mailbox and another mail for a business case competition. I am tempted to start again. But then there is 6 modules and its time for another meeting...

To see the winning team @ IIMPact, click here  

Cheers,

Suraj

Good to be back @ NUS

Hi

Its official!!!! There is something magical about this place. Some part of my heart will always remain @ NUS. Six months since I had last seen here, it was exciting to go back... Almost like a second honeymoon.

This time there was an added sense of anticipation. A new batch had come in and along with that new dreams, new expectations. Its been barely a week. Already there has been a fresher's party, a welcome lunch and an orientation program. And to add icing to the cake, I have six modules to complete. 

The ultimate million dollar question still persists. When will I get a job??? And where will it be???

All in all, there are exciting times ahead. And, of course, I still have a huge chunk of my past to be re-discovered through my blog. Its great to have u as a part of my journey

As a parting comment, I say "Buckle your seat belts"

To exchange or Not to exchange

Hi
This blog's title is a shameless rip-off from Shakespeare's Hamlet (To be... Or not to be). But the trigger for this mail is original and it happened a couple of days ago. I received a mail from the MBA office stating that Micro-Economics will not be offered in the coming semester. When I joined my MBA I didn't know much about Marketing or Finance. I joined out of curiosity about Fiscal deficit, Trade Surplus, Forex reserves, etc. I wanted to know what these were and how they worked. Now, I am doomed. These terms are destined to remain 'latin' forever.

This is one of the drawbacks of the 'Exchange Program'. This blog is dedicated to those people who have/will face a similar dilemma. Deciding between the merits/demerits of the exchange program. My future blogs shall detail the merits of exchange. So, this blog is about what I lost because I went on exchange.

My biggest loss was Cerebration. This is our annual business case event which we position as the 'Biggest Business Case event' in the world. I was in Australia when Cerebration happened. It was funny seeing mails from MBA office pleading with our guys to come and attend the event. While I was desperate to attend the event but could not.

The other loss is internships/job search. Searching for an internship/job is exceedingly difficult when you are on exchange (will share my experiences in another post). There are several reasons for this - visa laws, emigration rules, culture of the place, etc.

Anyone going on exchange cannot participate in the MBA Club elections. So, anyone having these aspirations must make this trade-off. Competing for the other positions is tough as well. Because canvassing for votes is more difficult when on exchange. But we did have one exchange student winning his election.

Finally, there is a loss of friends. This is a hard one. Because for 4 months, you learn to laugh and cry with these folks. Now, you must find a new shoulder on which to vent your emotions. This is not easy in a foreign country where you meet a limited set of people, mostly in a class environment. And these folks already have their set of friends.

So, To exchange or Not to exchange. This is a choice each individual must make. For me, I was willing to accept these trade-offs. And what I got in return far exceeded what I lost.

Cheers,
Suraj

Winter Internships - A Blind Date

Hi
I begin with an apology (the worst way to begin anything). I have been extremely busy in the last one week. Due to which I have not been able to blog. Last week was also a lot of fun. Working with a bunch of consultants, I was exposed to tons of jargons - "technocommercial" "a 20000 feet thought" "sales clawback period" "biz pulse" "YTD" ... Anyway this week looks a little more sane and so I'm back.

After the final exams, we had a month's break. Too long a break if you ask me. Specially for a shortened 18 month program. Most of us opted to/had to go back home. There were quite a lot who tried for a winter internship. Unfortunately, only a few succeeded. I don't know the exact numbers. Because as the term went on, the internship search became a 'Sherlock Holmes' mystery. People didn't want to tell others whether they were applying, where they were applying to and what their status was.

The bottomline is that the winter internship is like a 'Blind Date'. You always have a shot at success. But the chances of things working out are remote. By my estimate, around 10 in the batch got a winter internship. Companies varied from KPMG, RBS, TATA and a few other small boys.

As for me, initially I applied to a few companies. Nothing worked out. And my parents wanted to come down to Singapore during December. So, I gave up the ghost. My parents, sister and uncle came down to Singapore. We went to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Macau. It was a fun trip and a great learning experience. But this trip had nothing to do with NUS. And this blog is positioned as my experience @ NUS MBA. So, I shall not delve much into the trip.

My exchange program at MBS was to start on Feb 4th. But NUS opened a couple of weeks earlier. So, it was an extended holiday for me. Whenever I went to college, people kept asking me, "What are you doing here?" And to be honest, I asked the same question "What am I doing here?". Just the after-effects of an overly long vacation.

Cheers,
Suraj

My final exams - And I'm back

Hi
I am not sure how many of you have noticed/missed that I have not posted a blog for the last few days. The reason is that the good news has finally arrived. My project has been signed off and work has begun in earnest. It has been exciting and enlightening, working with a bunch of consultants and with company insiders highly cynical of consultants. The last few days have been crazily busy and I have not had time to blog. Though I may not be as prolific as before, I shall ensure that the blog remains active. That was my promise when I started the blog and I make that promise again.

So, where are we on my little trip to the past? I think I have pretty much covered every major event during my first term. So, its time for the climax. My final exams!! After my mid-term debacle, I was prepared for this one. I had started studying continuously and taking an active part in my projects. And I got lucky with my exam time-table. I cannot emphasize enough the need to get lucky on the exam time-table. One of the sections, the FM1 guys, got a shocking time-table. They had exams on continuous days. As a result, they were screwed. FM3 got lucky - both during mid-term and during the final exams (wonder whether this is a tip for future batches or the law of averages will even things out). I had 3 days break for the economics exam. This was important for me because I was least confident about economics and I had performed badly in my mid-terms.

Exam week started with OM (Ops mgmt) exam. It was a strange exam. We had to answer online. The questions were opening up in the IVLE (our intranet) on Saturday morning. And we had to submit our answers by Sunday night. The questions were case based but tricky. It took longer to answer than we thought. For all the group work, it took me the entire weekend to answer the questions and submit them. Got a B+ for this one.

The Marketing exam was a complete lottery. Anyone taking a course with Prof. Leong Siew Meng be warned!! There is an entire book on Marketing Management in Asia to study. The book is written jointly with Philip Kotler. It makes for an interesting read. But the problem with the book is that it is superfluous. There is so much reptitive data that it gets tough to read the entire book, specially before the exam. We had the last few chapters for the finals exam (the first few had come for the mid-terms). I was in a group of 3 to 4 people who tried to split the chapters to read through. Then we would teach each other our respective chapters. All this was to no avail because of the nature of the exam. It was objective questions and they came from any sub-topic in any page. And it was virtually impossible to remember all the details. But, as I said, I got lucky. I had prepared really well and got more objective questions right than most. I got an A+ on this one (the only A+ in my entire course).

Financial Accounting was a fun exam for me. I got the cash flows right for the first time in my life. In general, the exam was a little tough. But I did decently enough. And was quite satisfied with my grades - A-

Financial Mgmt was an easy question paper with one tricky question. Again, I was well prepared and did pretty well. After all, I wanted to specialize in finance and my grades in the finance subjects were crucial. Again a decent grade - A-

And finally - Economics. I cannot explain how disappointed I was/am with this one. I studied very hard for this one. I had covered all the chapters, knew the theory inside out. I was fairly well versed with the problems as well. But the question paper had 5 questions for 5 chapters. This in a book with about 20 chapters. And we had the entire book for the exam. All the questions were problems which were pretty simple. I was so shocked with the question paper that I forgot how to solve the problems. But as the exam went on I recollected my composure and managed to answer the problems. MBA exam grades are relative in nature. Such an easy exam meant that most people did well in the exam. Though, in general, this is good - it wasn't good for my grades. I had screwed my mid-terms and needed a decently tough paper to get back. It didn't happen. Got a B+

This is also one of the paradoxes of the MBA grading system. Though you might want everyone to do well, if everyone does well you are screwed. Chances are you will be middle of the pack.

All in all, I got a CAP (cumulative score) of 4.25 out of 5. I don't know where this stands among the batch. I was to learn later that asking about the CAP is a highly sensitive topic. It took a few snubs for me to learn this lesson. As a friend candidly asked me, "Would you ask for the CAP if you had done badly?" And I think that is a fair comment. I would not have ventured about the CAP, if my score was below 4. It was selfish of me to ask others about the CAP when their score could have been lower. It wasn't intentional but it was wrong. And that is my tip for future students. CAP is a sensitive topic better left alone.

I was pleased with my performance in the final exams. It took me to the top tier of the b-school batch. I was a long distance off from the topper (CAP of 4.7) but I was there where I belonged. I was back!!!

Cheers,
Suraj

Project and Deadlines; Deadlines and Projects

Hi
I was caught in the midst of a heated discussion today at the breakfast table. The topic was how to make Tata Indicom the premier mobile operator in the country. The only way the Tatas can achieve this is through churn (acquiring the customers of a competing network operator). Now, this is not easy. Because if a customer churns why should he come to TATA and not go to Vodafone? Besides, why should a customer churn? Bharti, the country's premier mobile operator, owns a powerful brand, Airtel. It is incredibly fast to the market. They came up with their m-commerce ads (currently running on Indian television featuring Madhavan and Vidhya Balan) a couple of days after the RBI gave the green signal to mobile commerce. The recent acquisition of Spice by Idea demoted us from being the 5th largest player to the 6th largest. So, the business case is dire. And the people on my breakfast table were the cream of the company. One of them is part of the core strategy team in the Corporate head office, another is a core member of the marketing team of a "to be launched" new product division and so on. Bottomline, these guys could make a difference in the organization. Yet, for the last one month I had seen this topic being debated and debated. The people on the breakfast table changed but the arguments remained. And everyone had differing views on how the growth could be achieved. But they kept talking and nothing was being done. It reminded me of that IBM ad "Stop Talking, Start Doing." This makes me ask a controversial question? Are we management folks more inclined to talk rather than execute? Certainly, IBM thinks so!

