Disclaimer: I am not a subject matter expert and by no means want to
influence your decision to pursue a one year MBA program or choose a particular
school. My idea here is to put down my thoughts on what a one year MBA is all
about and why someone with 8-10 years of experience would leave a job and
pursue a full time MBA. Being a current student at PGPX, IIMA lot of my
examples will refer to the college and the program but that is only to explain
my thoughts through analogies. If you have questions you can email
vinay.solanki@gmail.com
Career
After having worked in financial services domain for over 9+ years (Goldman Sachs, New York), thoughts about
how my career was going to progress over the next 5-6 years occupied my mind, day-in and day-out. My parent were ageing,
so I also had an urge to move back to India to stay close with them. However
I was leading a securities front line team as a Vice President, Technology, so wasn't facing any major career crisis and was comfortably placed in my role. But I still
took the plunge and let's see why? Why did i do it? Let’s start with my career graph highlighting how my career choices evolved, ultimately leading to the wonderful one-year MBA (PGPX) at IIM Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
I started as an assistant lecturer teaching C++ and Artificial
Intelligence at DMCOE, Mumbai University. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it was obvious
to me that it would not offer the money
that I need in the long run. There was also
natural pull from friends who were joining MNC’s and Indian IT companies. I’m a
Bachelor in Computer Engineering so I joined “the god of IT firms in India” TCS,
worked there as a web designer for a year and then went on to do Masters in Computer Science at SUNY Binghamton University, New York, USA.
It was a very regular/conventional path that many of my friends wandered on and
I wasn’t an exception. Then I joined Goldman
Sachs and started building my skill set in web and server technologies as
well as financial services. I took internal mobility and moved from sales to
trading after 4 years at Goldman Sachs, which introduced some novelty to my
work.
However after another 4 years in trading technologies, I started to feel restless
and an urge to learn or do something dramatically different. That’s when I
decided that since I anyways wanted to move back to India and wanted to explore
business beyond what my technologist profile afforded me, I should get more
insight on various business functions, at least a high level view. That’s when
PGPX came to my mind (I had heard about it
from a friend at Goldman, who graduated in 2012). I prepared religiously
for GMAT, worked hard on my application (applied
only to IIM-A) and then got through.
Opportunity Cost
I was working in New York, earning reasonably
well – something that should be true for all those with 10 years average
industry experience. So, when you think about full time education at the age of
30+, the 1st think that props up in your mind is the loss of one
year’s pay. Next comes in tuition fee (average
22 Lakh in India), living expenses and the dilemma on how to source it (personal fund or bank loan or a mix).
But also something crucial, which should be calculated as the opportunity cost
is TIME, the time that you will dedicate primarily focusing on studies,
networking, events, etc. and hence that TIME you will have to steal from your
family and friends time and of course personal time (sleep included).
If you’re
married and also have kids, then these 365 days will be challenging because these
importantly individuals will have reduced attention span from you. Some people
in my batch left their families home and are living in DORMS and some have got
their families (like me) on the campus and live in MSH (Married Student Housing). However it doesn't matter because most of
your time is spent in classroom, libraries, syndicate study rooms, etc. but yes
family being on campus definitely ease the things a bit for you and your family
when you are in need of each other. However it is still point to ponder
carefully. I may be speaking of an extreme but even on average TIME is limited commodity
in such programs.
So make sure you not only
calculate cost in terms of money but in terms of values, fun, connect
and efforts you and especially your families have to put in. Of course it
depends on how you manage your time but on average you can expect to spend only
2-3 hours a day with family. Even parents won’t hear from you every day, if
there is habit of talking to them daily then forget it.
RigoUr
Now let’s talk about the rigour of the program and what it entails. Remember
most of us will study after a long break, most of us will hold pens to write loooooong exams after almost a decade.
So that shock needs to be absorbed
well. Lectures, quizzes and specially 2 ½ hour exams can take their toll on you
in the first term. My take is that while these tested us, we managed the pressure.
You are grouped into study groups with 5-6 people, potentially from
various backgrounds (if the class
diversity is good) and then you need to learn to adjust in that new
formation. We all work in teams, manage people and handle peer pressure but
being a student and interacting with peers is a different ball game. You need
to be sensitive and accommodating. You may like it at the start and enjoy the
newness of the group but you may also face the tension, the stress and the pull
when either you have a pressing group assignment OR exams OR just simply you
don’t go well with someone in the group.
A BIG
positive of this syndicate structure is that you will potentially make close
friends pretty early in the program and more importantly you’ll very likely learn
to interact with peers and handle difficult communications. Also if there is
sufficient diversity, you get different perspectives on each assignment you
work together.
If you read my post on this blog about the six month
journey at IIM-A PGPX program you will come across the structure of term I,
term II, International Immersion and term III briefly. However the key point to
notice is term I and term II are very heavy specially because they only
comprise core courses and there’s no getting away from them regardless of your
interest. BELIEVE me some of us
behave like school students and worry about GRADES all the time, although our
seniors have told us that “dude at this age and experience grades don’t
matter!!” Anyways we have a grade non-disclosure policy so that should somewhat relax
you.
What to focus on?
What should be your primary focus in a one year
MBA for executives? Horizontal learning across all domains/functions or
vertical deep understanding of a particular topic.
Tough to answer this question with 100%
clarity… because it is tougher to understand what you really like and what you
really want to focus on than it is to find a needle in the hay stack. Along
with the never ending list of courses there are so many other
activities/events/opportunities
thrown at you (case challenges, interviews, committees,
focus groups, extra-curricular, blah blah), at times you don’t know what you
should choose and what you should let go. People jump (including myself) on to any opportunity
that comes across and then find it difficult to manage all commitments at once.
