My Journey to MBA and beyond

My blog is featured on FIND MBA .Find MBA is a global online community for prospective MBA students, and a directory of programs offered by business schools all over the world. Follow me on FIND MBA and/or ask me a question 

[ayonde]

My journey beyond MBA into Canada (Blog#10)

After graduation we went to Orlando to see Disney/Universal. That trip burned a hole in my pocket. Washington DC was the last leg and luckily the museums in DC are free to public unlike New York. We survived on McDonald's for couple of days as I simply ran out of money.

Signing bonus was a new concept. I had assumed that I would get that money the moment I accept the offer letter. Only to realize that I would actually get it 45 days after joining. I was running dangerously low on cash so I requested Cartesian to give me 50% of my signing bonus upfront which they trustingly did.

Location: Cartesian also gave me options for my location. Boston was too far up north and cold. Philadelphia was tough. New York was costly. Washington DC has nice summer and I was familiar with Northern Virginia due to its proximity to Williamsburg. So I selected DC.

My friend Vipul helped me get a lease at his apartment complex in Herndon, VA. My wife joined me in US to join me while rest of my family left for India. Doing grocery was a problem. Walking to the store and carrying big bags was too laborious. Ever since I drove Chris’s car I wanted to buy a Subaru Forester but as I had no credit history and my income hasn’t come yet no one was ready to give me auto loan. I approached Bank of America but they declined – even though I showed my offer letter with salary information they wouldn’t lend me a single cent unless I agree for 20% APR.

Once again, Vipul introduced me to Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU). DCU gave me the full $20,000 at competitive 2.29% APR. I searched online to shortlist few cars. Hilariously changed 3 buses and a Metro with my wife and traveled to Manassas, VA to buy my Forester. Now I could reach places within minutes – such a big relief!

2015: Luckily my first project was with Time Warner Cable and their office was a mile away from my apartment. I would come back home to have lunch or walk to office. 

Life was good. 

It became better as I got news from Larry that USCIS cleared my RFE and my H1-B was approved. Huge sigh of relief! The H1-B came into effect in October. I noticed that my take home pay decreased as now I had to pay into Social Security and Medicare.

I felt that this system was unfair. As foreign national working in US I was a non-resident alien but for tax purposes I was a resident alien. I could not benefit from SSN or Medicare but I had to contribute into those programs. Additionally, every time I exit US, I had to get my passport stamped and answer lot of questions at port of entry. Cartesian also had to file paperwork to USCIS whenever I changed apartments as my address of residence was listed in my petition.

2016: Having money felt great but my wife couldn’t work in US. We thought of starting a family but I wanted her to earn and be financially independent. I thought “If I can come to US and get work after US education, my wife and sister can do that as well”. We put our family plans on hold. Raising kids would mean a gap of 5+ years for my wife which could prove insurmountable in rejoining workforce.

She liked William & Mary’s Masters of Accounting. She enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College to get prerequisite credits. My wife and sister took the GMAT/TOEFL and applied to schools.

My wife got admits from George Mason, American University and W&M. My sister got admits from CUNY Baruch, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, American and Bentley for Masters in Marketing Analytics. Even though CUNY was 1/3rd the cost of Fordham and Johns Hopkins is a huge brand name, I advised my sister to enroll in Fordham as it is STEM certified. STEM allows international students to be eligible for 2 years of extended OPT in addition to the initial 1. This provides 3 years to find an employer who would file for H-1B.

For obvious reasons, my wife selected W&M. Since I could work from home, I decided to move back to Williamsburg to lower our living cost and be together. I did not have sufficient money for my wife’s education. Luckily I learned about Mpower Finance. They provided $25,000 without collateral at 11.99% APR both to my wife and my sister. This was a game changer. I took a personal loan from DCU for the remainder amount. I paid my sister’s monthly rent in NYC. By fall both enrolled in their respective schools. I asked Cartesian to apply for my Green Card (GC) but they asked to revisit in 2017

2017: I visited India in Oct and that’s when my mother fell and broke her shoulder. It became clear to me that I need to live together with my parents. I asked Cartesian again for GC but they refused to apply. To be fair I still had another year on my H-1B and could renew it for 3 more years. Usually companies exhaust 6 years of H-1B before sponsoring for GC. The problem is that USCIS puts a cap on number of GC applications per country. Which means that India with a population of 1.3 Billion gets the same number of GC slots as Lithuania – a country of 3 million. This cap puts a wait time of 10 to 15 years for Indians and Chinese to get GC in best case estimate. Worst case puts the waiting period at 45 years!

Even if I received GC, I still couldn’t stay with my parents. I started exploring other options and learned about Canadian Permanent Residency. My wife and I applied to Canada’s point based PR. During application I got to know another Indian applicant. He was 38 years old, had two kids. Worked in US on H-1B for 7 years. (2 renewals + 1 extended year) His company exploited him and gave him $138,000 while his American coworkers made $200,000+ He couldn’t leave his job as his company was filing for his GC, because of his age he scored less points in the Canadian PR process. He was in a pickle.

I decided I didn’t want to be in his shoes after 5 years. By mid-2017, my wife faced rejections at interviews due to companies unwilling to sponsor H-1B. Luckily she contacted Tim who owns La Tienda at Toano, VA and is a W&M Alumni. They hired her for a yearlong internship during the course of her OPT. My sister also found a job at NYC but the hours were killing her. Rampant racism existed in her company. English Hons fresh out of school American citizens are fast tracked into Managers while  Indian employees who had considerable experience in SPSS, SAS etc. and had a MS in Marketing / Analytics were made to work at grassroots. I decided to leave US when my wife’s internship and her OPT would conclude in July 2018. By December we had received our Canadian PR.

I owed my parents $80,000 for my MBA. I had little money saved. So I decided to buy a property in India. I would pay the mortgage on it and my parents would rent it out. The rent would provide them additional income to support cost of living.

2018: I was bleeding money from all ends – rent, auto loan, mortgage, education loan and taxes. Additionally, I couldn’t plan for retirement or invest in a property while in US.

Since both of us were earning and our cost of living was low. I decided to use snowball effect. First, paid off my wife’s education loan by making lump sum payments every month. That freed up the money going towards that loan. We used that additional money and attacked the next – auto loan was now repaid. Only mortgage remained as we moved to Canada in July 2018.

In September my H-1B expired. I resigned from Cartesian as a full-time employee and rejoined as independent contractor. This worked in my favour as I was able to get a 20% hike. I was promoted to Manager. I did not miss forgoing benefits like medical etc. as those are provided in Canada under universal healthcare.

We setup base in Toronto and my wife landed a job soon. We used the snowball effect once more to pay off my mortgage in India. After 4 years or so I recouped my Return on Investment on my MBA.

2019/2020: I was debt free and started saving money. Paying rent in the Greater Toronto Area was expensive and paying the same amount in mortgage made more sense. We bought a house and started a family. My sister also applied for her PR and joined us. I applied for my parent’s Super Visa – which allowed them to stay up to 2 years in Canada at each entry. After 6 long years we all were together again.

In conclusion, I feel lucky that I was able to successfully use my MBA to transition into consulting, change geography and attain higher purchasing power.