The Business case above represents a sample of the business cases we had to handle for our first term projects. Personally, I love these projects. I believe that is what makes b-school life interesting and differentiates it from an under-graduate experience. B-schools believe that these projects simulate a business environment for students. Agreed, except with one big difference. In projects you have nothing to lose. At a maximum, it will effect your grades. But in business - politics, livelihood, greed, fear - all play a part. There are a whole gamut of emotional attributes at play. A b-school business case or project cannot simulate these emotions.

The one emotion that they can simulate is fear of Deadlines. And I faced plenty of it during my first semester. My first project submission was Statistics. For stats, we were given the option of choosing our projects. We had to take one key decision for the project - did we want to do primary research or did we want to download secondary data. We settled for the latter. Mostly because of the amount of work involved for primary research and the unreliability of the data. There were some teams which opted for primary research but eventually had to manipulate their data to achieve the conclusion they wanted. But we found it incredibly hard to find relevant secondary data. Most of the secondary data suffered from insufficient data points required for a regression analysis (on which our project was based). Finally, we settled on a project about the 'Crime patterns in the United States'. We got the data from the Department of Justice. Our team's magician was Fred. He drove the project and did the core work. If not for him we would have struggled to finish the project. And even today I don't understand the tables that went into the project. But Fred knew what he was talking about and that is what matters.

In a generic sense, team-work is great for projects and helps divide work. But I have seen projects completed with the dazzle of that one "magician" in the team. Subsequently, these magicians are either in great demand or scorned upon. If he is a magician and can still work in a team (not as easy as it sounds), he is much in demand. If he is a magician but thinks everyone else is shit and cannot work as a part of the team he is scorned upon.

The project I enjoyed most was Marketing. We had to create a marketing plan for "Formula 1 -Singapore". The project was exciting and it was the only one where I put my heart into it. Different teams put in different levels of effort for the project. There was one team which commissioned a market survey to understand the F1 customer. They actually paid outsiders to conduct this survey. While there were other teams, which started work with barely a week remaining. We were somewhere in-between having started work with a month to go. And I truely believe that we had the best caption among the teams - "Racing into the night". It reflected our positioning for Singapore having the world's first formula 1 night race.

Our accounting project was due to be submitted on the same day as the Marketing project. We had a fun time that night. Our Marketing and Accounting teams were working till 5 in the morning. I remember shuffling time between Marketing and Accounting during the previous evening and well into the night. At times I wondered what was I working on - Marketing or Accounting. While my Marketing project had taken a decent shape, our Accounting project was a mess. We were supposed to compare the Financial Statement of HP and Dell and evaluate which company was better poised for delivering 'shareholder value' (another buzz word!). The basic criteria for the project was to compare like firms from a list of firms populated by the professor. And we had one team which wanted to prove that HP and Dell were not like firms. So, our project had to first prove that they were like firms. Only, if we did this, would the remainder of the project be evaluated. The problem with our Accounting project was that it was 'nobody's baby'. So, it stayed incomplete till the last minute. We had to submit the project by 12 noon. We had our marketing class from 9 to 12. I remember working on the Accounting project right through the Marketing Class. I exchanged mails with my team members through the class. We even discovered a major blunder half-way through marketing class. With 10 minutes left, we submitted our Accounting project which I will best describe as 'half-baked'.

We had two projects to submit for Financial Management. One at the mid-term stage and one at the final stage. The first project was about finding NPV (net present value) of a particular project. I knew nothing about this project. I had an excellent team which didn't need my contributions. The second project was about calucating the WACC (weighter average cost of capital) for two firms. This was a pretty simple project which we finished in a day. By this time, I had suffered my mid-term exam catastrophe (to read about this, click Mid-term catastrophe) and thus actively contributed to my projects.

The final project was Operations Management. We did a project on the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) of Singapore. This was quite a simple project which was done in a couple of days. Some basic shit about the ICA and how they could improve their operations. That is the great thing about strategy. You can write any 'shit' about it. Trouble is, very little of the 'shit' works!

Economics and the intensive modules did not have projects. The other sections had economics projects. So, I guess we got away with one. Though I would have loved an economics project. It is a wonderful way to round-off all the theory you have learnt.

During the course of these projects, I met some wonderful people. And typically, project members become the best of friends. And after some time the cycle reverses. The best of friends become project members. Projects are where diversity in backgrounds really helps. During our Marketing project, Anh came up with the idea of dividing our marketing plan across phases. And these phases would overlap each other to save time. She showed this diagrammetically which made our plan easy to understand. This was possible because she was from a Marketing background. This was all new to me. All in all, the projects were a lot of fun and a lot of learning.

And once the project were done, thats when the real fun started. The final exams were due in a week's time. And there was no break in-between.

Cheers,
Suraj

How I got my internship???

Hi
Let me begin with a caveat. This is not one of those "How to get rich in 30 days" theories. In fact, I don't even believe this is a reflection on how to approach the internship search (for that refer to my earlier post Career Connexions, Internship profiles, Career switchers). If anything, this post exposes how lucky I got. And how that source of luck became my source of limitation.

When I learnt that the TATAs were coming to campus, I was caught in a dilemma. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to apply or not. When I had come to NUS, I was firm on a couple of things. I didn't want to go back to software (two years of work-pressure had killed me) and to a lesser extent I didn't want to go back to India. But my circumstances had changed after coming to NUS. I was going to MBS during the second term. I knew that getting an internship during the second term would be tough game. So, I needed to secure one as soon as I could. I was confused at that point in time. The sub-prime crisis added to my doubts and uncertainty. Initially, I didn't apply to TATA. But I changed my mind and applied. I sent my application a day after the deadline but luckily the registration was still open.

Ever heard of the term, "One man's meat is another man's poison." That was exactly what happened to me. The TATAs came up with a very funny filtering criteria. They wanted people with less than 3 years work experience. Which in our batch was very limited. Among those who applied for TATA, only 8 were left.

All the big boys from TATA had come for the recruitment. TATA IIP (International Internship Program) they called it. Heads, Presidents, CEOs were all there. The 8 of us were put in a room with a couple of the big boys. The GD (Group Discussion) lasted an hour. It was a marathon by any standards. Each of us had to chair the GD for 10 mins. The topics ranged from management issues to HR issues to supply chain issues to ethical issues. I was mentally exhausted by the end of the GD. Four of us got selected for the interview. Three girls and I was the only guy.

The interview was a schocker. I was ripped apart. I had not practised for an interview in months. My rustiness showed and was completely exposed. There were two in the panel and nothing I said could convince them.

"Why do you want this internship?"
"We don't think you are right for the job."
"We think you are lying"
"What will your father say about you?"
"What do you think about the Indo-US Nuclear deal?"
"What do you expect from your life partner?"
"What can your life partner expect from you?"

The questions rattled on and on. At some point during the interview I lost interest. I didn't care about the job any longer. I just wanted the interview to end.

I was extremely disappointed after the interview. I thought that I had thrown away my oppurtunity. I wanted to get away from civilization for some time. I was on the bus back to Boon Lay when the call came. I had been selected. It was a pleasant surprise. Apparently, the interview had been equally draining for everyone else. Two of us stood amidst the ruins. We had won the battle of attrition.

The TATA internship offer created a couple of problems. These are problems/issues which all of us face. I was the first to secure an internship in the batch. That was not necessarily a good thing. The better companies would be coming later on. I didn't have access to them. It was the classic dilemma. Wait for the better companies and risk not getting anything or get placed earlier and forfeit the better companies. I chose the latter for the reasons I outlined earlier.

This situation also created an ethical dilemma. I had accepted the TATA internship but I wanted more. I wanted to get into a better company - something related to core Finance. This meant that I had to apply to other companies even though I had accepted TATA. There isn't an easy answer for this ethical dilemma. I can give you a hundred reasons for and against the argument. I did apply to other companies. But I couldn't go through the CSO. Essentially, one of my major routes were cut-off. Applying from Melbourne didn't help my cause either (I shall explain the impact of exchange on the internship search in a later post). So, nothing materialized.

TATAs finalized the project in the first week of May. It was as related to Finance as I could expect from a TATA group company. They had lived up to their word. I decided to live up to mine. I stopped applying to other companies. It was TATA for me.

Cheers,
Suraj

FT rankings - A Pandora's Box

Hi
FT rankings are always a hot topic within the b-school confines. NUS was ranked no. 81 the year I joined. By the time the 2008 rankings were released, we were out of the top 100. It made huge news. Everyone, from students to staff to MBA office to the Singapore media had an opinion on it. Here is my take on it.

These rankings impact three groups of people. The alumni (to a limited extent), current students (bigger impact than you might think) and prospective students - they can be grouped together as 'Students'. The b-school and its management is the second group of people. The ranking agencies (FT.com and KPMG in our case) whose reputation and ultimately profits depend on these rankings.

