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The art of asking the right negative questions

It is that time of the year when aspiring candidates to B-school pose the question, “What can I do to get in?” It is a question that is born out of the nervousness and excitement that accompanies the B-school application process. A question that appears valid considering the time and money applicants will be putting into the B-school admission process. But a question that is completely wrong, nonetheless.

Hold on, you say. Shouldn’t one get guidance from those that got in? Shouldn’t we learn from what has worked in the past?

And therein lies the problem. There is the implicit assumption that there is a formula to get into B-school: a particular way to write the essays, a particular level of extra-curricular activity, perhaps some social activities that must be included, and so on. There is an even more dangerous assumption here. That perhaps, if you do those things, then you’ll significantly increase your chances of getting in. (You must’ve already guessed what I am about to say – You won’t.)

Then what should a prospective applicant do? Shoot arrows in the dark and cross her fingers? No. I don’t recommend that either. There is nothing wrong with getting guidance from those who got in. But the question one should ask is, “What should I avoid?” or “What can I do to get my application thrown out quickly?”

Am I just splitting grammatical hairs here? I mean, isn’t the point of both questions the same? Not really. There is no formula for getting in, but there are things you can do to not get in for sure. E.g. dropping the following in your essays: “My father, who is a personal friend of Rajat Gupta…”, or “My goal in life is to start a Rock band…” or “My friends believe I will make a great business leader because I always decide where we’ll have dinner…” I hope these exaggerations make it obvious.

We can know with almost 100% certainty what will not work. And all B-school students will agree on that. But in a school of 560 students, you’ll get 560 different opinions on what will work. And there is little certainty in that. Even if you do exactly what they say, there is still a good possibility that you’ll not get in. And what if you do exactly what they did?

This brings me to the other trap. Most of the prospective applicants talk to current students or alums who share their profiles – people who have the same undergrad degree, worked in similar industries, had similar roles, had similar academic achievements (or lack thereof), etc. There is nothing wrong with that. But what deductive reasoning do we subconsciously apply after that? “If she got in, and I have an almost identical profile, I have a high probability of getting in.” The trap that lies here is that you may try to make your application look like that person’s. If anything, you should try to make your application as different as possible. And the other problem with that deductive reasoning? You risk getting your hopes too high; and the higher the hopes the greater the disappointment if you don’t get in, and the greater the lack of excitement if you do get in.

So, if you are a prospective applicant seeking advice, start with “What should I not do?”And if you are someone delivering advice, the next time someone asks, “How can I get in?” just be honest and say “I don’t know, but I can tell you how to not get in.”

Why ISB: Arnab’s Perspective (Part I)

It seems like only yesterday when I was desperately rushing to finish my ISB application, appearing nervously in front of the admissions committee for that 25 minutes interview, and holding the letter which starts with the words, “Congratulations”. So I thought to myself, why not reflect upon some of the reasons that motivated me to make the Indian School of Business mine.

While researching about the school, I remember one phrase that alumni and current students kept iterating over and over again was the awesomeness of the faculty. Was it for real, so I thought? Four months into the program, and voila. I too join the bandwagon. Over the last three terms, I had the privilege of being taught by arguably some of the best professors across all business schools. In this post, I would like to take the liberty of highlighting a few of them.

Professor Bhagwan Chaudhary took the first half of our Corporate Finance course. Going to his class was like going to a rock concert: energetic and high on tempo. He has this unique style of explaining a concept that just sticks in your mind. The other day, he was teaching us how to unlever beta for a firm (for the uninitiated, it’s part of CAPM concept — something that an MBA student hears a lot of during b-school), the song that kept playing in my mind was “Shoot to Thrill” and boy, did I enjoy that class. Wake me up in the middle of sleep and I will blurt out the concept verbatim.

Decision Models and Optimization (DMOP) has arguably been the most feared course on the campus over the last three terms. Bring in the elements of regression, optimization, decision trees and probability; forget about the poets, even the most self-respecting engineers who could mentally do Fourier transformations were running for cover. Lucky us though, for we had Professor Sumit Kunnumkal. An IIT, MIT and Cornell alumnus, his biggest virtue is his patience. All throughout the ten lecture sessions, the class kept firing a barrage of questions and the wise one kept unclogging the cobwebs of doubt. He always had an answer. And he always had this smile on his face that instantly made you feel calm and at comfort.