[ayonde]

Final Year of my MBA - Part 2 (Blog#9)

I had one goal in mind – to have a full time job offer before graduation. I, along with other international students would often see American students dressed in suits that signaled that they had interview scheduled. We will also get news of their internships being converted into full time job offers by companies like Deloitte, Visa, Wells Fargo, PwC etc. International students didn’t or couldn’t convert their internships into full time jobs. Few spent the whole summer looking for internship but couldn’t. International students weren’t getting interview calls either. I felt fortunate that Cartesian replied back.

I got two days to prepare and research about Cartesian before my interview. Since the interview was case based I spent all of that time preparing case interviews. On the fateful day, 30 mins before the interview my glasses broke. I am blind as a bat without my glasses. I had a spare but at home. Commuting by either bus or by walk would take an hour unless someone would give me a quick ride in their car. I asked few of my classmates but everyone was tied up. I started panicking but had to calm down for the interview. I decided to focus on the interview – unfortunately I totally bombed it. It was just not my day.

I gave the whole interview holding my broken frame with my left hand while taking notes with my right. It wouldn’t have made a difference even if my glasses were unbroken. Dejected. I searched LinkedIn for people who worked at Cartesian. Several students were from schools like MIT, Dartmouth, and Columbia. I hated myself for ruining such an opportunity. I knew I had failed the interview so bad that I didn’t even bother to write a thank you note to the recruiter.

I had spent the winter of 2013 in Williamsburg and experienced it becoming a ghost town. I didn’t want to go through it again. Luckily I had saved some money from my GA and booked return tickets from India. I would not pass the opportunity to spend 5 weeks with family. Hiring freezes over the winter holidays and many people are on vacation. I wasn’t expecting any action.

During my stay in India, I got an email from Cartesian’s HR stating that I did not clear the interview but they wanted to schedule a time to speak with me. “Duh” I thought “of course I didn’t clear the interview but I knew that already….Why do they want to speak with me? Do they want to convey me personally over phone that I sucked?” I scheduled regardless.

To my surprise, they really liked my resume and my past telecom experience. They wanted to consider me for another position in their Management Consulting team. I couldn’t believe my luck! Of course I agreed. I gave another phone interview the following week. I told them that I was in India and return by mid Jan. They said they’ll touch base end of Jan 2015.

Electives: I returned to school, and it was time to select electives. I wanted to try out new things so instead of taking Lean Six Sigma or Project Management – which were popular choices of students who wanted to specialize in operations, I went the other way and “Generalized” my MBA. I took Change Management, Design thinking and Analytics. Change Management and Design thinking / Creative problem solving were life altering courses for me. I found Business Analytics to be dry. I also tried my best to not fit into the “Indian techie” mould. I know many people who would see a brown guy and automatically assume that I was good with Excel and running software. I was good, but because I was logical. I could apply the same logical reasoning in creating a Go-to-Market Strategy or strategic thinking. But they would limit me to running some sort of tool only.

February Madness February of 2015 was action packed! I received a call from Cartesian and scheduled a power day of interview. I would have 3 rounds of interview via Skype. At the same time, I got a call from Capital One based out of Richmond, VA. I managed to clear their telephonic interview which was case based. They invited me for power day as well. Cartesian’s interview was tough but enjoyable. Capital One’s power day was interesting and their case interviews were different. More about credit card parameters than Cartesian’s Fiber to Home. I did not clear the Capital One power day. I was again frustrated about letting an opportunity slip out.

Meanwhile, Dr. Irwin Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm visited W&M. I was selected as 1 of 10 students to have lunch with him. We had amazing conversation – once again thanks to my telecom background. He said he would help me out. I reached out to him afterwards and applied to couple of positions at Qualcomm thinking that I would surely get an interview call. To my surprise – nothing! The frustration was building up. Nothing I did worked and I wasn’t getting any updates from Cartesian as well. I had another interview with TDS telecom based out of Madison, WI but that did not go well.

Job offer: Finally, I got the call from Cartesian and this time – thankfully! – it was in my favor. I was eagerly waiting for the bus to escape from snow falling on my hand. I had grocery bags in my hand. I will never forget that day. I called my parents in India at 3am their time. I wanted them to be the first to know. Not only did Cartesian gave me a starting six figure salary with signing bonus they also wanted to apply for my H1B work visa ASAP!!

H1B: Cartesian assigned me an immigration lawyer – Larry. He explained the whole process. H1B visa a US work permit issued for people in specialty occupation. There are 65,000 slots in general quota. In 2015 number of applicants was over 233,000. As demand outnumbered supply every year USCIS conducts lottery. Petitions picked in lottery are processed. Additionally, students who hold a Master’s degree from US are put in a separate pool that has 20,000 slots. Unpicked petitions from Advanced US Masters pool get another chance in general quota as well.

 Since my H1B petition was filed in March, before my graduation in May, my petition would not be considered under Advanced US Masters quota but under general quota dropping my chances at 25%. Odds were against me, however I knew that coming into US. I had a job offer and I knew that chances were high that this would be my last hurrah in United States. So, I wanted to make it special. I invited my parents, my younger sister and my wife to visit US for my graduation. This was their first international trip. First time out of India. They were excited. I was excited. The trip would start in New York City then travel south to Williamsburg, VA followed by a week at Orlando, FL visiting Disney and Universal studios.

RFE: By mid-April, Larry called me to congratulate. My petition - even though considered under general quota - was picked in lottery. I was elated! Two weeks later he informed me that he has received a RFE (Request For Evidence). RFE letter had some 20+ points on which USCIS demanded clarification. From authenticity of Cartesian to proof of sufficient work for the duration of H1B – 3 years, to making sure that I was an authentic student at The College of William & Mary. Graduation was fun. I enjoyed vacation with my family at NYC, bitter sweet moments saying goodbye to my friends and classmates and at the same time running from pillar to post collecting documents from MBA administration in response for my RFE.

 Finally, my MBA journey concluded. I had a job and my H1B was picked. All this before graduation and I had my family who saw me walk the aisle in graduation regalia. After a long time life was looking good.

[ayonde]

Final Year of my MBA - Part 1 (Blog#8)

While returning to school I realized that the upcoming year would probably be the last time in my life where I’ll get the freedom to try out different and new things. This became my mantra throughout 2nd year of my MBA – try everything different – probably stuff that I will never get to do again in life.

CAMs: The fall semester introduced us to Career Acceleration Modules (CAM). I came to US thinking that I would “major in Operations” specialize in Supply Chain Management and “minor in Finance”. I thought “If I have to understand how a company works I need to understand Operations and Finance”.

In both the cases Enterprise Engineering (EE) was my 1st CAM choice. EE introduced a lot of concepts in Operations, IT, Analytics and some in Supply Chain. I found the subject to be extremely dry and boring. I just couldn’t see myself doing Holt-Winters model in any organization.