The centre-piece of the whole show is the rankings themselves. I believe that rankings play a disproportionate level of importance in a b-school's life. It puts b-schools at the mercy of rating agencies. This is ridiculous when you consider the assumptions and limitations of any ranking model. The perfect case in point is in the differences between b-school rankings in FT.com ratings and the Businessweek.com ratings. The FT.com ratings show that an ISB graduate has a higher weighted salary than a Harvard graduate. I wonder where that one came from! The bottomline is that any ranking model can be ripped apart as inaccurate in terms of its assumptions. Unfortunately, this inaccurate representation has become the centre-piece of the b-school world.

WHY WERE WE BOOTED OUT OF THE TOP 100?

Apparently there was a technicality wherein not enough of our alumni responded to the survey questionnaire sent by FT. Due to lack of data points, we were not considered for the rankings.

This argument is great, maybe even understandable, within the confines of the b-school. But try explaining it to someone outside the system. The first reaction you will get is "WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!"

The blame game followed the release of the rankings. The students blamed the MBA office, the MBA office blamed our alumni. The alumni could not be reached for comment. Somewhere within this vicious circle lies the truth. Let us start with the NUS Business School and its management.

The reputation of a business school ("Brand" in b-school terms) hugely impacts its growth. I believe that this is the second most important element for a b-school after alumni network (the quality of which is dependent of the "Brand" of the b-school). It should be the prime focus of the management of a b-school to sustain and enhance its Brand. One of the ways of enhancing Brand (maybe the most important way) is the b-school rankings (specifically FT rankings). A climb in the rankings generates a huge amount of PR (Public Relations) which is a "free" way to enhance your Brand (ISB is a case in point). NUS has positioned itself as "Asia's Global Business School". To support this positioning, it has to be ranked no.1 in Asia and among the top 50 in the world. To let the ranking slip below the top 100 is a huge failure on the part of NUS MBA office. Somebody must have been sleeping there. And to blame this failure on the Alumni, is like a child crying after his lost candy. We should have been after the alumni to send their responses and done everything ethically possible to ensure a high ranking. B-schools are not about Brick and Mortar. They are about the Brand.

This ranking debacle has a huge impact on prospective students. I have seen a lot of posts condemning students who select b-schools on MBA rankings. But I have a different take on this. Take a student's perspective. He has very little on which to compare b-schools. Sure you can do some research on the net and even talk to people within a b-school. But it is nearly impossible to determine which b-schools are better. So, b-school rankings offer the best means of comparing b-schools and determining which ones are better. They are perfectly right in doing so (except for the fact that the rankings themselves are inaccurate!). NUS is not Harvard which has a 100 year history backing it. Our descent out of the top 100, puts doubts about our credibility in the minds of prospective students.

For the current students there is a huge reputational impact. But there was a grave near-term effect as well. It turns out that recruiters look at the FT rankings for recruitment purposes. And some of them will go to schools only within the FT top 100. The alumni who are well into their careers suffer the least from all this. But for some of them there could be reputational impact.

As for ranking agencies, I think its ridiculous that they boot a college out because of lack of data points. Would they have done the same if the college was Harvard? Techinically, this is the same as defamation. Obviously, the ranking agencies couldn't care less. These rankings are about building their brand. The FT ranking build up the FT brand as an expert in disemminating business information (think about what Fortune 500 does for Fortune magazine). Once the brand is built, the sales can be reaped. The greater the controversy generated by the rankings, the more the PR, the bigger the brand. As long as the credibility of the rankings ("Brand") is not impacted, it is a win-win for them.

Thus this vicious circle of business, dreams and lives come together every year. They will be back in 2009 as well. Hopefully, this time NUS will be in the top 100. No matter what the ranking say, based on my experiences at MBS (ranked 75), I firmly believe that we are a TOP 50 school.

For FT.com ranking, click http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/mba
For BusinessWeek.com ranking, click http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/
For Anshuman's (NUS MBA alum) view of the FT ratings, click http://anshublogsat.blogspot.com/2008/01/ft-rankings-are-outwe-are-out-too.html

Cheers,
Suraj

My mistakes on the road to MBS

Hi
"It is a fool who learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from others' mistakes". I read this quote years ago and it has stuck with me. Primarily because, time and again I have been foolish. When I got the admit into MBS, I thought that my job was done. Everything else was a formality. But what followed was what Shakespeare described as a 'Comedy of Errors'. I have kept this comedy of errors a closely guarded secret. I reveal it now in the hope that those reading this post will learn from my mistakes on the road to MBS.

After confirming my exchange university, I was asked to immediately start my visa process. I ignored that valuable piece of advice. I was extermely busy with other things during that time. And I thought that I knew better. How difficult can it be to get an Australian visa!

In the middle of October, I realised that I had still not started my Visa process. Others, specially those applying into the US, were already processing their application. That freaked me out. I acted fast. I called the Australian embassy and asked them what documents they require. I arranged for those documents within that week. And next Monday, I was all set to submit my application for an Australian Student Visa.

The Australian Embassy was located on Napier Road. It was heavily guarded and no electronic components were allowed inside. Upon getting through security, I awaited my turn to be interviewed. My turn came and I submitted my documents.

"Sir, where is your IELTS score?" the interviewer asked me. I explained to him that I had written the TOEFL which was the equivalent of IELTS. He wouldn't listen. He insisted on an IELTS score.

I had known that IELTS was required for an Australian university. But I had assumed that it was not needed for exchange into an Australian University. Neither NUS nor MBS had informed me about IELTS. So, I thought that my assumption was right. I never called the Australian embassy to confirm whether IELTS was required. That was a huge blunder.

The British Council stood next to the Australian Embassy. I went to ask them the next available date for IELTS. That was when the gravity of the situation hit me. No dates available till January. The Student Visa took 30-45 days to process. I would miss the Feb 4th deadlines for joining MBS. I was shocked.

I went to the NUS MBA office office for help. Zahira, was our exchange co-ordinator. Her support and encouragement during these tough times was amazing. She got in touch with MBS to see whether anything could be done through them. She got in touch with the Australian embassy to persuade them to accept my TOEFL/GMAT score.

The Australian embassy took time to reply. Once again I went to the Australian embassy to put my case across. This time I was mentally prepared with my answers. The interviewer was a lady this time. She seemed new to the job. She immediately took my documents and asked me to pay the fee. I was delighted. I didn't expect things to be so easy. But she came back in a couple of minutes with another officer. He said that the IELTS was required for processing my Student Visa. No amount of reasoning from Zahira or NUS could convince the Australian Embassy. I was back to square one.

Amongst this chaos, I got my lucky break. The Australian Tourist visa has a provision that we can Study in Australia for 3 months. My exchange program ended exactly in 3 months. I thought that I could enter on a tourist visa and then extend it during my stay there. Zahira was once again helpful in making the required docs.

I got third time lucky. On my third visit to the Australian Embassy, I got my visa. But it came with a catch. I had to sign a clause that I would not extend my visa during my stay in Australia. My visit was curtailed to a maximum of 3 months. Me getting the visa was only half the story.

I was not completely confident that I would get the Tourist Visa. So, I had made a plan B. Since all IELTS dates were booked in Singapore during December, I searched for places in Malaysia where dates were available. I came across a place called Kuching. I had never heard of this place before. I remember trying to verify on the net whether such a place really existed. I searched for Kuching on google maps. It was in the island of Sarawak in East Malaysia. Without any other option, I booked for the IELTS exam in Kuching. This was the start of my troubles.

I scoured for flights from Singapore to Kuching. Unforunately, I couldn't find any within my price range. I had to book an Air Asia flight from Johor Bahru (a Malaysian city adjoining Singapore) to Kuching. My next problem was finding an hotel to stay in. All hotels were booked for that weekend. I made a flurry of calls before I found a hotel called Singasanna Lodge to stay in. It sounded like a shady place but I didn't have an option.

I was scheduled to travel the day after my Tourist visa interview. Once I got the visa this exam became redundant. But I had made all the arrangements and none of the money was refundable. So, I decided to go. It was an hour's travel from Singapore to Johor Bahru. Johor Bahru could not be a greater contrast to Singapore. Struggling with poverty and under-development it was a shadow of Singapore. Kuching turned out to be a much more developed and vibrant place than I had expected. Singassana Lodge was a quality budget hotel. And the IELTS exam went smoothly. The hard part was getting to the exam; the exam was easy enough. The results arrived a month later. I had more than exceeded the qualification criteria. But it was all pointless. Talk about rubbing salt into your wounds!

Cheers,
Suraj

Applying for the exchange program

Hi,
As a little kid I had a dream. That little kid within me continues to have that dream. I wanted to and still want to see the world. There are a list of cities in my head which I want to see before the curtain closes. I believe that the exchange program within NUS offers the perfect oppurtunity to do so. I remember that on a December day in 2006 I had to decide which college to apply: NUS or NTU. I had time only to apply to one of them. I decided NUS because of the strength of its exchange program.

We had our initial exchange briefing a few weeks into the MBA program. The news was disappointing. The names "Columbia and Cornell" had attracted me to NUS. But these colleges were not on the list of colleges that I could apply to for next term. The exchange program works on a mutual understanding between the two colleges. If 2 students from Cornell are interested in coming to NUS, then Cornell reserves 2 seats for NUS students. Roughly it works like that. The bottomline is that there is a limit in the intake of exchange students at any exchange university. And this year our limit with Cornell had been reached. There had already been one student from the senior batch during the previous term. As for Columbia, our existing contract with them had ended. So, no more exchange students going to Columbia.

