Well, one of the leading B-school of India and the only one I would like to go if I want to do an MBA in India. I applied to ISB in the Round 2 and as I write this post, I am waiting for my interview call. Once again, I apologize for the delay in posting this post to my blog. I visited ISB in September and I stayed in the campus for more than 24 hours. It was tough initially to enroll for this program. I went on to call the Admissions Manager and persuaded him to give me a slot and fortunately, I got my opportunity.
I went to Hyderabad on train. On reaching the campus, I knew this is the place I would love to be in. After searching a little bit about the Student Village block (hostel), I reached the reception. I was almost 1.5 hours early. There were few guys from the earlier batch also. As their end time came near, they started coming out of their rooms. We introduced ourselves. Some of them started sharing their thoughts. Almost all of them described the initiative was stupid as they did not find anything relevant. They had roamed around the campus, partied in the night, boozed and slept. That is how they described their 24 hours at ISB.
But I had gone to ISB with a different set of mind. I knew what ISB is and it could do with an MBA. I was focussed more on learning about ISB as much as possible. I had taken bath and refreshed myself right after getting down at the station. So, after getting introduced among ourselves (the guys who were visiting ISB for 24 hours), we left to our rooms. I left my room almost immediately and straightaway headed for lunch. I waited for the few students who accompanied us for the lunch. They shared their stories and tried to give us some tips. After lunch, it was time for action. I had heard a lot about LRC. LRC is the Learning Resource Center, the heart of ISB, consisting of library, computer center and reading rooms. It was really great. In fact, it did beat my expectations. I spent some time reading books and decided to come back again to it before leaving the next day.
Guys, let me tell you, Ground works magic and sometimes, pleasant surprises were always welcome. One of my friends also accompanied me to ISB. We started searching for my friends, looked through our facebook and linkedin profiles. We tried to fix times with them according to their availability and we did manage to get most of them. The other most important thing that I had in my mind was to meet the club leaders because they are the ones who are going to share their first-hand experiences with us. Let me tell you, I did talk to most of them. Talking to them, interaction just reconfirmed my belief that an MBA from ISB would do wonders to my career and life. And I would love to cherish the one year at ISB for the whole of my life.
Well, to let you know that ISB is a one-year Post Graduate Program in Management. So, every semester is about 6 weeks long. People ask me why do you want to do an MBA. I know each one of us has different reasons. The biggest reason for me is “Learning and Networking”. I still could not come out of my college days and I simply love to go back. We will discuss why MBA factor in detail soon in another post.
Coming back to ISB, when majority of participants left the following day morning, I had decided to stay back. I talked to the admissions manager about the whole admission process and discussed it at its length and breadth. We requested for a class visit but unfortunately, we were not allowed to avail one due to ISB policies. One very big USP of ISB is its faculty. Almost 2/3rd of its faculty are from abroad and that is what I feel makes it a real global school.
I talked to almost dozens of students, almost all club officers and a lot of mutual students. Couple of them really shared their honest views and I am really grateful to them namely, Sandip, Sundeep and Sumit. Let me tell you, there are few honest students and alumni anywhere and these, according to me, are the real ambassadors of the school. It is difficult to find this characteristic and I am sure that most of the universities and colleges would agree with me that of all its students in batch, this number may be very marginal. We see education as a progress to career path or in fact, meeting our goals but in the meantime, we forget that we become face of some organization or school when we work or study there and it is our responsibility to improve its image. While constantly bragging about the system without concrete examples would do more harm than good, not willing to participate in the improvement process would destroy the image completely.
My visit was one of the most fruitful visits and I wish I could have visited other schools that I applied which unfortunately I could not. One suggestion that I would give to all prospective applicants is apply only to programs you genuinely feel connected, visit them and before visit, do your ground work like what is it that you would like to know, what memories would you like to carry after your visit and so on. So do your preparation properly before going. I hope that I would be able to share a good news very soon on this blog. I applied to programs where I felt connected and I felt not only it could contribute to my career but also I could contribute back as a both student and alumnus. Waiting eagerly for the ISB interview call now…
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