Another CAM that I wanted to take was Finance. I wanted to learn about it – but honestly I was lucky that I could barely pass Finance and Accounting in 1st year. It was for the Sharks on the Wall Street. I wasn’t a Shark but a haddock at best. I also realized that no one is going to give me a Finance job just because I took a Finance CAM. So I decided to take Business Marketing a.k.a B2B CAM. I was able to connect to the subject and found it intriguing. I thought that it could help me setup for Product Management roles in a telecom organization.  The student consulting project for Cisco and the field trip to Lenovo at Raleigh, NC was also attractive.

I started Graduate Assistantship in the 2nd year. Steady flow of stipend was super helpful. There were lot of papers to grade and I had to schedule office hours for undergrad and grad students but it was fun. It was that time of the year where National Hispanic and National Black MBA Associations hosts their annual conferences.

Career Fairs: This time I was well prepared. I registered early. I realized that to be successful in a sea of similar students I had to stand out. I bought a pack of linen paper and printed my resume and cover letter on it. A recruiter will most likely keep my resume since it would feel different texture than other resumes on plain paper. I also did my research and targeted specific companies. I did not spend energy – as I did last year – targeting firms like General Motors or General Electric as I knew they didn’t sponsor H1B Visa for International students.

Further I customized my resumes for specific jobs at specific companies. I bought a paper folder, put my cover letter on the left, resume on the right, and inserted my business card as well. I went out to the booths of my target companies introducing myself and gave them my folder. This surely created an impression. I had also applied to various job postings beforehand and had 6-7 interviews lined up.

Since my positive experience with career fairs last year I pursued W&M MBA’s Career Management Center (CMC) for a more structured approach to MBA career fairs that included a CMC sponsored bus to the events. They listened. One of the conference was in Atlanta while the other was in Philadelphia. Time management was critical. I had to extract and utilize every possible minute of my day. While others would watch movie or sleep or chitchat on the bus. I would isolate myself to the back of the bus and grade the IT papers. Sleep a bit in the hotel and then research more on the companies that I would target.

Out of 6 or 7 interviews, 4 were for Leadership Development Program. LDPs are a rotational program where a company hires you and put you through various functions – Operations, Marketing, HR, Finance, Project Management, etc. The program usually lasts 2 years and at the end of rotations they will assess your fit and performance upon which they’ll offer you a position. This was very appealing. I had amazing interviews on-site especially with Sprint and The Hartford Financial. Only to learn that H1B sponsorship is not applicable for LDP programs. The remaining interviews also did not materialize to anything.

Home Depot: Home Depot hosted an invite only event in Atlanta. I couldn’t get an invite however I kept in touch with their HR and managed to get the invitation at Philadelphia in National Hispanic Conference. Since it’s invite only – Home Depot controls the event beautifully. 20 or so students with over 30 recruiters, Managers and HR. I had amazing conversation with one of them and he wanted to hire me for Supply Chain Analyst. “Awesome!!” I thought, but he said that the salary was $45,000 and in Atlanta. The first word that intuitively came out of my mouth was “NO”. My parents had put a lot of money into my MBA and I had done back of the envelope calculation. I needed a minimum salary of $85,000 to make my ROI work. $45k was an undergrad level salary. Unfortunately I returned empty handed.

CSSGB: In October I learned that Green Belt Certification Exam will be hosted in Richmond, VA by American Society for Quality (ASQ). Lean Certified Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) was on my radar. I initially wanted to get it done through electives during my MBA. I realized that doing it from W&M won’t get me the certification. If I take the exam from ASQ on my own instead, not only can I get the certification, but also I can get it faster and cheaper as I can then utilize those 4.5 credits studying something else.

That’s exactly what I did. In-lieu of car, I took the Amtrak from Williamsburg to Richmond. Spend the night at a 2nd year student’s husband’s apartment. Took the exam next day, changed two buses to reach the train station. Took the evening train back to Williamsburg. Amtrak cost me $18 each way. I was frugal. I had to be.

Few weeks later I got the good news and received my certificate in mail. In addition to PMP I was now a CSSGB.

Diwali Night: At the start of my 2nd year I had resigned from all the clubs – Operations, Consulting, Honor Council, MBA Association etc. as I wanted to focus purely on getting a job. However, I also wanted to do things that I have never done or will never do again. Enter Diwali Night. Every year the Indian students at the MBA program organize Diwali Night. Catering, Performances, Dancing – the whole works. It’s one of the most celebrated festivals at W&M.

I overcame my stage fright to participate in a drama and two dance numbers! Organizing the event, taking out time to practice the moves, selecting menu items, negotiating and organizing food pickups etc. was a great experience.

Job Search: Nearing the end of semester my GPA was in good shape nearing 3.5. My focus anyways wasn’t grades anymore it was finding a full time job. I was applying to jobs online morning, afternoons, evenings and night. One time I applied for a job posted at Deloitte at 2am only to get the rejection email at 2:25am. Either I was getting dumped by some automated process or an elf was working at Deloitte screening my application at 2:30am. Online application wasn’t working. I had to change my strategy.

2nd year classes ran Mon to Thu so Fridays were off. I bunked one Thursday and took the Wednesday night Amtrak to NYC. I spent Thursday and Friday meeting W&M MBA Alumni, networking, and introducing myself to Alumni across the NY and NJ area. The trip was helpful and insightful but didn’t materialize into anything.

It was November and I was getting desperate. I realized that my chances of getting a callback from big name companies like Microsoft, EY, KPMG etc. were slim. I started applying to Telecom companies like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint thinking that they would appreciate my previous telecommunications experience but not a single call.

Now I started searching for jobs with keywords like Telecom + MBA to cast a wide net. I chanced upon a job posting by Cartesian. It was for Strategy Consultant. Luckily, as a part of their application process they gave their HR’s email id. I sent an email with my resume and cover letter. To my surprise I got a response in two days asking for my availability to interview.

Perhaps my luck was changing.

[ayonde]

MBA Internship at Nationwide (Blog#7)

I did some quick maths to find that I was paying around $650/month for my shared accommodation in Gradplex. The problem was that you must vacate Gradplex during summer months unless you pay extra. I decided to move out of Gradplex. One of 2nd year student graduating in summer of 2014 sold me all her furniture for $100! Yup, bed, mattress, study table, chair, lamps everything for $100. I gladly bought it. One of my classmate who is also a Major General James Wright Fellow student had a pickup truck and helped me move. My new accommodation was a single room in a two bedroom townhouse. $450/month all-inclusive including WiFi, Washer – Dryer in-house etc. What I loved about my new accommodation other than the cheapest tag available was the location. The Indian restaurant – Nawab was a stone’s throw away, Movie Tavern and Subway was 7 mins walk, Food Lion for grocery was across the road and so was School of Education. Green line, Red Line, Blue Line all served the location. Moreover, the Gym was nice 10 mins walk through the woods, and walking to business school was 25 mins through the campus.

I dumped my furniture in my room. Search for a cheap accommodation in Columbus, OH on Craiglist. I found Indian PhD students at Ohio State University subleasing for summer in University Village. I took that deal. Flight was booked to Columbus from Richmond, VA. Vina dropped me to Richmond airport, and I welcome this phase of my life with open arms.