This was the pattern across European Universities as well. HEC, Paris was not on the list. ESADE, Spain was not on the list. These universities would be available only during the third term. This was the first time NUS was offering exchange during the second term. And the signs were not very good. I was disappointed at the stripped down list of universities. I was hurt that our web-site was not updated with this fact (Amazingly, it is still not updated. Click http://www.bschool.nus.edu/Programs/MBA/xchange.htm for details on our exchange program).

Despite these setbacks, I was determined on going on exchange. I was interested in only three colleges - Duke (Fuqua school of business), Melbourne Biz School, IE in Spain. This was my order of preference. I filled in the exchange form and wrote an essay on why I wanted to go for the exchange program. The selection criteria was based primarily on the GMAT with the essay playing a minor role. I had a GMAT of 750. So, I knew I had a shot.

I was selected to interview for Duke. The interview process was only for Duke. For the other universities, it was a straight-forward selection process.

The interview was on expected lines.

Why exchange?
How does exchange benefit you?
Why should we send you on exchange?
What will you do for NUS when on exchange?
Previous work experience?

In all, 5 of us interviewed for Duke. To my disappointment, I did not make it. I think my lack of work experience (2 years) hurt me. In hind-sight, this failure was the best thing to happen to me. I saved a ton of money by not going to the US. And I was later presented with the oppurtunity to go to the US (my second study trip). So, not being selected gave me the oppurtunity to see two countries.

Instead of Duke, I got selected for MBS. This was no easy task because I heard that the competition for MBS was also strong. After all we faced a short supply of good colleges. I was in a dilemma between MBS and IE, Spain. IE had excellent FT rankings but very little Brand recall (atleast in India). I had not heard of its name before coming to NUS. The deciding factor was language. I had struggled with Hindi during my time at NUS. And this was in a batch which spoke and understood English. I was scared by the thought of struggling with Spanish. So, I chose MBS.

And I was fortunate to have made the right choice. Because, as I shall explain in a later post, Melbourne became my favourite city.

Cheers,
Suraj

International Day @ NUS - a cosmopolitan extravanganza

Hi
I saw an amazing sight on the Mumbai train yesterday. A little boy, around half my height, probably in the 1st standard was trying to get onto the train. None of the adults in that compartment were willing to move over and let that boy in. Eventually another school kid pulled him up. He was clutching onto the pole and hanging out of the train. I sincerely hope that he reached home safely. This incident is a reflection of the society we live in - even little boys have to fight for space. It is also a reflection on the Mumbai Corporation. For a financial capital, the city's transport systems are woefully under-developed. I am not even comparing things with Singapore. Delhi has had an effecient metro running for the last few years. Bombay deserved this metro atleast 10 years ago. And only now are they talking about it.

Fortunately, for every dismal event such as the above there exists a happy event. One such event was the International Day at NUS. This was the most significant extra-curricular activity of the first semester. It was a congregation of the entire NUS MBA under one roof, no small feat by itself. The first year students were responsible for all the stage events. There were a couple of highlights. The Chinese students in the batch enacted the Peking Opera. This was a confluence of song, dance, costumes and Chinese history. The costumes were opulent and the screenplay was magnificent. The Koreans showed their prowess at Karate (or was it Kung-Fu - I get confused). Rang De Basanti made an entrance through the song 'Roobaroo'. And the climax was an Indian and Western dance fusion by the Indian girls in the batch. Once the official ceremonies were over, the real fun started.

Shivdat and Mirnal (NUS MBA students) played DJ as the entire batch got into a frenzy of dance. Yours truly, a self confessed novice at dancing, got into the action too. Much to my surprise, there were some amazing dancers in the batch. Du-Fei deserves special mention here. Fortunately, there were many more like me, terrible dancers but having their fun.

What was my contribution to the event? Sadly, nothing. I cannot dance and sure as hell, cannot sing. So, that pretty much ruled me out. In fact, there was an interesting story before the event. Initially, there weren't many events scheduled for Int'l Day. People were busy and Int'l Day wasn't the biggest priority. That got our seniors concerned. Feelers were sent out that Int'l Day was an important event @ NUS and we needed to be more active in our participation. So, the idea was formed for a Salsa Dance. There was one SMALL problem though. There were about five to six girls in the batch who knew salsa but only ONE guy. So, I gave Salsa a shot. I started with the basis of Salsa - "1,2,3" "1,2,3" the rhythm went. But there is a limit to which a donkey can be turned into a horse. My inhibitions defeated me and I gave up on Salsa. Eventually, the dance had to be dropped because there weren't enough guyz. What can I say?? Here was a great oppurtunity but there were no takers.

So, I limited my participation to dressing up in a Kurta Pyjama. This function was the only occassion when I used it. Accompanying my Kurta Pyjama, was a pair of Adidas floaters. You can thank the airline baggage limit for that combo. Everyone had dressed up in their traditional costumes. And a lot of them were looking really pretty. That evening was truely a feast for the eyes, heart and belly.

Read Sourabh's brilliant blog in Int'l Day: http://nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com/2007/10/international-day-14th-sep-2007.html

Read Colleen's story on the background work for rendering the Peking Opera:
http://nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com/2007/10/one-team-one-dream.html

Read an exchange student's take on Int'l Day:
http://nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com/2007/10/totally-new-experience-during-exchange.html

Cheers,
Suraj

Of clubs and more clubs

Hi
One of the great traits about a prospective MBA candidate is his confidence to lead. I have rarely come across an MBA candidate who thinks that he cannot lead a team/company. This is a great trait to have except that it comes with its baggage of problems. One of them concerns 'MBA clubs'.

NUS MBA has a number of number of clubs in theory but very few in practise. The nus mba site currently shows a list of 9 clubs. Click http://www.bschool.nus.edu/Programs/MBA/studentlife.htm for the details. And I don't think this list is updated. I have seen more clubs - Knowledge Management club and Partners club - to name a couple more. However, during my time at NUS I have seen only 3 to 4 clubs which have a constant stream of activity. In a purely cynical way, I am tempted to think how many of these clubs were started as a fad or to boost someone's resume. It could also be the result of the MBA trait that I spoke about - the inherent belief about the ability to lead a group of people.

When students join NUS there is a rush towards these clubs. It is common to see people being a part of 3 to 4 clubs. This is again a result of that MBA trait - the belief that we can lead anyone. Another reason is that it looks good on the resume. In my own experience, it is possible to be an active participant in one club and two at the most. Anything beyond this magic number becomes a drag on our time. The initial rush towards multiple clubs was followed by a constant decline in membership at club meetings. And towards the end of the semester, clubs were filtered down to their core members. These were the people who were truely interested in the welfare of the club.

The seniors had warned me about this trend. Though I restricted myself to one club - Finance Club, I still succumbed to this trend. I was interested in the Entrepreneurship Club but nothing much happened in that space. So, it was Finance Club for me, driven my interest in getting into the Financial Services industry. During the semester, I also involved myself in Cerebration (our business case competition) and MAFIA (Marketing and Admission team of NUS). To be honest, some of this was in part driven by a need to make my resume look better and in part driven by my interest. For Cerebration, I was a part of the case-writing team. But I never justified that work. The first semester was too busy and I had put my hands into too many things. Similarly, MAFIA started out with a bang but then fizzed out. This was an initiative by the NUS MBA office and I had volunteered to be the leader. Though the initiative still exists, it is still to take off. The NUS MBA office needs to define a clear strategy with this initiative. And, through no fault of mine, I am yet to justify my role in MAFIA. I did manage to be actively involved with the Finance Club throughout the semester. I attended most of the meetings and participated in club activities. Besides the Fin club, I took care of the NUS MBA blog. So, these were my small contributions towards NUS. And my attempt at proving that MBA trait called "leadership".

Which was the most active club during the semester? I thought that the Finance Club was the most active. We had a FinXplorer Series wherein we brought in speakers from across the sphere of finance. We had a stock picking competition which was a simulated Trading game. The Consulting club had 'Consultant Unplugged' which was a table conference of consultants on their views on the profession. The Marketing guyz ran a Marketing competition. There was an inter-collegiate quiz run by the Knowledge Management guyz. The Entrepreneurship club did some work with A-star which is an incubator cell at NUS. Beyond these there is nothing I can remember.

In naval terms, NUS MBA has a number of clubs but only a few have the captain to steer them ahead and the passengers interesting in travelling in that ship. Anyone wanting to come aboard, should limit themselves to one ship - at the most two. Anything more and you will probably get lost in the high seas.

Cheers,
Suraj

Career Connexions, Internship profiles, Career switchers

Hi
This blog is a continuation of my previous post on CSO. The theme of this post is to explain the kind of profile that my batch folks got and what was the scene like for career switchers.

Career Connexions is the flagship event of the CSO. Is is exclusively for NUS MBA students - first and second years. It is held once every semester and it is a congregation of companies under one roof. Our Career Connexions was held in the ballroom of a hotel in Raffles sometime in October. The fact that I can neither remember the date nor the hotel point to one fact. Career Connexions was more hype than action. The companies that came varied from Microsoft to Unilever to Citibank to Schlumberger to Merill Lynch. Each company had set up a desk with a couple of representatives - one from HR and one from the business function. We went upto each desk and spoke to these representatives and handed in our resume. To which they promised to get back. The brand value of a company could be judged by the length of the queue in front of the desks. The better the brand the bigger the queue. I collected the HR ids of the companies that I was interested in and dropped them a mail that immediate evening. I was trained to do so by the CSO. I even followed up with them for a couple of months. But nothing materialized. I am not sure if this event helped anyone. On average, it was a waste.

