Last Saturday, I attended a management event organized by Forum for Learning and Youth Leadership (FLY) at Bhaidas Auditorium in Ville Parle. The event schedule listed speakers from top Indian b-schools and heads of two prominent companies speaking about admissions, b-school life, CAT preparation and management. The issues covered by the speakers made the event a capsule of things to know before applying to a b-school.
Representatives of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (ISB) and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai (SP Jain) spoke about the admissions procedure followed at the two institutes and what they primarily look for in applicants. Prof Parimal Merchant, SP Jain representative went so far as to say, Today, money is not lacking in any profession and if a person really wants to earn money then he can even look at reality shows as an option! Both the speakers stressed on the fact that rather than following the herd, applicants should try to look within and know why they are trying for an MBA program. ISB of course has a detailed admissions process to analyse a persons application while SP Jain issues interview calls even before the CAT results are declared.
A brother-sister duo from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) helped the audience to get a glimpse of behind-the-scenes of b-school life and CAT preparation. Akansha Thakore, a class of 2009 IIM-A graduate and currently a business leadership trainee at Hindustan Unilever spoke on why the A in IIM-A does not stand for academics. It was good to see an IIM-A graduate honestly talking about the pressure inside a b-school and how the dorm culture acts like a family to help a person get through the stress and even have fun in the process!
Abhishek Thakore who gave a 20 minute presentation on The softer side of CAT which had the audience hooked is from the IIM-B class of 2005 and a gold medalist from the institute. His stage presence, innovative slides and quick wit had people in splits one moment and philosophizing on life in the next. His presentation deserves a full blog post and he vividly explained that there has to be a big enough reason for you to take CAT in order to ensure that you do justice to the time and money involved in MBA preparation.
The game of business presentation delivered by Bhavin Turakhia, Founder and CEO of Directi was a fascinating talk on how a company should be run. He spoke at a mad pace but each and every word could be clearly understood. An organization is like a football team and all the players should have a clear idea of where the team is going. One of his most memorable statements was, I love going to work because I know that sometimes I will get proved wrong. Its a real pity that so few companies try to innovate when it comes to work culture and organization structure.
There really is so much to know when it comes to b-school admissions, preparation strategies, career options to follow, how companies work and what makes people tick. MBAs have to make sense of all this and more. But before it all, we must know ourselves and what we want. Else it simply comes down to the engine running on a full tank but the car not going anywhere. Dont you think so?