 Day 1 at Nationwide Insurance was exciting! Several hundred interns – all suited up ready to hit the ground running. You can tell us apart, suit and tie in the city bus. After the HR orientation at Nationwide One Downtown I met my manager Chris P. He took Ameya Joshi – who was doing his MBA from University of Illinois and Urbana Campaign (UIUC), and I to lunch. Chris told us more about what his team and what’s our role going to be.

We were in IT Portfolio Management that oversaw Infrastructure and Operations. First week was fun, getting to know everyone in the team, attending conference calls and doing whatever is asked.

I enjoyed my time in Columbus. Coming from a small college town I felt that Columbus was a nice upgrade. I would go to Rib and Jazz festival one weekend, science center the next.  Columbus Zoo in Dublin became my favorite destination. I ended up going there 2-3 times during my internship. I was also able to fulfill my dream of watching live WWE. I would have gone bonkers 10 years ago when I was in high school, but now I was 30 and hadn’t followed wrestling for many years. Still it was a great realization. Sports was plenty in Columbus. We went to a minor league baseball game and since Soccer world cup 2014 was ongoing, we watched it during lunch time at bars or later in the evening.

The first month at Nationwide went smoothly. $23/hour pay was very uplifting. I wish I could buy a used car! But that money allowed me to get a Car2Go membership and drive around in their tiny two seater Smart car. Two weeks into my internship there was a workout day where all the colleagues volunteered to take the army fitness test. 35 push ups, 50 crunches and a 2 mile run in 18 mins. I had focused on studies all my life and not getting my body into any shape except round. I knew I would fail miserably but I participated nonetheless, I wanted to try new things. My colleagues liked that spirit a lot. 

Pro-tip: Always participate in everything during internship. Someone is always observing you.

In the second month, I asked Chris P. about any plans to absorb interns into full-time roles. I found management communications and organizational behavior courses in MOD1 very useful as I tried to put them in use. I came up with my own personal development plan for the next two months and shared that with Chris. He liked it and tried giving me relevant tasks. As an intern I didn’t shy away from any work, be it data entry into a project management software or filling in for someone in a meeting.

 I learned about few Indian interns in the Service Delivery department who were offered full time roles in Project Management. I thought I would be a great fit as I already have experience leading projects and I am a certified PMP. I networked with many in senior management including people at director and VP level. I was told that inter department absorption of interns tends to get political.  I tried to get above the political bias and networked with several VPs of various departments. I thought that “Senior Managers and Directors could be bound by the political correctness but if a VP vouches my case, surely, I’ll get hired”

Not so!! Many interns had considerably less experience and no professional certificate in project management yet had a PMO job offer at hand and I did not. I cursed my stars for not being in Service Delivery. Maybe I was too old for job, or just not attractive enough as a candidate. Whatever maybe the reasons, the fact remained – I did not have a full time offer.

I decided to go again to the National Black MBA and the National Hispanic MBA conferences and registered for them. During my last days in the third month at Nationwide I spoke to HR and they explained difficulties in hiring Indian workers in Project Management. Getting a full time job, and sponsoring H1B visa was the easy part. Tougher task was sponsoring the Green Card. The federal inspector would contest that any PMO role is generic and not specialty occupation and the GC application rejected. I learned a great deal about sponsoring international candidates and difficulties in getting a GC for Indians and Chinese.

Now I had only one goal in mind – Get a full time job offer. I was trying everything. Applying online, finding W&M alumni to network, finding people over LinkedIn and introduce myself. I needed a break. I decided to fly back to India for 10 days I had between my end of internship and starting of 2nd year MBA classes. I finally got some time to spend with my family.

[ayonde]

Fall, Winter and Spring (Blog#6)

I came to US for my MBA in Aug 2013. A month later I had landed an internship at Nationwide Insurance thanks to National Black MBA. After returning to Williamsburg I was undoubtedly happy. However that euphoria didn’t last long as up next were Mid-term exams. At William & Mary, the 1st year is divided into 3 MODs. Some subjects lasted only one MOD while some spread across MODs. In MOD 1 we had Accounting, Organizational Behavior, Business Analytics and IT Technology that were one MOD subject while Management communication and Leadership Development Experience was spread across MODs.

In accounting I felt like a fish out of water. Accounting wasn’t (and still isn’t) my cup of tea – like at all!! W&M does recommend incoming students at arrive early before the start of the program and attend boot camp where they go over accounting basics. In India as I studied science in my high school and then engineering during my undergrad I had a hard time classifying line items into asset or liability, let alone balancing the two.

Organizational Behavior required a lot of reading and case studies. My reading speed was slow. My mid-term results were not very encouraging. I was average at best and ended up with a 3.0 GPA Mid-term. Now there was a new threat looming. If my GPA drops below 3.0 and stays there I will lose my financial aid – which would be disastrous!

I focused all my attention in getting my grades up. In MOD 2 I had Marketing and Finance in addition to Economic analysis and Ethics. The latter two were easy for me, and I was able to get good scores. Marketing was taught by Prof. Larry Ring, it’s more like a lesson in consulting case than marketing. Really exciting and wonderful stuff but a lot of reading. I have always struggled with that when under clock. If I was fish out of water for Accounting I was a fish in outer space when it came to Finance. Regardless I somehow managed to get average grades in those two. So it put my GPA at 3.0 but top of the class grades in other subjects moved me out of danger and my GPA was at 3.3 by MOD 2.

On Campus Job & SSN: At W&M, my financial aid was scheduled to kick in during the 2nd year of the MBA program, but I desperately needed a job in my 1st year to keep me afloat. I applied for an on-campus job and got one as website caretaker for an English professor. It helped me pay my monthly phone bill at Verizon at the very least. Having an on-campus job also helped me get my Social Security Number. Usually for SSN you need a job offer or an internship offer. I did have an Internship with Nationwide but since the actual start date was 9 months out I didn’t have offer letter required for SSN until later. Regardless, 2 hours and 2 bus transfers later I reached Newport News in VA and applied for my SSN. I would feel bad for myself for being middle class poor and not having a car really. My classmates from China would have $$$ thanks to their strong currency and buy cars in the 1st week of our MBA program. Most US students will get some sort of auto loan or have existing vehicles. Most Indians come from a middle class families and our savings got divided by a factor of 60 thanks to the weaker Rupee. Which meant a very tight USD budget and worrying about money most times. Worse, the Indian currency was weakening meaning my parents had to put more Rupees than anticipated to meet the budget.

1 US Dollar = 55 Rupees in Jan 2013

1 US Dollar = 61 Rupees in June 2013

1 US Dollar = 65 Rupees in Sep 2013

Updating my SSN at Verizon helped me get my $400 deposit back. Remainder of academic year in 2013 was spent managing my budget, studying for grades and finding a work life balance. Chris let me drive his car and soon I got my driving license. Chris also invited Chloe, Teru, Frank and me to his home at Newport News for Thanksgiving. He taught us the rules for American football. I soon realized that talking about football is the easiest way to break ice with virtually everyone in the United States. I learned the rules of the game, and I picked up the team names and some players names over the course of time.

