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