I'm 27. It is official - since yesterday! With it, the year of education that was, hopefully, comes to an end.
It's been an interesting period in my life - these last 12 months. Quite naturally - I find myself in an introspective state. Last November started what could be the worst few months of my life. I made some stupid decisions, let myself forget who I am and spiraled down deeper and deeper. By May-June, things had hit rock bottom. Needless to say, many aspects of my life were affected. There are many many events that happened during this last year that I will never be able to forget. And these events will keep reminding me of the choices I made, the decisions I should not have made and how I could let things get worse for myself. Parts of me that I lost in the process, I dont think I will ever be able to recover! May be I just had to. All in the name of growing up...
Then came the summer and the recovery. A quick trip home to touch base with my roots. A time away from most of the things that were causing heartburn. New friends and a new setting. Chile played a huge role in getting myself back on track. It also helped me, for the umpteenth time, reinvent myself in a positive way and get a move on with life. The last few months have been great in many ways and this November, I look up instead of down, with what the future promises to hold!
Most importantly, in those early months, I lost the promise I hold and almost wasted what I am! The moments when people are perilously close to failure reminds people of why they cannot and should not fail; similarly in those dark days I realized why I should not go down this path, why I don't deserve anything that was happening to me and what I should really be. I re-learned myself all over again, shrugged off the chaff that was holding me back and liberated myself from the shackles.
The last few months have been enjoyable, to say the least. I love me more than ever and I am also having a great time with everything I do. The things I don't want to be a part of my life, they are down to a bare minimum, and hopefully will cease to exit pretty soon. The future holds a promise, a promise of me, and I am more focused than ever to honor that promise and deliver on it.
Happy birthday to me...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Employed!!!
Yes!!! I'm done with recruiting for this year.
Last week was B.U.S.Y!!! I had already interviewed with my top choice company the previous week and was invited for the decision round on Wednesday. I had interviews with five other companies, and each one of them had multiple interviews. After almost 75 hours of heavy heartbeats - my top choice firm got back to me on Saturday to inform me of my offer. I've been in a OMG mode ever since!!!
It's official. I'd be joining Bain & Company in their Chicago office next summer.
I'm super thrilled and just cannot wait to start learning from all the great people i met during my recruitment. Also, finally i get to experience business school as just a student - so i'm looking forward to that too.
Last week was B.U.S.Y!!! I had already interviewed with my top choice company the previous week and was invited for the decision round on Wednesday. I had interviews with five other companies, and each one of them had multiple interviews. After almost 75 hours of heavy heartbeats - my top choice firm got back to me on Saturday to inform me of my offer. I've been in a OMG mode ever since!!!
It's official. I'd be joining Bain & Company in their Chicago office next summer.
I'm super thrilled and just cannot wait to start learning from all the great people i met during my recruitment. Also, finally i get to experience business school as just a student - so i'm looking forward to that too.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Find me a job
If there is anything that could be both extremely crazy and incomparably gratifying in a business school, it would be recruiting. That is what me and most of my classmates have been doing over the last month or so - yeah we started recruiting a full week before classes started :)
Considering the status of wall street (or whatever is left of it) and the economy at large, we all expected recruiting to be quite difficult. Even though the stakes have been raised in certain areas, recruiting still looks mostly promising. Talk about the advantages of being in a top business school. Basically every firm that is recruiting is in campus.
Investment Banking, as an industry, is in shambles. Even the banks that have survived so far have either taken some beating or have taken on other risky assets. Quite obviously their numbers are gonna be pretty low compared to any year in recent memory. Interestingly, people who have offers from many "strong" banks have also accepted much sooner - hence bringing down the necessity of many banks to recruit. We expect a 30% - 40% drop in IB numbers (and this does not include S&T - which would be much worse).
Interestingly - consulting numbers have been strong. In fact, as an industry, they seem to be increasing recruiting. But the landscape has become very difficult - many of my classmates who have offers from "less strong" banks are uncertain and are looking at consulting careers. The crowd in the consulting events is bigger than ever, says GSB's Career Services. Purely based on demand and supply - i believe this is gonna be very very competitive.