In our Marketing Management course (Term I), we had “Smart Pricing” as a recommended reading. While reading the chapter on “The Art of Price Wars”, I thought how wonderful it would be to interact with the authors. Term II and I had my wish fulfilled. Professor Jagmohan Raju, one of the co-authors, taught us Marketing Decision Making. The highlight of his lectures was the real world examples that he elaborated upon at the end of the sessions. Interesting marketing challenges that he had consulted on, the real learning from them was not only the way to approach the problems; but also his constant emphasis on the fact that we barely-2month-old-MBA students can and the confidence he imparted in us that we will provide solutions to these challenges.

Before I wind up, how can I forget to mention the nicest professor that I have come across. Professor Mary Lea McAnally introduced us to the Texas culture. Her classes used to begin with a lively “Howdy” and then progress on to demystify the world of Financial Accounting. Debitore, creditore, accrual accounting, statement of cash flow, COGS — her animated style of teaching motivated our class to learn and master them.

Some of the professors I am looking forward to attending their classes in next couple of terms are Professor Sankar De and Professor Bruce Tuckman. More about them later.

To all you prospectives, do you research. ISB offers several flavors that you can strongly associate with. I found mine and am confident that you will find yours too.

Teaser Preview: Watch out for my upcoming blog on Professor Atul Nerkar. After one of his classes, my Facebook status reflected: “These are the kind of experiences I came to business school for.”

Driving the future!

Driving a car is no big deal in a country that gave the world the Nano. However, if you are talking of an electric car – Well, now that’s not as common in this part of the world. Traveling all the way to Tel Aviv from Hyderabad to drive a Connected Car! Who would have thunk?

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Well, that’s precisely what I did in the last term at ISB.

While working with SAP Labs back in 2007, a small official communication in 2007 left many in the developer community in India in a state of disbelief. “Executive Board member Shai Agassi will leave to more quickly commit himself to his personal agenda of environmental policy and alternative energy sources”. I was disappointed at this. Because, I was an unofficial evangelist of Shai’s vision for SAP and his heretical ideas. I waited eagerly for his kick ass speeches and keynotes at industry events to learn how this “contrarian” was energizing the organization to take the competition head on!

The rest they say is history, or in this case, the future of sustainable transportation! Shai’s lecture at Stanford gave a hint of things to come. There was not much talk about this in India until April 2009, when his ‘talk’ at TED caught the world’s attention.

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Sometime in the middle of last year at ISB, as I was flipping through “2009 TIME 100” edition when a piece on Shai Agassi, the ‘Steve Jobs of Clean Tech’ made me rub my eyes wide open. A few days later, I read “Driven” in the WIRED magazine, and I was hooked!

It seemed like a disruptive innovation in the automobile industry taking shape slowly and silently in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and in Palo Alto and I wanted a piece of the action! Weeks later, I had bid for the exchange program to Tel Aviv University, Israel – the land of milk, honey, and start ups.

There (after some early adventures), along with the Sofaer iMBA students, I went to get ‘switched’, at the Better Place visitor center by Shai Agassi, himself, fielding probing questions on the disruption this model can bring to the automobile industry. When you listen to him, you start nodding your head, thinking – Yeah! Why not? The cars will be available in different models along with replaceable batteries and electric power trains. Better Place will buy the battery and the user buys e-mile subscription plan from them (talk about innovative revenue models!).

It is the .Car era; Car 2.0 – smart car powered by smart grid and exchanging data with an information grid!
The Drive: The car is smooth, fast and powerful like any other car – In fact, it is better! You can rev it up!! All this from a zero emission car! You won’t feel the difference, except that it is quieter or rather quiet. The prototype of the battery switch station is also being built at the center. The battery is decoupled from the car and can be replaced in under three minutes.

http://www.vimeo.com/11184751

Ten years back, if we were told that we would consume information in the form of a text box; how many of us would buy that argument? Today, Google has transformed the way we consume information. Similarly, Better Place can transform the way we consume distance!

Imagineering driven disruptive innovation at its best!

~ Arun Cherian Thomas, Class of 2010

Editor’s Note: As it turns out, the last post wasn’t the last by the Class of 2010. A few of us are still on exchange programs and we will keep updating the blog as and when we have something interesting to share.

