Life as an MBA

It has been close to a month since I started my MBA and I don't know how to even begin explaining what has been going through my mind. I have met 141 new faces, tried hard to remember 141 new names, colleges, countries, experience and tried hard to summarize my whacky journey until now in the least boring way. The last part is easily the most difficult. 

I haven't explored the town too much and with strong reasons - I am a slow coach, and the pace of the MBA is insanely fast. My only city exploration happens during weekend runs, which are also becoming scarcer. Anyways, saving the dark side, black rings, dozing off tiringly on the sofa (or the classes), I just wanted to give a hint of how a typical day looks like:

7:00 am Wake up early and drink a heavily caffeine loaded drink to start the day

8:00 am Put my happy face on & walk to the college; If I am lucky and my wife is sleeping, I steal her bike to avoid walking due to laziness.

8:50 am Queue up for the first dose of cafeteria coffee and chat with my newly founded MBA family

9:00 am Classes start on the dot, and the Professors start to tell us tales from the City. PV, FV, NPV, Annuity, Risk, Return, Beta and Alpha crowd our brains fighting to find a way to stay there. (there will be cold-calling, the energized classmates firing answers, blinking eyes and grappling senses trying to keep up and the occasional time when you think - "hah, finally we are discussing something I know")

12:30 pm The first couple of weeks were spent trying to go around judging the buttery (never knew this English word meant dining halls)

Last week, this was spent meeting team mates on discussing the Cambridge Venture Project / AT Kearney Case Competition / CV or Covering Letter reviews or Catch-up on the Pre-reading.

2:00 pm Unless you had a 5 course meal, our attentiveness hits a peak (or mine atleast). We've been studying Statistics in the afternoons - Yipee :)

In 7 weeks we went from Simple excel formula to Histograms, Poisson/ Normal distributions, Multi-variate regressions, Correlations, Confidence Intervals, Hypothesis Tests and Significance levels. Life is good.

5:30 pm Check the calendar to see if the gang is going to a Pub nearby or wait there is a recruiter visiting us at 6.

Finance, Consulting and Industry Leadership programs are the first wave of companies to hit campus, wanting to steal the cream of the lot. I decide if the company visiting is one I am interested in applying to or more importantly, if will take any interest in my profile.


Typical release time from the building and its interesting color patterns is 8 to 9pm. Ofcourse there are those who stay back in the Library afterwards or the ones who go partying and come in next day with Red Bull in hand. And let's not forget the Formal Halls and the Cambridge Union Ball that a lot of the MBA class is going to tonight. But all that for another time!

Now off to meet a few friends and an alumni and hear some stories. Hope to update this space soon! 

From Mashmallows to MBA

As I sit on the edge on my bed eagerly waiting to see what lies ahead in my 2^nd week at Cambridge, I cannot stop but reminisce how I got here. I have to confess that it was not an entirely rational approach that got me here. As a marketer, I believe emotions play a bigger role in choices, although my Economics professor Dr. Jochen Runde will suggest all choices are assumed to be rational.

Having worked for a little over than 8 years across 2 industries, 2 countries and 2 companies, I decided that I need an MBA to both accelerate my career and gain an international network. I was firm that I want to stay out of a job for less than a year, due to the high opportunity cost on a 2 year MBA and because I had a clear career goal. This immediately trickled down my search to a few big schools in the world. I ruled out an MBA in India (Indian School of Business) as I already had the benefit of a good Indian brand name through my under-graduate degree. So my choices brewed down to INSEAD, Cambridge, Oxford, IMD and the Kellogg 1 year MBA program. I ensured that I chose the best of schools, so there would be no dilemma if there is the off chance of getting admitted in multiple schools.

I clearly remember my first visit to Judge Business School in October 2012 and being pleasantly confused by the creativity in the architecture of the school’s building. The ice-breaking session organized by adcom was no less on this measure and required us to convert a few spaghetti sticks into the next Al Burj. The challenge was that our building equipment was limited to a few pieces of sticky tape, a small piece of thread, a group that full of new faces and the structure had to balance a big marshmallow. We worked as a team to resist the urge to eat the marshmallow and be done with and ended up building the tallest structure. But most importantly, I was impressed by how the school communicated the essence of an MBA and the type of students it expected to recruit, in a simple and fun way.

Believe it or not, I got admitted into almost 3 schools on that list and now it was a tough choice to select between the best. Traditionally there is a lot of comparisons made between Oxford and Cambridge and most of you know the differences (and similarities too). I did not hit the submit button for Oxford mainly because I thought Cambridge was better suited for my career goals in Consulting and/or Industry. But, why did I choose Cambridge over some of the others?

Maybe it was because Cambridge offered the best combination of affordability, selectivity and diversity. Or it was the old and beautiful buildings steeped in history and creativity. It could be the fact that the degree was from a university with an over the top brand recall. Or it may have been the location advantage of proximity to London and no requirement to wade through visa processes and immigration departments of other countries. It could also be because I lived in Oxford for 3 years and it would be only logical to close the loop in my Oxbridge living experience. Or maybe it was just because I like Marshmallows :)

Whatever the reason, I am positive that I am in the best university in the world and amongst 141 of the world’s best emerging leaders! 

PS: This is a blog post that I wrote for the Cambridge official blog and so wanted to post it here too (despite some of the ideas being a repetition). I know you are probably looking to hear about what has happened in the first week of my MBA. I will follow up with another post on that soon. :)