The internship search is a core activity of the MBA. There are many ways to approach it. The easiest option is to get an internship with any company that comes to campus. The trouble is that very few companies prefer to hold their interviews in campus. I was lucky enough to get mine through this route. I got an offer with TATA - I shall explain how I got it in a later post. A lot more companies came in the second semester to conduct in-campus interviews. There were examples of people getting into CTS, HCL, SK Telecom (Korean telecom firm), J & J, Alghanim (a middle-east company) through this route. The next option is to keep applying into company websites. All major firms have an internship link in which to apply into. People got into companies like Standard Chartered, JP Morgan through this route. The CSO also has an active web-site called the "Global Workspace" wherein they update deadlines of companies to apply into. Through the web-site they pool in resumes and cover letters of interested students and send the details to the respective company. People got into companies like Nestle, Frost & Sullivan, Asendas through this route. The next option is to obtain HR contacts through attending company talks or networking after company talks or other networking events. People got into KPMG, DBS, ANZ through this route. The final option is to use your own personal contacts to secure an intership with a firm. People got into companies like S & P, Deloitte, Ernst and Young through this route.

As can be seen above the companies that my batch mates got into were diverse and there were many routes to getting there. This list of companies is not exhaustive but the lessons are there. It is possible to secure a decent internship. And during your time at NUS, you will have to employ all the above routes because only time will judge which is the best route for you. Similarly, the projects that my batch-mates are doing is diverse. They consist of consulting activities, supply chain, corporate finance, equity analysis, risk management, trading, marketing and sales, pricing analysis, M&A. Again this list is not exhaustive.

And what happened to the career switchers. Some of them did really well for themselves. People have broken into equity analysis and corporate finance roles without a background in Finance. The same is the case in Marketing and Supply Chain wherein people have secured these roles without a relevant background. So, switching careers is possible. But it comes with a caveat. Not everyone is succesful in doing so.

I conclude with a strange observation that I had during the last one year. It is very tempting for me to say that hard work and endurance are all that you need to succeed. But this is not what I have seen. There were some who did not work that hard who got some great internships while there were others who worked their hearts out but struggled to get an internship. I believe that we all need that little X-factor called 'lady luck' to be on our side. Having said that, those really "lucky ones" were few and far between. For the rest, it was hard work supplemented by an element of luck. So, unless your one of those priveleged lucky ones, you must be prepared to sweat it out. Ultimately the old adage will come true, "The harder I work the luckier I get."

Cheers,
Suraj

Career Services Office, company talks and internships

Hi
I am excited to write this post. It has the potential to become a popular post. This is because of the volatility of the topic - Career Services Office (CSO) and company recruitment talks. Everyone has an opinion on this topic and invariably the CSO have become the whipping boys of the school. I have a slightly different take on this topic. The CSO definitely needs to improve by leaps and bound but I don't believe that they are as bad as they are made out to be. I came to this conclusion based on my experiences at MBS.

This topic is specially important for anyone joining NUS. My suggestion is to do your research. People's opinions are skewed by their experiences. Anyone who has got a job through the CSO probably thinks they are great. Anyone who did not get a job through the CSO probably thinks they are shit. So, while your research might reveal a myriad of opinions, the truth is somewhere between the extremes.

Here is my take on the CSO and internship search in general...

We got introduced to the CSO during the first day of college. This was great except that is was a very negative experience. The CSO official who addresses us was greatly negative. He came up with a million reasons why it is difficult to get a job. He was specially vicious on career-switchers which in an MBA batch is pretty much everyone. On top of that he pulled out resumes of some students at top b-schools (read "Harvard" and "Wharton"). He asked us to match our resumes with those students. Obviously, mine did not match up. Basically, he implied that I was shit. The CSO was probably trying to inject into me realistic expectations about my future job. But the talk only dampened my spirits.

This talk was followed up by a host of company talks within the next couple of months. August and September are the months of company talks. Things die down in October and November. Initially, I attended every company talk. But they were mostly futile experiences. Because the companies were not looking for interns at that point in time. And those that were gave us an e-mail id in which to apply into. This meant that I was among a sea of people and needed more than a prayer to get selected.

However, I made a huge mistake during these months. I never interacted with the company folks after the talks. By interacting with company folks we can get their personal visting cards. This creates a point of contact within the company. By sending our resume to this point of contact, we can bypass the sea of people. I did know all this at that point in time. But I was too reserved to approach any of the company folks. It was a huge mistake.

Besides the company talks, the CSO sent us reminders to company application deadlines. Within the Investing Banking space, the deadlines for structured internships were spaced around the middle of October. I did not have enough of an idea about Investment Banking at that time. So, my applications were mostly run-of-the-mill and poorly conceived. I even managed to miss a few deadlines because everything was happening so fast and I was not prepared.

Every application consisted of a Covering Letter and a Resume. These two terms gave me nightmares. They take more time to create than you would hope. And you can never create the perfect covering letter and resume. Mine went through five iterations before I was happy with them. There are others who have done twenty iterations and are still not happy. There is a great danger that half your MBA life will be spent preparing Resumes and Covering Letters. And this part of your life takes precendence to the academics.

Another CSO event was Career Connexions which I shall explain in my next post...

For most of us nothing materialized during the first semester. It was a frustrating and made us hate the CSO. But I don't think that they are as bad as we made them out to be. When I was at MBS, I had complete access to their Career Services. Their career services were really good at attracting some of the top companies like Mckinsey, Bain, etc. But there were very few companies after them. If we didn't get into the top firms then it was a long road. Only around 15% (unofficial figures) of their batch had internships when I left MBS. Compared to this my NUS batch has fared much better. I estimate that atleast 95% of us (unofficial figures) have an internship. Some of us had to get these internships through our personal contacts. But a large number (me included) got the internship through the CSO. They were good at creating a larger pool of companies in which to apply into. While this made the application process frustrating atleast it improved our chances of selection. While the CSO was not always effective, they kept coming up with initiatives. While the CSO was highly negative, they were still willing to work with us.

A case in point is the CIG (Career Interest Groups) initiative. We were divided into teams specific to our career interest. We were asked to work together to help everyone in the group to get an internship/job. This initiative is yet to achieve its full potential. But it has the potential to succeed.

Phew, this post has already become too long. I hope this illustrates my earlier point. The NUS placements still have a long way to go. They don't function like the IIMs where companies come to campus. They work (like any other global b-school) on a 'push' basis where we have to keep applying to companies till one of them gets back. Besides NUS doesn't have the brand that IIMs have. Comparing them to any Indian b-school is the wrong frame of reference. For all their faults, the CSO is on the right track. Like any other place, it has good people and bad people. With time, the bad ones will get weeded out. The NUS brand will improve. Efforts to tap the NUS alumni network have been made. All these point to one fact. While the road ahead is long, atleast the CSO is on the right track...

Cheers,
Suraj

Mid-term exams - A catastrophe

Hi
From my childhood I was good at some things and terrible at others. For example I was terrible at sports. But I was good at quizzing. And as time went on I became good at debating. There was one constant thread that ran across my life - I was good at academics. I always stood within the top 10% of the class. My gmat score was an extension of the same. When I joined NUS and saw the profile of the incoming batch, I knew that it would be tough to maintain my academic record. But my mid-term exams, by any measure, were a catastrophe.

The culprit was my laziness. I had taken things too easy on the academic front. I had allowed all the networking and extra-curricular activities to swallow my academics. I knew that I was woefully underprepared when I went for the Indonesia study trip. That one week was supposed to be the ideal time to prepare for the mid-terms. But I decided to make the trade-off. I have no regrets about going on the study trip. But I deeply regret my laziness prior to that.

I did average in Accounting. The paper was long and I ran short of time. As usual, my Balance Sheet did not match. I could never validate Accounting's cardinal rule: Assets = Liabilities + Owner's Capital. My Financial Management wasn't too bad. I had studied well for that subject. And the portions was also limited. I was middle of the pack for Marketing. Based on the results, the Marketing prof segregated the class into five groups - From 'Heroes' to 'Lost'. I was an 'Apprentice'. This wasn't too bad because I had a huge amount of portions to cover on the eve of the exam. The other two subjects killed me. I had not clue about what was asked in my Economics exam. Statistics was a nightmare. I found the exam as confusing as the professor's accent during his lectures.

The results filtered in within the next few weeks. And I stood middle of the pack. It was something that I was not used to. And I was confident that I was capable of better. So, I trained my focus on the final exams. I promised myself that "Never again would I slide so low"

Cheers
Suraj

Indonesia study trip - Mid-semester break

Hi
One of the great things about NUS is the study trips that are organized. I have been on a couple of study trips during my time @ NUS. These study trips have added greatly to my learning. There are two major benefits to these study trips. One is that we make new friends. The other is that we see the world in a new light. I hope that this post helps in gaining a better understanding of these two benefits.