Class of 2010 Sign Off?

The Orientation Week for the Class of 2011 begins in a few hours with the registration process that will be underway on campus this morning. I could slip away into nostalgia mode and talk about how our batch had its registration not so long ago and of all the people that we met that we remember and fond memories of getting to know one’s quaddies and discovering the campus and all such.

But that walk down memory lane will invariably end up being a long one because of the huge amount of memories that are created on campus. To begin listing them would take a long time and to get an alum (darn it, as I write this I realize that I am an alum!) out of flashback mode would require really strong incentive. The only other thing that would be higher up on the pecking order would be alumni giving out knowledge (a.k.a gyaan) regarding various things students would ask of them.

The one year MBA program will be good for many and bad for some. Different people will derive different benefits, but the overall net result is positive and the learning that one derives is immense in terms of knowledge gained, time optimization, being able to charter a preliminary course for one’s future (notice I say preliminary course because we’ve been told that our first job needn’t necessarily define our career), interactions with peers who are probably the most ambitious bunch that you’d have spent time with and being able to find out for yourself as to where you stand. The bit about finding yourself becomes more important as the year progresses. Trust me on that.

B-school is a great leveler and James Shirley might’ve written a different poem altogether if business schools existed in the seventeenth century. Everyone on campus, without exception has done something unique or different before joining the school and that would set them apart from the pack. So uniqueness is probably not a differentiating trait, obfuscating as it might sound.

The obligatory bit of unsolicited advice that I can give as an alum would be to spontaneously make fond memories that you can cherish and treasure, but don’t spend too much time on trying to capture them as the late Susan Sontag would no doubt have you know in her own words.

Finally, here’s wishing the class of 2011 a smooth registration process, a fun orientation week and enough strength, courage, cojones guts and determination to get your act together for what will hopefully be the best year of your illustrious life.

PS – Not sure if we’re signing off fully until the GSB elections are held and the new MCC Director officially takes over the ministrations of the official weblog management. Hence the question mark.

PPS – We’ve been told that ISB is like Hotel California. You can check out any time you like….yada yada yada. But please don’t play that song on the guitar unless your life is in danger and the only way you can weasel out of it is by a rendition of said song.

PPPS – Do show enthusiasm about the weblog and get in touch with me during O-week.

PPPPS – Throw us alums a good Solstice this year. Yup, end of post!

Hari Shenoy | Amit Kumar Goyal (weblog admins, class of 2010)

Dear Class of 2011

Dear Class of 2011,

You must be preparing to come to Hyderabad soon. I suppose you are excited. If you’ve been to campus earlier, you probably fell in love with the place at first sight. The class of 2010 is getting ready to bid adieu. They have been telling us for over two months now that we get kicked out on April 4th. Those mails somehow reminded us that we needed to have more fun. And so we have – party after party. We don’t need much, you know – give us a quad with music on a comp, food and drink – we’ll party till dawn breaks.

A few of us will get to spend time with you. That should be fun – please look forward to your orientation with bated breaths. Don’t panic when you get here. For a few days you won’t understand any of the abbreviations. You won’t be able to get from point A to point B without a map. All the symmetry about this place will drive you nuts. And then there will be the people – your classmates. Each one of you more scared yet more confident than the other. All of you eager to prove yourself.

As people begin to introduce themselves, you may notice a sinking feeling sometimes – ‘what on earth am I doing here? What have I been doing all my life? Why don’t I sound half as interesting as A, B or C?’. Completely normal, I assure you. Learn not to take things at face value. Let every single person prove him\herself. That said, there will be amazing people. There will be deep and interesting conversations waiting to happen. You will meet your study group – a bunch of crazy people you’ll have to work with for the first four terms. Pray that you get along with them. I almost forgot about the queues. Expect long queues everywhere till your regular classes start. Expect complete strangers to grin at you and begin conversations in those queues. Networking, they call it. Don’t fret too much over it – you won’t remember any of the first introductions anyway. Be nice. Be yourself.

I could give you advice forever. ‘Gyaan’ is the term – we can’t help it. Everyone here feels we ought to help you in every way possible. It’s going to be a scary ride and we’re just getting off the roller coaster. A bit shaky, still feeling queasy and yet, looking at the drop with something akin to affection.