 Life was past paced until 2nd week of December that’s when 1st semester concluded after End-term exams were over. All of my US friends went back to their respective home cities. All of my international friends either went to their relative in US, or went back to China/India/Thailand etc. to be back with family. Some went on to discover America. Disney world, Alaska, Las Vegas etc. I had no money for such travel. Being on a budget meant I was by myself at Graduate complex. There were 4 students in all of Gradplex. Williamsburg resembled a ghost town in winters. (See empty law school library)

PMP: Since the Green (University) Line stop running during winter break. Buying grocery meant a 2-3 hour roundtrip bus ride. I often walked to buy bread and eggs and the slippery ice or snowy conditions didn’t help at all. I was alone, poor and depressed. I thought of using this opportunity and start preparing for my PMP exam. Nearest test center was 3.5 hours via Amtrak away – Washington DC. I scheduled it in 2nd week of Jan 2014 and studied hard. I was locked in my apartment and literally had nothing else to do. Took the Amtrak to DC and stayed at my friend - Vipul’s place. Took the exam and cleared the PMP the next day. I was now a certified Project Management Professional. I was happy, not only because I cleared the PMP but also that I got to spend some time with Vipul. Vipul was my roommate during the last two years of my undergrad engineering. It was good to cherish old days.

I went back to Williamsburg after spending few days in DC as 2nd semester was about to start. Finally school reopened and Williamsburg became alive again. By end of Feb/March we were done with MOD 2 and MOD 3 started. MOD 3 was my comfort zone. Winter was on retreat and Operations, Macroeconomics, and Cost Accounting were my favorite subjects. My GPA was back up and I was looking forward to summer of 2014!!

[ayonde]

A day in the life of an MBA student and finding Internship (Blog#5)

After the first week of orientation, came the classes. It was tough getting back to studies especially having worked for 6 years, but I was excited! I found that teaching system in US was way different than in India. For my first day of class I was looking forward that the teacher will teach something, we will learn what they’ll teach and then we will get homework. To my surprise that didn’t happen. Here, students are expected to come to class having read the cases. The classes are more of a controlled discussion guided by the professor. The professor asked us about the reading that we had to do prior to the class. All the syllabus, prerequisite reading before the classes, case studies, and course pack information was posted on blackboard.

Blackboard “What on earth is blackboard?” I had no clue. Chris told me that it’s like an internal website where professors load everything pertinent to the course including grades, assignments, prerequisites, home assignments etc. Well it was Week 2, and I was already behind on Day 1. Later that day I found my way to blackboard. The course detailed including buying a course pack. But How? I did not have a US credit card! I thought I’ll photocopy the material from my classmates who have purchased the course. My professor told me that it’s not permitted to make photocopies of documents, doing so is considered a violation of honor council. “Well crap!” now not only could I not cover up for lost reading, I was going to be further behind on Week 2.

Luckily not all courses required buying a course pack online. Some would do with old fashioned books. I bought few used books / older editions but for others I had no option but to buy brand new expensive ones. Chris and Chloe took me, Teru and Frank to Target. I bought a pillow, comforter, bed sheets, cooking utensils and the most important thing that a student should have – an alarm clock!

My typical day would be to get up at 05:00 to do a quick read, grab a bite, and then run to the bus stop to catch the 07:20 university bus (Green Line) to reach the Business School at 07:40. Later bus services were unreliable and I had to be there at 08:00. We had three lectures from 08:00 till 12:15, and then break for lunch. After lunch I will be doing team assignments with Team 3 until 17:00. After that I will do my individual assignments and reading.

I’ll take the 20:00 Green line back to the dorm. Cook Indian food that was barely edible Or survive on $6 Footlong I bought from Subway. Eat half for dinner, keep remaining half for lunch on next day. From 21:00 until 01:00 I would study and hit the bed thinking about all the case studies I missed reading.

On many days I will get lucky and there will be a club event and I’ll get free pizza slice or a sandwich to take home. On other days, I had to take the Green line to grocery store that was 20 mins away. But took another 30 on the way back as Green line travel in one direction.

When I got a chance on the weekend. I took the Red line to Bank of America to open my account, and apply for a credit card. There I met a Charlotte who understood my situation and accepted my admission letter as address proof. After BofA I went to Verizon to buy a phone and was asked to pay $400 security deposit since I did not have SSN. At this point I had used all my money up and had to borrow from friends.

Meanwhile, I was attending various club meetings from Operations to Women’s MBA primarily for the free food but later I realized that joining clubs would help me pad my resume. The MBA Association club (MBAA) is a student body club that oversees every other club including budget allocation, event management etc. MBAA also acts as an interface between MBA students and faculty, program director and other staff. This is a highly visible position and I was told that historically Indian students didn’t apply or got selected for it. I decided to apply and was nervous. Not only was this my first public speaking – it was in front of audience representing some 15 countries. I was feeling being judged. I stuttered but luckily regained my composure and presented myself. That evening I was told that I was one of four MBAA 1st year rep. I was happy that students had voted for me. I also enrolled into Honor Council which was a university wide association.

NBMBAA: During my conversations with alumni, I found about National Black MBA (NBMBAA) and National Hispanic MBA conferences. I booked flight tickets to Huston, TX where NBMBAA 2013 was held. Many 1st and 2nd year students also made travel arrangements.

I had my resume ready. I highlighted my involvement with various clubs. I highlighted my leadership experience using the STAR format, along with various certifications that I was pursuing. I had my elevator pitch ready. I arrived early at the convention center ready to hit the ground running.

I went to every booth, stood in line, introduced myself to the recruiter and handed over my resume. Many companies said that they don’t sponsor international students. While others took my resume and asked me to apply online. The online application – as I found – is an internet black hole. Big company names drew large number of students resulting in extended lines and higher waiting times. I looked around me and students from Vanderbilt University, Indiana University, Texas A&M etc. were also standing in the same line working the booth. I overheard their conversations and realized that I was no less or no different than other students who went to much higher ranked schools. This realization was a tremendous confidence booster.

While several many students took a lunch break. I kept on working, booth after booth, introducing myself and learning about the company and internship opportunities. Around 4pm I went to Nationwide insurance’s booth. I met with Chris C. and introduced myself. We started talking and I soon learnt that he had spent a lot of time in Virginia and absolutely loved the area. We had good conversation and he asked me about my leadership experience. At the end of our 25 min conversation he asked me “How would you feel if I extend you an offer for Internship at Nationwide?” I was excited, shocked and relieved at the same time. I didn’t expect on-spot offer, but heck yeah I’ll take it. “You made my day Chris” I replied. One month into my MBA I had an internship. The convention got over at 5 or 6pm if I remember correctly. After finding a ride back I finally sat down – my legs were killing me, and got some food into my system. Next day I did the same thing. Kept working through each of the booths. It was tiring two days, but I was happy that I had an internship offer. 

Nationwide was on my side.

[ayonde]

First week in Williamsburg, VA  (Blog#4)

So finally, I decided to enroll at the MBA program at College of William & Mary at Williamsburg, Virginia in USA. I paid my deposit fees, and applied for student visa. I explored various flight options and found that British Airways had the most generous baggage allowance. 3 bags upto 23 Kgs (50 lbs) each are allowed for students as check-in luggage. Additionally, you can carry another bag of 23 Kg as cabin bag if you can lift it up to stow in the overhead bin.