The first study trip that I embarked upon was during the mid-semester break. I went on the a study trip to Indonesia. We were a group of around 20 consisting of first and second years. Including me, there were only 3 Indians from my batch on that trip. And in a strange way this was good. I was outside my peer group. For the first time in my NUS life, I got outside my 'comfort zone' and interacted with others in my batch. I met some wonderful people during the trip - Fred, Colleen, Du-Fei, Olivia, Kwan Ho (to mention a few). The trip gave me the oppurtunity to become great friends with these guyz and we have continued to be good friends. One of the memorable events on the trip was an argument I had with Fred. Fred is a born and sworn non-vegetarian. His victims include snake, lizards, deer and so on. Adarsh, Neha and I tried to instill in him the virtues of Vegetarianism. We argued that he was killing poor animals through his non-vegetarianism. Now Fred has a Bachelors in Biology, is exceedingly intelligent and is great at the art of persuasion. He retaliated to our comments saying that we were equally guilty. We were killing innocent plants which he explained have the same life as animals. He delved into terminologies like respiration, enzymes, reproductive systems, etc. In the end he did not convince me but he confused me. I was actually thinking about the plant kingdom and whether we vegetarians were equally adept at destroying lives!!

Indonesia was very similar to india. Dirt, pollution, traffic jams. And the people seemed to have the same spirit in them - the ability to live their lives come what may. We were in Jakarta to meet with the Lippo Group. The group had made S$21 million donation to NUS Business school. So, we were eager to meet with the people at the heart of the group. What suprised me was that the Lippo Group was equally eager to meet with us. Our first industry visit was with Matahari, the retail chain of the Lippo Group. We were taken to the boardroom where we met with the top brass of Matahari. The CEO, Mr. Noel Trinder, gave us a presentation on the state of the business, about competition, and about the strategies in the retail business. This was the first time I was meeting with a CEO. And it was a huge learning experience. He started with a joke to relax the mood and then shared his knowledge. Through his presentation, you understood why he was the CEO. This was the first of the many industry visits we had. The NUS name carried a great deal of respect wherever we went. At each company we were met by the top brass who treated us with respect. The other companies that we visited were Gajah Tunggal, the largest integrated tire manufacturer in South East Asia, and Bank Mandiri, the largest bank in Indonesia. Besides these industries we also visited three universities. The students looked at us in awe when we said we are from NUS Business School. It was an amazing feeling.

The trip also had its share of fun. We went to some amazing restaurants. Candle-lit dinner atop a mountain, a theme based restaurant which was a fusion of Chinese and Malay cultures, a restaurant which had been inhabited by Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, and a trip to F-Bar. We shopped till we dropped in Bandung (the city of flowers) where the high-fashion of Italy was available at dirt cheap prices.

As I had promised earlier, the trip achieved two objectives. It introduced me to new friends who I would never have been acquainted with in the normal course of events. The interactions with CEOs and top management of various firms made me see the world in a new light. This was my first study trip and it was great. But I went for a second one and that was even greater - it included a date with the world's richest man. That story is for another post.

P.S: For more details on the Lippo Group, click http://www.strategy-business.com/press/16635507/17609

For Neha's (NUS MBA student) view on the Indonesia study trip, click http://nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com/2007/11/indonesia-study-trip-wow.html

Cheers,

Suraj

Pilgrimage to Clarke Quay

Hi
I have added a 'My favourite Management Books' section to the blog. There is a distinct reason for this. During the years prior to my MBA and during my course I have read several management books. Most of them tend to be repetitive and state the obvious. We all understand that to succeed in business we must 'Know our Competitor'. But the real question is HOW??? - How do you know your competitor??? There are a few books that transcend from stating the obvious and explain the 'HOW'. So, I wanted to create a list of books that I think achieve this. I will continue to update this section as and when I read another great book.

Singapore is a unique place because of the way it has divided its city. All the financial firms are concentrated in one space - Raffles Place. The Indians are concentrated in Little India, the Chinese in Chinatown. The housing districts are concentrated in specific areas of the city. Everything is perfectly planned in this city. In a uniquely Singaporean way, the 'party' places are concentrated at one place - Clarke Quay.

During the course of the first semester 'Clarke Quay' increasingly dominated my life. Almost every weekend, my friends and I, made the pilgrimage to Clarke Quay. The place is an assortment of pubs and discos. A couple of them became my favourites (not because of the place but because they provided 'free entry') - PUMP ROOM and ONE NIGHT STAND. The highly provocative names were the perfect marketing gimmick. These two pubs attracted a fair share of the crowd and they music wasn't too bad.

We had a lot of fun at Clarke Quay and there were some special moments. One of them was sitting by the river with my friends till 5 am next morning - chatting about anything and everything in the world. And not for a moment did I feel sleepy. The amazing thing was there were many people like us staying at Clarke Quay till the rise of dawn. Another special moment was going on the G-MAX reverse bundy ride. This was a thrill-a-moment adventure ride where supposedly a g-force of 5 is reached. Click http://www.gmax.co.nz/index.php/pi_pageid/7 for facts about the ride. The ride itself lasted only a few minutes. But it was very exciting and made my stomach churn. I have seen people cry with fear during such rides. But Shubi, sitting next to me, could not stop laughing during the ride. The final experience is not a special experience but it is one I cannot forget. I was walking with my friend on the Clarke Quay bridge. A white woman (probably a prostitute) standing there made a move on my friend. He pointed to me and said why don't you ask him. To which she said, "Not this black one!".

I had never been called black earlier in my life. But that was how I was perceived in this foreign land. I had no intentions in induling in a racist slur. And to be honest, I have not experienced racism in Singapore. So, I just accepted what she said and moved on...

Cheers,
Suraj

Is Diversity really that important???

Hi
B-schools love to proclaim their diversity. I recently attended a class at Harvard Business School (HBS). The classroom was decorated with flags of all the nationalities of the current students @ HBS. It is a microcosm of the world because students from across the world come to HBS. Other b-schools have followed HBS's diversity play (maybe a case of blindly following the leader). So, what I have to say challenges the fundamental play of HBS - Diversity!!!

Diversity certainly has its benefits. You get to meet people from across the world. So, anywhere you travel in the world you have to place/friend to go to. But is it really as important and sacrosanct as b-schools proclaim it to be?

The concept for this post derives from a conversation I had with a French guy when I was @ Melbourne Biz school (MBS). He was on exchange from Columbia Business school. He told me that he hated the Americans. And it was not just him. He said that even at Columbia the Americans were together as a group and the Europeans were a separate group. The latin americans usually joined the european group because they spoke the same language. It only confirmed my own experiences @ NUS. Outside my learning environment, I have spent all my time with Indians except for a few isolated parties. And this is true of most students. The chances of really getting to know students from other nationalities are small. Polarisation is a very tough obstacle to overcome. Some do manage to overcome this challenge and socialize with students from different nationalities. Even for them I doubt whether diversity is really that important.

The primary benefit of diversity is said to be that you can understand different countries and cultures. But in my own experience, you can never really understand a place or its people unless you are physically present there. B-school students represent a small minority of the diverse population of any city/country. Usually they represent the social elite who are fortunate enough to get a masters education. To believe that through them you can understand an entire society/country is arrogance. And this has been true of my experiences in Mumbai. No amount of time that I spent with Mumbaikars, of which there are many in my batch, could have prepared me for Mumbai. Even after a month in the city, I am still getting to know the culture of this place.

That brings me to the in-class experience. It is said that different nationalities bring different perspectives to the classroom. I think that this is BULLSHIT!!! Real perspectives are brought from people from diverse backgrounds. A project manager from an IT company can bring a different perspective when compared to a supply chain manager from a logistics company. They can bring in different ways of looking at the same problem. It does not matter that the project manager is a Chinese and the supply chain manager is an American. DIVERSITY in BACKGROUNDS is vital for a b-school. DIVERSITY in NATIONALITY is nice but I don't believe that it is as important.

And IIMs prove this as a case in point. The ultimate test of a b-school is the respect it commands in the marketplace. IIMs have produced students who have excelled at all kinds of companies from across the world. This is an institution made up of only Indians (0% diversity). Yet, companies flock to them. Their graduates rule the corporate world - Indira Nooyi for Pepsico, Srinath for Tata Communications...

That does not mean that diversity is totally useless. It does have its secondary benefits which I detailed in the beginning. But I seriously doubt whether it is the holy grail which b-schools tout it to be. Everything that I have experienced @ NUS and @ MBS points to the same. However, I could be missing something. Maybe there is something in the future that I cannot see. I sincerely hope that this is the case. Because I have proclaimed NUS's diversity to anyone and everyone. It is splashed all over my resume. All the while I wonder whether diversity is all that important???

Cheers,
Suraj

FM3 - My classroom

Hi

I am back after a long weekend (had Saturday off as well!). It was a fun weekend, probably the best one since I reached Bombay. On Friday, I went from Chembur to Thane to meet my friend. Took the train and had an unforgettable journey. Could not get down @ Thane because the crowd would not let me out. Not to exaggerate, but was crushed among the mass of people to the point of feeling suffocated. Kudos to the Mumbaikars - they have the spirit to live through this mess. Went for a movie on Friday night. Met up with my NUS friends on Saturday @ Hard Rock Cafe. Rohini's b'day - was good fun. Thought that the Hard Rock in Mumbai in better than the one in Times Square, New York. Confirmed my views about Mumbai (more on this in some later post).

Touching base once again with my past. During my first term, I belonged to the FM3 section for all our modules. I literally lived with these guyz throughout the term. So, busy was our first term. The class was diverse (more on diversity in my next post) with students coming from Germany, Sri lanka, India, China, Pakistan and all across South East Asia.

As generally happens with any class, initially everyone was friends with everybody. Then the polarisation process started. Sometimes it was caused by similarities - same nationality, same project groups, sitting beside each other, same peer group, etc. Sometimes it was caused by differences - problems with project group members, problems of other shapes and forms, genuine differences in interests and preferences, etc. It was fascinating to see how this polarisation started and progressed. And I don't think I can explain the process within this space. It needs to be seen to be experienced. Of course, I made my own group of friends and have enjoyed every moment I spent with them.

