Its five months since i blogged last. And these last few months have been by far the most fascinating months of my life, bringing me within striking distance of being....an MBA.
Every single person coming to the ISB (or any B-school for that matter), is embarking on an intensely personal journey, but is probably looking for precedents in the past history of the school trying to find reassuring confirmation of the fact that he/she is not an oddball in school, and what he/she is seeking to do has been done before. I am going to try and cater this to this very natural instinct but i hope you'll focus on the broad take-aways rather than specific facts.
First things first, I was a freshman with close to five and half years of industrial sales and marketing experience. I was quite a bright spark academically in my school and undergrad, and a total zit extra-curricular wise. I was determined to do reverse this but if you are like the majority of the folk who troop into B-Schools every year, you are probably thinking of acing the dean's list. Fair enough.
Academics
The Competition: In the first few classes, you are probably going to spend a lot of time trying to guage the quality of your batchmates, and measure yourself against the "studs" in class. You are also probably trying to get a sense of people's backgrounds, and dividing them into "will make it"s and "Won't!". Well- don't waste your time.
The people you are going to study with are, for the most part, people with unsual ability and intelligence, whether they look or sound like it or not. You are never going to be as good as you think you are or as bad! There is very little correlation to how insightful someone sounds in class to how well he'll do academically (This is probably more true for the first half of the course. People get smarter at evaluating "insights" as they move on.)
I didn't get close to acing the List but am quite happy to share my formula for "What To" and What Not to" to do well academically.
1. Stick to the Basics: The MBA course leans more toward rewarding systematic, meticulous work and attention to detail rather than blinding flashes of insight. You'll find quite a few brilliant yet erratic people falling by the academic wayside beaten by more solid peers.
To do well, you need to really do what is asked of you by the professors: read up cases thoroughly before class, (in some subjects - solving them is necessary). A critical part of this is probably analysing the exhibits! - believe me if you can get this into your head, you're well ahead of the pack. The cases are designed to have a wide spectrum of solutions -ranging from the laymanesque (for the unsuspecting mind) to the one that quantitively analyzes seventeen different options and chooses the one that is optimal. In analyzing these cases, you could choose any one solution in this wide spectrum and think you've done a creditable job. The grades ofcourse lean toward the far right of this sordid spectrum. One last thing, i suggest you not get deluded by the fact that the articles are not discussed too rigorously or skipped altogether in class - they are critical to solving the cases.
Exams: well again - one thing that bears repetition, and what i think is the broad philosophy of being a successful MBA - thoroughness will reap rich reward - whether it is actually answering exam questions, taking the time to highlight key aspects of your submissions or planning your assignment schedules. Focusing on what the professor needs to hear is probably uncool but far more effective in efficiently studying for and answering examination papers.
Is there a correlation between academics and placements?
This is a tough question to answer. Placements is a composite result of the many decisions you've taken in your life so far, and trying to wipe the slate clean with a brilliant record at B-school is probably a mite optimistic (though not impossible). Talking only about your life at school and relating that to your future prospects, well again, difficult to say but let's put it this way: Acing the list is not going to assure you of a fantastic job, but doesn't hurt. Sticking my neck out, i would say there is a weak correlation between the two, but of the cases where there is some, the payoffs are nothing short of fantastic. Your call.
Extra-curriculars (EC)
It is ironic but B-schools offer the widest variety of extra-curricular activities of any education stream while offering the least time to do them in. My own take on EC in B-school: go for it.
go for anything that sounds even remotely interesting and allow youself to be dragged into a few that dont do even that. You'll find that you get better at doing things the more of them you do. You may not top the List but indulging in EC regularly will not exclude you from it. If anything, you'll fill your peers with awe while wondering what the fuss is about.
The worst and best time about EC is when you'll sit down to fit it all into one neat page called the Resume`. If you have stayed away from EC, you'll come to one painful conclusion. Your GPA occupies 0.0012% of a resume's space, while EC can occupy upto 22%. (source: www.uselessnumbers.com). Coming back to the ECers, you'll find that the EC you worked the most for don't sound as good half as good on your resume as they did when you were doing them. But that's okay - being an ECer will show far more on you than on your resume - and that's the place where it counts the most!
Among all the feel-good factors at B-school -being revered for certain subjects, being a Lister, being a sports god, having a girlfriend or wearing beach slippers to class - I'd pick the one which comes from being seen as involved with everything as the best. The school has a special affection for those who manage to do a lot for the school, organize some events, participate in the others and generally be at the forefront of things while still managing to do alright academically. So do go on - stand for all those elections, volunteer to organize events, compete in Bschool competitions, there'll be time!