The campus is being scrubbed clean in order to welcome you. The graduation venue is being prepared. We are going around clicking pics like crazy. Everything is being polished and cleaned and painted and repaired. When you get here, the smell of paint would have worn out. But everything will be so new and nice that it’ll feel like the place came into existence just then – just for your batch.

For us though, we end with the smell of fresh paint all around us. As if it were a beginning.

Best wishes,

Malavika Thiagaraja, Class of 2010

Only one way to go from here!

If you haven’t heard it already, ISB has been ranked 12th by the Financial Times, London in its 2010 global MBA rankings!

It was only a year back that Debottam, from the Class of 2009, wrote about how proud he was at ISB being ranked 15th by Financial Times. The honor this time, is all mine. ISB is the youngest B-School in the top 20, and the journey from 20 to 15 and now to 12, in three years,  has been a remarkable one.

ISB @ FT|12

As they say, there seems to be only one way to go from here! Here is to ISB. We Rock!!.

Solstice Wrap Up – Day 1

Solstice 2009 was a blast here at ISB. While its been a while since we promised a proper update, we have all been busy (as usual) with classes and events. On top of it all, placement season is upon us, and placement talks are keeping us well and truly busy!

Anyway, back to the original topic. Solstice this year was a gala affair, running over the complete weekend from 18th to 20th Dec, with over 500 alumni and their families in attendance from all over the place. We also had alums sharing quads with current students, getting nostalgic about their ISB days.

The student villages were all decked up for Solstice, with lighting and promotional posters (comprising of some really funny extracts from the batch yearbooks) all over the place.

Student Village 2

Student Village 3

Most of the alums arrived on campus on Friday, with registrations during the day. We also had mock interviews for the current batch by some volunteer alums as well as events for kids who were on campus. There was poker from the afternoon till evening, followed by a ‘Speed Networking’ designed to help the current students get to know the alums better.

This was followed by dinner and drinks with the alums along with a stand up comedy show, ‘Hamateur Night’ was the term, at the Class of ’09 Amphitheater, by Vir Das, the Indian equivalent of Russel Peters. The show was opened by ISBians trying out their hand at stand up comedy. For some videos of his work, try looking on Youtube. [WARNING: Search at your own risk. Some of the videos may be considered offensive by some people. We take no responsibility for your search results.]

Vir Das @ ISB

The comedy hour was followed up by a bollywood themed Christmas party at the Class of ’08 lounge. We had a DJ flown in from Mumbai and the party rocked, with a huge number of people on the dance floor! This was probably the biggest party on campus till date, and we may not be able to match it again, though I am keeping my fingers crossed over the last going away party of the year.

The Party

The Dance Floor was Full

The party went on till late in the morning, with people being ferried to a nearby hotel for an early breakfast to actually end the party! And yeah, 5AM is early by all standards!!

More about the second day festivities, and the a great music concert in the next post…

- Jasnoor, Class of 2010

So much to do, so little time…Term 6

Ok, so this is going to be summary of the fast paced Term 6, simply because I don’t have much time to write a detailed post on each event. And that’s the whole point of this rant, time!

Term 6 started off pretty slowly with not much to do except all the events that we had this time. We had the Venture Capital Investment Competition, in association with the Kenan-Flagler Business School @ UNC. This was an internal round and the winner from ISB gets to participate in the Asia Round that we are organizing for the first time sometime in Feb. So this was kind of a trial run. I was handling all the logistics and I can tell you, it wasnt an easy job. It did go off without a hitch though, so no complaints.

VCIC Internal Round

VCIC Internal Round

Parallel to the VCIC, we also had the Energy Conclave organised by the Energy and Manufacturing Club on the same weekend!

Next, we had the RBI Governor, Dr. D Subbarao on campus to talk about the impact of the recent crisis on India and our future growth.

Dr. D Subbarao @ ISB

Dr. D Subbarao @ ISB

Then we had the ISB Leadership Summit, ISB’s flagship event with over 30 speakers coming over to speak on multiple panels, all on a single day. It was an interesting experience, with the sad part being the choices we needed to make on which discussion to attend. I settled for a very interesting panel discussion where Mr. B S Nagesh, the MD of Shopper’s Stop, spoke on his experience with Indian Retail and its growth over the years.