While, I was making provisions to come to United States and learning how to cook, I contacted a lot of W&M Alumni/current students. Through LinkedIn I found few graduates of the MBA program living in New Delhi. My admission committee (AdCom) helped me connect with few more graduates as well as with incoming students. I organized a meet & greet, and learned a lot about life in America and Williamsburg in particular.

Networking: One keyword often mentioned by the grads was Networking. And it was an alien concept to me. So far I was operating in an environment where people ask question and you answer – or vice versa. For a job, you go through set pattern. Apply online, get invited for interview, answer the questions you are asked, clear the technical rounds, then talk salary in the HR round.

Networking was different. Make small talk about things, interests like sports or cars, find a commonality and leave an impression. It was like if you are 8 years old and your parents moved to another city. Now you have to change schools and make new friends. This was way outside of my comfort zone which was being direct. You want a job, you ask for it. You don’t talk fluff to pad time and then ask for a job, this was very close to being deceitful in our culture. But, I was told that the direct approach doesn’t work in the west.

Elevator Pitch: There was another concept of elevator pitch – which my W&M MBA’s career services people told me about. The situation is that you find yourself in an elevator with the CEO of your dream company, you have 60 seconds to introduce yourself in way that leaves a positive impact on the CEO’s memory. 60 seconds?!! I thought, I cannot even decide which pizza toppings I want in 60 seconds. And my fate could be decided in that time? Nevertheless, I started working on my elevator pitch. 60 seconds to include something unique about myself that would possible separately me from other applicants vying the same job.

Certifications: I started to do another self-assessment. I knew I did not have a stellar GMAT, and I wasn’t from a traditional business background or enrolling at Harvard. All my work experience to this point was technical engineering. I saw LinkedIn profile of students who had their undergrad in Finance with minor in accounting, then went to do CFA level 1, 2 and 3 before joining the MBA program specializing in Finance and graduating to become Director at a firm. Such candidates I thought would go on to become CEO or CFO by the time they hit 40. To be competitive and pad my resume, I needed certifications. I cannot appear to be just an engineer to the person reading my resume. In April of 2013 – 4 months before I was to leave for US, I enrolled in project management classes. The plan was to arm myself with Project Management Professional (PMP) and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) certifications. The classes were on point but I couldn’t take the PMP exam. The project management course was taught on the newer version of book of knowledge that the examination centers at New Delhi had yet to update.

Since the India edition of the Green Belt book was much cheaper, I bought that book and started reading. But honestly, most of my time in India was spent with my wife, family & friends. Soon it was end of July and for the first time I was jobless. I was on a tight budget and had accounted for my monthly spending not to exceed $1000.

So finally 10th Aug came, and after a teary goodbye to wife and family, I boarded the BA flight. It was a long journey. 8 hours to London from New Delhi, layover of 3 hours. Then another 8 hours to NYC, take luggage to do immigration during the 5 hour layover, then another 2 hrs flight to Norfolk, VA and finally another hour in taxi cab to Williamsburg, VA. I was contemplating my decision to not enroll into other schools and borrowing all my parent’s life savings and investments to get my fancy MBA. Failure would be a bitter pill. Will I get a job? Will I adjust to US education system? Too many questions and self-doubt. It was too late as the plane was on the runway. Found some comfort watching movies during flight.

 Week 1: The first week at Williamsburg was as unique as it was challenging. Every student in our MBA cohort was put into a team of 5. I was in team 3. In my team there were two Americans – Chris was ex-army and wanted to get into healthcare, Chloe was a scholar who loved green energy. Frank was from Taiwan and was a Finance guru, Teru hailed from Tokyo, Japan and had several years of experience as marketing manager of Maserati.

Week 1 was orientation, to foster team building we all were made to do several team based activities. My favourite was ropes course. They’ll present a challenge like as two teams of 5 to go across the rope tied between two trees, the catch is that if you touch the ground your team is out. It brought out lot of different leadership styles and taught us to trust one another. This week was also very tough physically and mentally. I was still suffering from jet lag, I did not have a phone with me, because I did not have any documentation needed to get a cell phone. No address proof, no bank account, no social security number.

I did not have a car to commute and had to rely on university line bus service known as green line. If the bus was late for whatever reason, meant that I was late for team meetings etc. In US, even if I was late by 2 mins it was looked down. In India people usually understand that one can be +/- 10~20 mins late due to traffic – not in US. 8 means 08:00 not 08:01 or 08:15 come what may.

One of the days, I couldn’t get up in time in the morning and was late for a team activity. I had no alarm clock and did not know where the nearest supermarket was or what it was called. Current students were either still concluding their internship or visiting family and had not yet returned to Williamsburg. Clearly, I had let my team down and I was disappointed. I felt miserable all around, the food consist of salads, sandwiches and pizza slices, which didn’t help either. I was home sick, I needed Indian food. On day 6, I went to an Indian restaurant to eat dinner with one of my Indian classmate. We ate till our hearts content, the bill? $100!! This further added to my misery. I couldn’t sustain the financial status quo, something had to change and soon.

[ayonde]

My journey of getting admission in MBA program    (Blog #3)

My timeline so far was that during the admission cycle of 2008-2010 I had applied to the following MBA programs

Applied and rejected without interview in the following

Wake Forest University

Michigan State University

Brigham young University

Southern Methodist University

Indiana University

University of Georgia

University of Illinois at Urbana Campaign

University of Texas at Dallas

York University

Three schools rejected after interview

College of William & Mary

University of Pittsburgh

McGill University

One wait-list

Case Western Reserve University

In 2011, I had applied and got admits from the following schools although I did not enroll.

Schulich India MBA

Copenhagen Business School

SPJain PGPM

In 2012 I shortlisted following schools where I would apply to enroll in 2013. Purdue University

Purdue University

Penn State University

Ohio State University

University of Pittsburg

Southern Methodist University

College of William & Mary

University of California at Irvine

The rationale behind selecting these schools was that, firstly, they had good curriculum focused towards operations. Secondly, they had good tie-ups with companies and had great local reputation and some national recognition. I also saw from their career services report and talking to 2nd year students/recent graduates that companies such as Amazon, Deloitte etc. recruited students. Thirdly, their average GMAT score was in 640 – 670 range. My second GMAT was a mere 610, I thought of retaking the GMAT yet again in order to land in the ballpark.

While I was shortlisting US schools I became increasingly aware of the visa restrictions in the US H1-B program. I started looking at countries that offered good post MBA work permit. UK was an obvious exclusion, and Canada that already on my radar from earlier attempts was an obvious inclusion.

Ivey, Queen’s, Schulich, McGill, UBC – Sauder, Rotman were the top choices. I also started to look at Montreal based schools closely, Quebec at the time offered a faster path to Permanent Residency provided you had French language skills. So in addition to McGill, I added HEC Montreal and Concordia to my list as well. The language based point system was appealing to me. I knew that my GMAT score of 610 was my weak point. To strengthen my overall profile for Quebec based I took French classes, and cleared DELF A1 exam.