Hence I think before you join the program, ponder on what area/field/subject
you want to focus or maybe you want to do anything/everything possible in this
one year and widen your horizon.
Iron out your priorities. As David Allen said above you can do anything but not everything. Also
count how many times I say YOU in this article because it is ultimately
your decision, your call and your clarity of thoughts that will help you decide
the best course of action.
Another highlight of the program is the
quality of the Faculty. Some of them are really world class, having industry and
international experience bring wide and deep perspective on the subject they
cover. Case based pedagogy is an invigorating method to learn a topic but
at the same time confusing and long winded when you’re not familiar with it.
Most of us coming from presentation and oration based learning approach have to
become creatively involved in
discussion-based learning. I call it information
contribution and facts analysis combined to formulate a potential solution.
You learn from the amazing professors here but it becomes more important for
you to participate, share your views and build on to other people views and
ideas. SHARING is the mantra!! OM SHARE NAMAH
Student Driven Committees
Something I was not totally aware before joining the
program is that everything and anything is student driven here and this is true
with most of the one year MBA programs in India at least.
Of course you are
guided by the alumni’s, seniors, professors and the office staff, but you can
only get so much of their time. The upside of this is you get a lot of
experience working, running, managing or contributing to various activities
ranging from cultural to placements, from alumni relations to brochure design
and from event management to academic coordination. I think in addition to
learning various functions of a business being part of a committee gives you a
different dimension and a unique learning experience. An important facet of
being on a committee is responsibility, reliability and answer-ability.
Even the
selection process involves elections and it is fun and stressful at the same
time. Some of you will manage funds for various committees and some might do
more of coordination job but some of you will be part of placement committee (the most important one), which I will
talk about next.
PLACEMENTS
How many of you scrolled down straight to this section?
Placements are the key and something assigned
highest weight-age while selecting degree, school, location and program. Two
year MBA candidates are generally young and hence can take risk and try out few
jobs or career tracks but we have to be accurate or at least close to being accurate
when choosing where to go, what to do and how to manage a decent standard of
living.
We always discuss, that 85 of us are 85 niche profiles or 85 individuals who need to be placed
in 85 specific job roles and functions. Similarity and diversity both in experience
and expectations is the paradox here. It is important to think about where you
want to go (re-iterating points discussed
in Focus and Rigour above) and what you want to become. It takes a lot to prepare
for placements, ranging from preparing resume (reviewed by at least 10 persons) to creating a summary profile and from
networking to practicing mock interviews. Understanding the market, the
prospective employer and the fit for the job should not be ignored.
Placement
process starts somewhere in term IV (October/November) and runs until
graduation and even beyond sometimes, if student is picky or has a very niche
profile. Placement is student driven activity and
placement committee along with help of alumnus and current students try to get
as many good companies and good job descriptions as possible on the campus. But
a lot depends on you.
Lot of people when they
join also express interest about starting up their own venture and some form
groups and find partners as well. Although it seems tough at this age and time with
all the responsibility you may have but not impossible. You’re provided an
ecosystem that includes CIIE (Centre for Incubation, Innovation
and Entrepreneurship), professors, alumni network and internal clubs. If
you’re really serious you can opt-out of the placement process and diligently
follow your dream. As we say “CEO bano
Manager nahin !!”
TAKEAWAYS
Some of the key takeaways (I may have definitely missed many here so
this is not a full list).
Branding: Management education is good for your all-round
development if you’re serious, focused and attentive. Be open to feedback,
but more importantly seek feedback from your batch-mates and professors. Top
school will also spruce up your individual brand and build a positive perception,
to a certain extent. Having said that even a decent know school should give you
a good exposure to the reality of business management, people management and
self-management.
Networking: Either you end up building a strong network or
to the least become adept at networking. Events and activities pushes you to
prepare elevator speeches, interact with strangers, and break the ice. Overall
you learn to open some form of communication channel.
KASH: We say at IIM-A that you build KASH in this program. Knowledge, Attitude,
Skills, Habits, which is generally true. Most of us build
knowledge in various topics, areas and sectors (not deep but to a level where you can talk about it). We develop
Attitude of being perfectionists, of being calm, cool and confident. We acquire
lot of Skills, from technical such as accounting to soft skills (very important for managers)
such as organizational structure, team/people management, dissipating information,
expressing yourself, etc.
Such programs makes you look at things afresh
and from a new perspective, which reminds me of a quote. “Creativity, as has been
said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we
do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what
we normally take for granted”. - George Kneller
Self-Actualization: There are some unique courses offered here at IIM-A and I hope most of the
one year programs too. If you’re serious to know more about yourself than you
have plenty of resources at your disposal. A course called MCC (Managing
and Creating Creativity) is pretty unique in its format, it focuses on how to
create creativity. We also have course such as ILPM (Integrated Learning
through Personal Mastery) another gem of a course for future leaders and
managers. Likewise there are many courses, sessions, activities and
opportunities to spend time with yourself, for yourself and understand yourself
better.
To summarize, it is
important to consider all these points and many more that I may have missed to
cover, before you make the decision to take the plunge. I think I made the right
decision because I know so much about so many things or at least I know a
little about few things. I have discovered some of my skill sets, which I was
not able to at my professional environment. I have identified some of the
weaknesses of myself as well and hence I think the opportunity cost is worth
it.
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