Mr. Nagesh on Indian Retail

Mr. Nagesh on Indian Retail

Then of course, we also had ISB Day celebrations as ISB turned 8, with a cultural program over the weekend as well, with some great performances by students, staff, families, you name it!

ISB Day- The Acapella Band!

ISB Day- The Acapella Band!

In between we also had the finals of the iDiya, the social entrepreneurship competition, with teams of working professionals from all over India competing, and the top 6 teams attending mentoring workshops at ISB. One of the highlights of the competition was the session on Responsible Leadership by Rahul Bose, who besides being an actor, is involved in a lot of different things, from the Indian rugby team to his NGO.

In addition, pre-placement talks have started, with companies coming to campus almost everyday to deliver their pitches. There are some really interesting roles up for grabs, and resumes are being polished, and interviews being prepared for.

And last, but definitely NOT the least, we have Solstice 2009 this weekend. The biggest fun event of the year, when ISB alums from all over come back to school for 3 days of partying with the current batch.

WHEW! So much for being short, I am already out of breath.

Oh, and this is just a single term at ISB!

- Jasnoor

Class of 2010

Marriages are made in heaven…

… but they are celebrated with style at ISB!!

ISB promotes re-marriages. Especially when the friends missed out on the first one due to a cramped schedule.

Nikhil, a batchmate, got married to Priyanka on 27th of November, but only a handful of us could attend the wedding due to classes. We missed out but we decided that we could not let the schedule get the better of us!!

What do we do? Not too difficult. We arrange for a second one!! Ghodi, dholak, varmala et al. Of course, no celebration at ISB can be complete without the customary dunking :)

So there you had it. Last Sunday, after the ISB Day celebrations (ISB completed 8 years this December), we took out a baarat for the bride and the groom from one of the hostels to the Recreation Center. Since ISB treats both genders fairly, it was the bride on the horse for half the time, after which she got a chance to dance in her own baarat!! After an hour of (if I may add the word insane) dancing on the roads and obstructing whatever little traffic we have at ISB, we had the varmala ceremony followed by the dunking and cake cutting. Another reason for the extended celebrations was that a batch mate, Supratibh, has recently become a proud father.

And as always, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video many more!!

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Here’s wishing Nikhil and Priyanka all the happiness in the world!!

- Jasnoor & Amit

Class of 2010

Three parts to Life @ ISB

No, this is not the analysis of the different study terms we have here at ISB. What I am looking at is the three kinds of things we end up doing on any given day. The first thing you are warned about at ISB and you are expected to do is, well, study. Attend classes on the weekdays and try to finish assignments on the weekends. The weekdays actually end up being a lot more chill than the weekends, since we only have classes for 4 hours 4 days a week (in the core terms at least).

The weekends are much more hectic, with multiple assignments due early in the mornings. Most nights are spent completing the assignments, with scenes of people running all the way to the boxes placed in the atrium to submit them at the last minute, to people sitting on the submission box to stop anyone taking the box away till their group arrives after printing the assignment! Time, however, is snatched away for outings after a night-out or suddenly formed movie plans.

The second part of life here is the social part. This includes all the speaker sessions we keep having on campus, with a choice often required between multiple sessions going on simultaneously. That’s when you need to prioritise ruthlessly. Of course, then there are all the cultural events, weekend parties and short outings to just chill out and relax. And yes, we have a dedicated Student Life Council charged with organising such events, and they really do one helluva job!!

The third and equally important [Editor’s note: Yeah, right!!] part of life here is…. sleep. Yes, something that we get precious little of much of the time. On an average, so long as you manage 5-6 hours you are good. This is also the most flexible component in the course, and the only place where you can compromise.

You can decide that you don’t care much about your grades, but that doesn’t mean you can just chill out. Attending classes is compulsory, and the same is the case with the assignments, unless, of course, you want to risk failing the course.

What invariably ends up happening is that sleep is usually the only thing you can be flexible on if you want to do everything else. For example, today there was an interactive session with Rahul Bose. So in addition to classes, studying/preparing reports and the session, if I want to write this post, that’s another half an hour of sleep sacrificed.

-Jasnoor

Class of 2010