At the same time I thought about my work experience and age. I would have 6+ years of work experience by the time classes start in fall of 2013. I had already thought about one year MBA programs Copenhagen Business School, SPJain, Ivey, Queen’s, HEC Montreal etc. Since I was already learning French – I had very good conversation with ESSEC adcom on the QS world / The MBA Tour. They encouraged me to apply so I added ESSEC as well. Their MBA structure was unique in that it exposed the students to Singapore as well in addition to the French market.

So my initial list of schools would be

Purdue University

Penn State University

Ohio State University

University of Pittsburgh

Southern Methodist University

College of William & Mary

University of California at Irvine

Ivey

Queen’s

HEC Montreal

McGill

UBC Sauder

Concordia

ESSEC

Rotman

This was more of a long list than a shortlist. I knew that ultimately securing an admit would heavily depend on my GMAT score. So I retook it the third time. It yielded 630, not a great one but perhaps not an extremely incompetent either. In most schools scholarship or financial aid is merit based. Merit is measured by GMAT score. Given my less than stellar one, even if I were to get admit, I wouldn’t be able to enroll since I did not had that much money to pay for tuition.

ADMISSIBILITY: The whole purpose of applying to a business schools is to be admitted to the business school.

Taking the GMAT, TOEFL. Shortlisting business schools. Sending your score to those business schools. Writing 3 essays on average for every MBA application. Rereading those essays, giving them out to your friends, colleagues and MBA alumni for proof reading. Rewriting your essays making them crisp and air tight. Reaching out to your boss to write letters of recommendation. Reaching out to your undergrad university to send your transcripts to the B schools. Convincing your parents to let go of all their life’s saving by paying the tuition fees. Liquidating all your savings to spend it all on application fees, GMAT/TOFEL tests, and towards tuition fees.

At the end of jumping these many hoops, all the effort goes down the drain if you get rejected. And it feels terrible. I know because I went through that.

Since admissibility was the name of the game, I decided not to apply to highly attractive B schools where Indian application with 700+ GMAT would apply. Purdue, Penn Smeal, Ohio Fisher, Ivey, Queen’s, Rotman all were dropped. I had to decline admit from Copenhagen Business school from earlier because CBS announces scholarship decision after candidate had deposited the deposit fees. I couldn’t take that bet. In the 2012 admission season for classes starting in 2013 my shortlist was below

Reach schools: Schools where I thought I will have very little chance of admit. These schools attracted many applicants because of their location, career outcome, brand recognition etc. Their class profile had higher avg. GMAT score and the number of applicants who target these schools was high.

University of California at Irvine

McGill (reapplicant)

UBC Sauder

Target schools: Schools I considered that I was in the ballpark. I felt confident of atleast getting invited for interview. My GMAT of 630 was bang on with their avg. GMAT or +/- 10 points

Southern Methodist University – Cox School of Business (reapplicant)

College of William & Mary – Raymond A. Mason School of Business (reapplicant)

HEC Montreal

ESSEC

Safe schools: I was highly confident of being invited for an interview and getting admit as I thought that I was competitive than most applicants.

Concordia – John Molson School of Business

I started applying to these schools around the same time QS World and The MBA Tour were visiting New Delhi, India which was Sep – Oct of 2012. I had already submitted my application to SMU Cox and was hoping to be invited for interview. At The MBA Tour, I meet with their admission committee member, where she mentioned during Q&A panel that although Cox’s average GMAT is 640, they evaluate candidates from same country/similar profiles against each other. They mentioned that average GMAT for Indian students was 695. Not sure if this was discrimination or unfair high bar for Indian applicants, but it was clear that I wasn’t “smarter” than most applicants at Cox, my hopes of an admit dwindled to zero as soon as I learned of a different average GMAT for Indians.

Luckily, I had learned to spread my risk. I was scheduled for my interview with W&M’s Randy Tripp. We had good conversation and I submitted a strong application. It was Feb/Mar 2013 and I was also interviewed by ESSEC via Skype.

Meanwhile, as expected I got denied by UBC Sauder and McGill without an interview. However, unexpectedly I was turned down by Concordia since somehow they converted my GPA on 10 scale onto Canadian equivalent and calculated that it did not meet their minimum criteria. This was a shocker since none of the 15+ schools I had applied across US/Canada/France never had that concern. I got admitted into ESSEC and also qualified for their financial loan. I got admit from College of William and Mary with some scholarship and Graduate Assistantship. Unexpectedly, I was interviewed by University of California at Irvine. Since their avg. GMAT was at 680 – highest of the schools I had applied, I never expect an interview. I had great interview which lasted 90 days and received admit from Irvine on my birthday. The tuition fees of $96,000 and cost of living at California was way too much for me. I tried friend-funding on the lines of crowd funding, and reached out to some 30 of my friends asking for $1000 loan for 2 years. In the end the effort failed and the cost proved insurmountable. HEC Montreal was taking longer to reply, and the fee deposit date of W&M was getting closer. My constant pestering perhaps led to my rejection at HEC.

I took the GMAT the 4th time hoping to get a higher score for better scholarship and improve the NPV, ROI of MBA investment but 4th time also yielded 630. In the end, my MBA admissions journey was concluded. I would enroll in fall of 2013 into Raymond A. Mason School of Business – The College of William & Mary.

[ayonde]

How I researched and shortlisted Business Schools?   (Blog #2)

After getting rejected from every one of the 12 MBA programs I applied in 2009, I thought hard about my career goals. I worked in various engineering functions in Telecommunications spanning from multiple projects to managed services. These fell under the umbrella “Operations” as function. I wasn’t in Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, HR. My industry was Telecom, and my function was somewhere in the intersection of Operations and Consulting. This clarity about my industry and function made me realize that I was a Career Switcher.

 I wanted to acquire skills that I currently lacked - a formal education in management - that would enable me to view a problem from multiple lenses. At present all my formal education, work experience was in technical problem solving. Using my MBA to bridge the skill gap would allow me to meet the criteria for employment immediately post MBA. My target jobs was Strategy & Operations in Deloitte, and Operations Manager in Amazon. For the first time during my MBA application process that spread from 2008 to 2013, I had a clear goal on which I could focus.

 As a backup, my target firms were the Telecoms, the likes of Verizon, AT&T. T-mobile. “I would be a prized catch for any teleco organization given my background” I thought.

 LinkedIn: After having my post MBA goals written in a format that was an action item. I used LinkedIn to search extensively for people who had a similar background like mine, and who graduated from schools I had applied to see what there were doing in 2010/11. At the same time I searched for people who were working in those job profile at my target companies and backtracked their journey through their MBA. I focused solely of Indian students as my path navigating through B schools and admissions was going to be very similar.

 Rankings: Next I started to look at various rankings that comes out every year.

Financial Times

Economist 

Businessweek Bloomberg

Forbes

US News

Eduniversal 

Each ranking focuses on a different set of criteria e.g. Forbes gives more weightage to ROI. I read the Economist and Businessweek rankings at length specifically school reviews. Forbes rankings were helpful as it gave some schools that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise such as University of Connecticut.