In course of our interactions, the stars slowly emerged. We came to know the creative ones, the studious ones, the lazy ones and the toppers. And as the term progressed, project groups began to form on the basis of this segregation. Some wanted to associate with the toppers. Some just wanted to have someone who would do all the work. Others wanted people who were creative and would be willing to divide the work equally.

And how did I fare in my subjects??? I struggled with Statistics. The professor, though a good man, had an accent I couldn't understand. I enjoyed our Marketing Classes. They were highly entertaining (with instances of 'below the belt' humour) and to an extent informative. Initially, I enjoyed the accounting classes. This was a subject of special interest to me because I came from a family of Chartered Accountants. My initial enthusiasm turned to frustration because of the way the prof handled the subject. You know that something has gone wrong when the prof starts singing in class. The Financial Management classes were brilliant. The prof, Ravi Jain, had great authority over the subject and linked the theory to the real world. Never missed his classes. Microeconomics is a brilliant subject - the prof was the perfect example of the brilliant, absent minded professor - and I enjoyed the first few classes. But somewhere along I dropped the baton. Maybe it was because I did not go through the previous lecture's notes but I stopped understanding the Econ lectures. Soon, more classmates joined me in my wilderness, and towards the end there were very few who actually knew what was going on in class. As for me, I stopped attending econ class. The final subject was Operations Management (OM). It was built on the case study approach. I am a big fan of the case study method but it has a big catch. This method requires a great prof because his insights make the class. When the prof is lacking, the case study method falls like a pack of cards. And that is what happened to OM.

So, like any other b-school, the first term had its mixture of good, average and bad professors. And it was a fascinating experience, spending the best part of 5 months with my classmates @ FM3.

Cheers,
Suraj

Head of the NUS MBA Blog - nusmbabuzz

Hi

I have always loved writing and believed that I have a talent for it. But I have a novel which I have still not published. I have a book of short stories which is half finished. I have another novel which is incomplete. So, for all my perceived talent in writing, I have never accomplished much. So, when the oppurtunity came to head 'nusmbabuzz' (our nus mba blog) I was really excited. I thought that I could genuinely use my perceived writing talent to make the space better.

The oppurtunity was handed to me by Srikanth, the previous NUS MBA club president, who saw my talent for writing. So, it was upto me and Koel, my batch-mate, to take the blog to the next level. The blog itself was a year old and had been decently active. But it had been sagging of late because it had become the baby nobody wanted.

We started with the usual fanfare. I had mails from the top brass at the NUS MBA office wishing me the best in this venture. We drove a communication campain, mainly through mails, to say the 'buzz was back' and the blog was active and running again. But, to my disappointment, the fanfare died down over time. Our communications decreased with time and the number of posts declined. There are a number of factors I can attribute to this. One was that the first semester became insanely busy. I was caught in a web of projects, assignments, studies and parties. Second was my lack of execution. I had several ideas in my head but never got down to executing them. My inhibitions withheld me. I was not sure whether the ideas would work or have the support to execute them. In hind-sight this was probably a mistake. Third, I was on exchange during my second semester and thus away from NUS events. This limited my ability to get posts during the semester.

It also did not help that I struggled to get posts from my batch-mates. Somehow people seem to never have time when it comes to writing. I would get empty promises that the blog would be completed by xxx time but the promise would not be delivered upon. And I didn't know how far to push for a blog. After all, this was only a voluntary effort and I couldn't compel or threaten anyone. I used to mail people once or twice a week to remind them about the post they had promised. A lot of times this did work. But there were occassions when people got pissed off and diplomatically said, "to hell with you and your blog."

But there have been successes. We managed to revamp the blog's layout during the second term. It was long overdue and thanks to everyone in the blog team for that. Perhaps the biggest success is that we have been able to keep the show running. The blog stays active till today and the mba office has acknowledged and referenced a few of the posts in their web-site (though the blog is a student initiative and not an official blog of NUS). Reduced number of posts - yes. Inactive Blog - no.

It is my hope and belief that we will be more active in the coming semesters. 'Succession planning' (a b-school buzz word) will play an important part. I am confident that we can find an efficient group of folks in the incoming batch to take the blog further. The quality of NUS students has been improving every year. I met some of the guyz in the incoming batch a few weeks ago. There is every sign that this trend will continue.

And once again 'The BUZZ will be back' with all its force...

P.S: To have a look at the NUS MBA blog, visit nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Suraj

Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi???!!!!

Hi

I was in New York a month ago. I reached the city in the evening. My friend was staying in Flushing. I reached Flushing at around 10 in the night. I had my friend's address but I was lost. I could not find the street where his house was. To make matters worse, the streets were deserted and ominous. I fractically tried to call my friend from the Public telephone booth. But I couldn't get through. I didn't know whether some extra digits had to be added to the number but I just couldn't get through. And I was running out of precious change which I needed in order to use the Public phone. In short, I was helpless and was pretty sure that I was going to be mugged. That was when I saw an Indian shop in the distance, opposite to an Indian temple. I went to the shopkeeper (a Punjabi who had settled down in New York for more than 30 yrs) and asked in English whether I could use his phone. He replied in Hindi and I didn't understand a word. So, I repeated the question in English. It pissed him off...

"You youngsters, have no respect for your national language," he said.

I explained to him that I didn't know Hindi. That pissed him off even more...

"Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi. Shame on you," he said. I frowned but he did let me use his phone and helped me get in touch with my friend. So, god bless him for that.

The reason I qoute this story is that it is linked to my past and forms the theme of this post. During my initial days at NUS, this was a recurring theme. My batch was skewed with North Indians. And everytime I was introduced to one of them, they would start a tirade in Hindi. I would explain that I didn't know Hindi and almost always the immediate response was "Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi. Shame on you." I had prior experience of this when I was in Wipro in Bangalore. So, initially I shrugged off these reactions. But after a while it became irritating. It got so irritating that there were moments when I wanted to say, "Shut the fuck up and mind your own business" but I did not do it. I was just getting to know folks and I didn't want this statement to destroy our relationship.

I believe that the problem was that they were looking at things as a snapshot rather than as a spectrum. Let me explain. When I see a beggar on the road, my immediate reaction is one of disgust.

"Why is he wasting his life begging when he can go out and find a job." My disgust is because I look at things as a snapshot of that moment.

It could be true that the beggar had tried for a job. Maybe for years he tried and had given up. He had resorted to begging as a last resort. In this case, I am looking at his life as a spectrum of past events. When I look at things as a spectrum, my disgust becomes unjustified.

Similar is my story. When you look at things as a snapshot, being an Indian and not knowing your national language is shameful. But when you look at things as a spectrum, you will understand that I am from Tamil Nadu, a state where Hindi is not spoken. You will recognize that my schooling was from Ooty wherein I didn't have access to Hindi movies. My college was in Coimbatore where I did not have exposure to Hindi. The irony is that I wrote my Prathmik and Madhyama Hindi exams when I was in 8th standard. But from then till I finished my engineering, a gap of 8 years, I had no exposure to Hindi. I totally forgot the language. It was only when I started working in Wipro that I had limited exposure to our 'National Language'. When all these factors are considered, I don't think its shameful that I don't know Hindi. Thus I rest my case.

Anywayz, that leads me to my most irritating experiences. After a month or so, most people knew that I didn't know Hindi. But still they continued to converse in Hindi when I was present with them. Though I never said anything (mostly because I wanted to learn Hindi), I was cut out from the conversation. It was most irritating and I have only seen this only with us, Indians. The Chinese always converse in English when a third person is present even though they are uncomfortable with the language. The latinos never converse in Spanish in the midst of a third person even though they love their language. At the risk of generalization, I say that it is we Indians who resort to Hindi as a form of pseudo-nationalism in the presence of others who don't know the language.

Having said all this, some of these guyz have become my best friends (though they still converse in Hindi!!!) and are truly great people. And this experience, at some level, has made me a more tolerant person.

Cheers,
Suraj

Intensive week @ NUS - the drill begins

Hi

When I had applied to NUS, it was a 2 year MBA program. Somewhere along the line, it was changed into an 18 month program. I am not a great fan of the shortened MBA programs - specially 10 month MBA programs. I think it is a really short time for people like me to make the switch from IT into management. Anyway I had got an admit into NUS and grudgingly accepted the 18 month program. In my first week @ NUS, I got a taste of the evils of the shortened program.

It was called (or "Branded" for MBA speak) Intensive week. Two complete modules were to be completed within this one week - Management in Organizations (M& O) and Leadership. The batch was split into three sections with each section having a strength of about 40. I was in FM3 (FM - functional module). The classes were all day and throughout the week. During this week I was introduced to the other evil - Class Participation. A specific percentage of marks were alloted for Class Participation. Ask any b-school student and they will tell you they hate class participation. But once the lecture starts they will ramble on (me included!) with meaningless comments and stupid questions. And this is specially true of abstract subjects like Management and Leadership. People loved to say, "When I was in xxx company, my boss did this or my company did this....". In the end you only remembered that they were from xxx company (maybe that was the whole purpose of the excercise!!!).

Of course, there are always the pleasant exceptions. I distinctly remember the prof asking one of batch-mates, "So what do you think about this?". To which he replied, "Mam, I wasn't listening." That brought a sleepy class to life.