 Almost all schools that ranked high had a class profile with higher average GMAT score. I now knew that my chances of getting an interview would be higher from a school whose avg. GMAT score is in the 600 - 620 range. It will be impossible and almost futile for me to apply to higher ranked schools unless I can improve my GMAT score.

  GMAT: I knew with my GMAT score of 610, I was a mediocre candidate at best. So I started working on improving my GMAT. I purchased The Manhattan Guide, those came with an online code that I could use to give mock tests. For my job at Nokia I had to travel across the city using the Delhi Metro (subway). I would use that time to study and course material on my way to the office, and then on the way back home. Weekends were reserved for taking mock tests.

 In 2010, as I was preparing for the GMAT, I thought it would be a good mental exercise for me to take CAT and XAT. few weeks later based on my XAT score I applied to the 2 year MBA program (PGDM) at SP Jain at Mumbai, India and at Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. While I got rejected at both the programs, few months later I was contacted by their respective adcoms. Schulich asked me if I’d be interested in being considered for their new launched Schulich India MBA that have students spend the first 6 month in India and the final year in Keele campus. Since I had close to 5 years of work experience by now SPJain asked me to apply for their 1 year full time executive MBA PGPM. I applied to both and got in. My first admits!!!

 Diversity: Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to spend two months in a Baltic country because of my work. This exposed me to people from various spheres of life with whom I might have never interacted if I was still doing the same old same old. I met students playing guitar, flute and drums on the cobble streets of old town. I spoke with them and they were so happy studying music. One fellow gave up his job as an IT engineer to go to Amsterdam to play guitar. I met a student of arts who wanted to work as a cartoonist. All these interactions widened my horizons, and I started to see the power of diversity.

 I now paid close attention to diversity in the class profile. I would get the percentage of international students in a cohort by viewing class profile online. Some schools would have a higher percentage of international students, and within international students a higher percentage of students would be from India and China. Having worked with in Huawei, I already had exposure to working with Chinese. And it seemed cost inefficient to pay in dollars/euros to have a class where I mostly interacted with people from the same background.

 After all the work I had put in I was happy receiving two admits that arrived few months apart. I thought finally luck was favouring me. However, due to my new found love for learning from people around me. I now put great importance on diversity. I knew that I wanted to be in a program that exposes me to different things, people and experiences from different background, language, and countries. Schulich and SPJain are both big brand names in their respective countries of Canada and India.

Going against conventional wisdom, I did not enroll in Schulich Inda MBA or the SPJain PGPM. My MBA admission journey hasn’t ended yet.

[ayonde]

Why MBA?

Like several many in India, I was an engineer. I set up part of wireless mobile network at Huawei Telecommunications. I started as a Graduate Engineering Trainee and soon was working independently, with minimal supervision and later was leading teams. After working for 2 years in various engineering functions I felt that my job was getting repetitive and wanted to try something new.

It is common knowledge in India that MBA is the key to a better salary, changing functions and becoming a Manager. So I was in the process of taking the Common Admission Test (CAT) and it’s siblings XAT, FMS etc. in 2009. Having appeared for those exams in 2006-07 during my senior year of my engineering undergrad, I wasn’t too hopeful. At the same time I came to know of my seniors who had graduated in a year before in 2006. They recently enrolled into institutes like Schulich School of Business at York University, Toronto, Canada and Asian Institute of Management at Philippines, Manilla. I knew about the GMAT exam, but never gave it a serious thought since I never had the money required to pursue a Masters from abroad. My seniors told me that it’s possible to get scholarships based on the GMAT score.

A bulb just lit in my head. “So maybe I’ll crack the GMAT, get a full scholarship, get my MBA and make tons of $$$ - easy!!” I was at 24 and full of hope. I found a used Kaplan GMAT book - erased the pencil marked answers and spent like 2 weeks preparing. I took the GMAT got 600. Not earth shattering and I knew people get into schools with that score. I checked the average GMAT scores under class-profile and most said 550-750. So I believed I was in the ballpark. Since all schools mentioned on their website that they look at candidates holistically and not just the test score, I thought “I will write stellar essays and get through”.

Why do I want to do an MBA? To earn a bucket load of money. Ok, this was simple, but I cannot write that up in my essay. In my essays I wrote that I wanted to pursue a career in Brand Management. I knew very little about marketing as a whole let alone brand management. My experience had no overlap with that business unit. I had no target companies where I would pursue a career post MBA. I had no preference for location. I never cared to connect with anyone working in brand management to learn more. All I really wanted was to make the big bucks. Doesn’t matter how.

I met several people from admission committee (AdCom) during The MBA Tour and QS World MBA. I had good conversations with everyone including Mason School of Business - College of William and Mary. So In addition to Mason, I applied to schools like Kelley at Indiana University, Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Wake Forest University etc. 

Meanwhile, I retook the GMAT since statistically speaking, people see an improvement of 70 points on their 2nd attempt. First section AWA. Done, next up was Quant. Like most Indian applicants I had little trouble with mathematics so quant is kinda easy. Section over, now comes the Achilles’ heel – Verbal. I knew GMAT was an adaptive test. It was critical for me to get the first few questions correct, otherwise my score will dip. One by one I answered the questions to what I thought was correct. After all it sounded right to my ears when I spoke it in my mind. I mean, I communicated in English just fine! I gave TOEFL without any prep scored 105 off 120. I was taught in English throughout. Heck I was into AC/DC and The Beatles. 

At the end of the exam, I had a choice to see my score and submit or to cancel. My heart was pounding, I was sweating, I was praying for a good score to flash on the screen. What will it be? 650, 680, 720?

610

After the anxiety comes the feeling of dejection. But I had hope. I had good conversation with several AdComs I meet during the MBA fair. I decided to focus on my application. Wrote essays, reached out people for recommendation. Completed and submitted my applications. I was awaiting information on the next steps. I couldn’t sleep well. Was getting up early to check my email since it would be evening in the US when people would have replied.

I was elated to see an Interview invite from College of William & Mary! I suited up at midnight India time for my telephonic interview with Amanda Barth. The interview started well, but during the conversation she asked me “Why do you want to do MBA?” I panicked, words weren’t coming into my mind. I choked and bombed the interview. Few days later, got the result. Denied. Which was a common theme for all my applications – most without even an interview. 

I was devastated. Not only had I spent so much money and effort I lost a year of the admission cycle. I locked myself away from everyone and everything for the next 5 months. I had many questions, “Why do I really want to get an MBA?” “Why do I feel that I have reached a ceiling in my career?” “Why does my job feels repetitive?” Earning money was a byproduct, cannot be the cause.

I reached out to several current students, alumni, AdComs and tried to better understand what makes an MBA student employable at the end of a 2 year program? How is that students come in thinking they would do Finance ends up doing Marketing? Then I slowly started to see myself from skills point of view. What skills do I have now? What skills am I missing for the job that I want to do? The difference is my skill gap. Can the MBA help me bridge that skill gap?

(pic: Ayon talking with Sonja from Hult Business school at QS MBA Tour 2010. Photo published on Education Times, July 12, 2010)