For the M & O class, I had the oppurtunity to work in a project team with a couple of Koreans, Jae Hong and Sandy. They were the most wonderful people. When we decided to form the group, Jae Hong and Sandy said that there was a pre-condition for forming the group. I asked what it was. They said that once the project was done we must go out for a treat!!!

Overall, the intensive week was a waste of time. It went too fast for me to learn anything. The exam and project work was pretty easy. The professors were generally nice people. A week wasted but atleast I had aced two MBA subjects. Or so I thought. Until my grades came after a few weeks. My grades sucked. It only added to my disgust of the Intensive week @ NUS

Cheers,
Suraj

Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) - The Ice-Breaker

Hi
One of the best events organized by the NUS MBA office was OBS. It was a fun couple of days which served as a great ice-breaker. Before I get into OBS, I should describe a bit about my physical self. It will serve as a background to understand whatever I describe later in this post. For all my life, I have been fat. I was born over-weight and I have stayed over-weight. There have been phases in life (going through one such phase now) where I have wanted to lose weight and become decently fit. But these phases have come and gone. When I joined NUS (after a couple of months @ home) I was as fat as I had been in the last 5 years.

The OBS is an interesting organization which specialized in outdoor activities which also serve as a team building platform. True to their reputation they took us, the batch of 2009, to an island off Singapore mainland called Pulau Ubin. It was a serene island, away from humanity, and made for an ideal location to get to know other.

In Pulau Ubin, we were split into teams. The activities started innocently enough with some basic team building activities. But then we went into the most dreaded activity - Rock Climbing. For all my love for the outdoors, rock climbing was not my cup of tea. I was physically (read "fat and unfit") not up for it. I was shit scared of embarassing myself in front of my batch-mates. I feared that the embarassment would stick for the next couple of years @ NUS. Having said all this, I still put on my bravest face @ OBS. Infact, I volunteered from my team, for the first rock climbing event. It was a small pole to climb. And to my surprise, I managed to climb the pole. It seemed easy enough.

We progressed to the next level. It was an adventure course wherein we had to climg to the top (around 10 metres high) using a rope-ladder. To be honest, if this was India, I would not have ventured near it. But this was Singapore and a lot of my classmates, regardless of gender, managed to complete the course. I tried to delay the inevitable as much as I can. Forced by peer pressure, I gave the course a go ...

The next game was climbing up a rock wall. Once again, regardless of gender, lot of folks scaled the wall. Thats when I realised that a lot of girls in my batch were both fit and gutsy. As for yours truly, driven by peer pressure, I did give the rock wall a go...

I am tempted to tell you that in I managed to scale both the above courses. But this isn't the movies and we all have our limitations. Though I did not complete the course, I wasn't the worst either. In both the courses, I managed to complete half the course. And this was possible only because of the cheering I received from my team-mates. It made me take that extra step when everything within me told me to give up. This was the great experience I had at OBS.

We were at Pulau Ubin for a couple of days. I met a lot of people during that time. Some of them have gone on to become my best friends. There are others to whom I say "Hi" today only because I met them at Pulau Ubin. The rigours of the academic course (and my own personal inhibitions) limited the number of people I interacted with during the academics term. In that sense, OBS was the great ice-breaker wherein I saw/met almost everyone in my batch.

Cheers,
Suraj

Welcome to Singapore!

Hi

Finally, some good news. Got official word that my incredibly exciting project will kick-off next week. Can't wait for it to begin. It also means that I need to get doubly efficient with my blog. Lesser time in which to catch up with my past.

I left my job in the middle of March. I was back in my hometown of Ooty, the "Queen of Hills". A couple of years had passed since I had spent so much time there. In fact, it was more than six months since I had even been there. My MBA exam preparations had kept me rooted to my house in Bangalore.

Those few months before I joined NUS were highly interesting. There were a number of excellent initiatives, both from guyz in our batch and the NUS folks. It started with an Orkut group being initiated by Pankaj (who later went on to become Director, Career Services). The group was initially very active as new people regularily joined the group. There were a couple of things that initially struck me about the group. A high percentage were indians. The inevitable polarization process had begun. Second was the profile of the students joining the group. There were people from diverse backgrounds, with high levels of work experience, coming from the premier institutions in India (IIT, Bits, pilani...). I was in elite company.

The orkut community was followed by an unofficial yahoo groups which was followed by an official yahoo groups initiated by the NUS MBA office. The groups were more broad based and involved students from other nationalities as well. It served as a great enabler for people from the same city to meet up. So, through group mails, students from Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore met up in their respective cities. I, stuck up in Ooty, met no one. These meeting were of greater significance than they initially seemed. Because these folks continued to remain close friends during their time at NUS. So, even today, beyond a national polarisation there exists a city based polarisation @ NUS. Obviously, this is not true of everyone but pockets of this phenomenon still exists. And I have a perfectly logical explanation for it. When you enter a new city, the people you initially stick to are the people you already know (no matter for how brief a time). And unless there are reasons otherwise (internal fighting, some other good friends, different classes and places of residence) you continue to stick to the people you know.

There were some really sensible mail exchanges in the groups during the initial days. But, as time went on, the mails got incredibly frivolous and became fodder for my sense of humour. There were heated exchanges between my seniors and my batch-mates about the state of NUS MBA, placements and so on. Eventually, the president had to intervene to resolve the issue.

A great initiative during this time was the "Buddy program" which NUS initiated. For someone travelling abroad for the first time in 8 years (the last occassion had been a US trip in the 10th std) this was of great help. My buddy was of immense help. He answered to all my questions through mail. He even answered my phone calls and calmed my anxiety. My heartfelt thanks to him.

The days went on in a similar vein.

The most significant event that occurred during this time was receiving my IPA letter. It was when everything became official. I was officially admitted into NUS and officially allowed to enter into Singapore. Nothing, barring a plane crash (which fortunately did not occur), could stop me now. At that time, there was so much confusion regarding the IPA letter. Some said that the letter was sufficient to enter Singapore. Some said that we needed a visa as well. Some said a visa was needed for the Indian immigration but a IPA was required for Singapore immigration. Driven by all the confusion, I went and got a Tourist visa into singapore. However, let me make things clear. The IPA letter is sufficient to enter Singapore. Upon entering Singapore, we are given a month's time within which to exchange the IPA letter for a Student's pass.

In the first week of July, I left the Indian shores. I went on a trip across Thailand and Malaysia with my parents and sister. The final leg of that trip was Singapore. I can still hear the sound of the immigration officer at Singapore, who after verifying my travel documents, said, "Welcome to Singapore".

Cheers,

Suraj

When it all began...

Hi
Something really interesting happened to me yesterday. I took the train from my office to my guest house in Chembur. I got down at the station only to realize that I had only 10 bucks in my pocket. And the auto fare to my place was 15 bucks. I didn't have a bank account, so no access to ATMs. Basically, I was helpless. So, I walked all the way to the guest house. It was the perfect illustration of one of the key lessons I learnt in b-school. In business (as in life) "Cash (in hand) is king".

Anyhow, I digress. The real theme of this post is to define a point where my NUS journey began. And I think February 2007 is a good starting point. It was during the last week of February (can't believe that I forgot the date) that I received the rejection letter from IIFT, Delhi. On that day, I was shocked. I thought that I had aced my interview. In fact, once I got their interview call (after an entrance exam which was nothing but a lottery), I expected to be accepted into IIFT. I had never failed at any interview before. And in an arrogant corner of my mind, I believed that I could ace any interview. So, the rejection was the perfect payback for my arrogance. It brought me down to earth and made me want to bury myself under the earth. I still had the option of going to IIFT, Calcutta but it was not where I wanted to be.

I had to go to office on that day. Looking at my desk, my familiar computer, the same faces around me, added to my disgust. It represented everything that I wanted to get out of. I had already put in my papers. I had learnt a lot in the last two years, but things had become monotonous of late. It was time for a change.

Luckily for me, I had already secured admission into SIBM. And there were admits pending for some US b-schools. US was my backup option. I had no intention of spending astronomical sums of money for my MBA. So, I really wanted the IIFT call. Their rejection made me second guess myself. Was I good enough for my MBA??? Was I doing the right thing in giving up a potentially high paying job for something completely new for me???

The day at work was lousy. I could not focus on work and did nothing. That only irked my Project Manager further who threatened that he would not allow me to leave the company if I did not finish the work (what a jerk!!).

I reached home in the evening and grudgingly opened my inbox. I wanted to have another look at the IIFT letter. To my surprise, there was a mail from the NUS MBA office. I opened the mail and could not believe my eyes. I read the mail again to ensure that I got every word right. On the same day I got a reject from IIFT, I was accepted @ NUS. This was truly a dream come true because it vindicated all my planning.

When I began my MBA exam preparation in June 2006, I recognized that I could not trust the CAT. It was a lottery exam wherein I needed to get lucky to get into the IIMs. So, I decided to also take up the GMAT besides the other Indian entrance exams. GMAT was my safety valve in case CAT did not work out. Within the GMAT eligible colleges, NUS was my no.1 option. In my mind, NUS was the best value for money among the MBA colleges abroad. I believe that if MBA colleges were to be ranked on value for money NUS would rank 2nd after the IIMs. After a year at NUS, I can confirm what I believed a year ago - NUS is the best value for money among MBA colleges abroad.

That February day (a date I can't remember) was a vindication for all the planning and sacrifices I had made in the last one year. It was one of the happiest moments in my life. Today, looking back, I can proudly say that it was when it all began...

Cheers,

Suraj