Industry jobs have kicked in and filled the gap created by banking. These job posts have gone up significantly. In turn, this has brought the overall job posts made in our job portal up by 4%. That doesn't make us feel that bad. The good thing that is happening is that people are thinking harder now than ever to see what exactly they want to do. The Career Services has worked extra hard and made sure we have all these options. They brought in more than 30 new companies, and that seems to have helped balance the situation. Overall - we seem to be doing well as of now, and will know better once the final numbers are out by Spring.
I don't see anyone at GSB really concerned about their chances. Instead, there is this optimism that is true to being here. Everyone seems to be believing that if the stock is good, the market will buy. Going by the response from the employers - our belief in us seems to be true.
Considering the status of wall street (or whatever is left of it) and the economy at large, we all expected recruiting to be quite difficult. Even though the stakes have been raised in certain areas, recruiting still looks mostly promising. Talk about the advantages of being in a top business school. Basically every firm that is recruiting is in campus.
Investment Banking, as an industry, is in shambles. Even the banks that have survived so far have either taken some beating or have taken on other risky assets. Quite obviously their numbers are gonna be pretty low compared to any year in recent memory. Interestingly, people who have offers from many "strong" banks have also accepted much sooner - hence bringing down the necessity of many banks to recruit. We expect a 30% - 40% drop in IB numbers (and this does not include S&T - which would be much worse).
Interestingly - consulting numbers have been strong. In fact, as an industry, they seem to be increasing recruiting. But the landscape has become very difficult - many of my classmates who have offers from "less strong" banks are uncertain and are looking at consulting careers. The crowd in the consulting events is bigger than ever, says GSB's Career Services. Purely based on demand and supply - i believe this is gonna be very very competitive.
Industry jobs have kicked in and filled the gap created by banking. These job posts have gone up significantly. In turn, this has brought the overall job posts made in our job portal up by 4%. That doesn't make us feel that bad. The good thing that is happening is that people are thinking harder now than ever to see what exactly they want to do. The Career Services has worked extra hard and made sure we have all these options. They brought in more than 30 new companies, and that seems to have helped balance the situation. Overall - we seem to be doing well as of now, and will know better once the final numbers are out by Spring.
I don't see anyone at GSB really concerned about their chances. Instead, there is this optimism that is true to being here. Everyone seems to be believing that if the stock is good, the market will buy. Going by the response from the employers - our belief in us seems to be true.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Classes - first impression
What am i doing staying awake at 3AM in the morning on a Tuesday night???
I'm celebrating the completion of my first classes for this quarter. Boy, wasn't that fun?!?!
After talking a little about my classes in this post, I figured New Venture Strategy clashed with a few recruiting events. Since i wanted to do a good job in that class, I dropped it and signed up for Managing in Organizations for the Saturday morning class. So my first class for the quarter was actually on this Saturday morning. The other classes were on Monday and Tuesday afternoon.
To begin with, all three classes are with kick-ass professors. They are unbelievably awesome. While Ms. Ginzel held me awake throughout the class even after my partying till 3AM the previous day, Ms. Smith just blew us away (literally) by the way she started her class - she whistled to catch our attention!!! Ms. Bertrand has an attitude that is unbelievably awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed all three classes.
However, I did not enjoy all the work :( I read almost 100 pages of material for each class. Starting next week, each class has some sort of an assignment to be submitted. Since I'm trying to do as much as possible for all classes, I did read everything I was supposed to read and showed up ultra-prepared (and slightly sleepy) for all three classes. It was one long stretch from Friday morning till today afternoon.
So I am celebrating such a successful class week with a movie night. I know - I should be sleeping, but my Netflix DVDs had piled up and I had to do something. So now after two movies, I thought I'd write about it all before I doze off. Any friends reading this, no calling till noon okay...
I'm celebrating the completion of my first classes for this quarter. Boy, wasn't that fun?!?!
After talking a little about my classes in this post, I figured New Venture Strategy clashed with a few recruiting events. Since i wanted to do a good job in that class, I dropped it and signed up for Managing in Organizations for the Saturday morning class. So my first class for the quarter was actually on this Saturday morning. The other classes were on Monday and Tuesday afternoon.
To begin with, all three classes are with kick-ass professors. They are unbelievably awesome. While Ms. Ginzel held me awake throughout the class even after my partying till 3AM the previous day, Ms. Smith just blew us away (literally) by the way she started her class - she whistled to catch our attention!!! Ms. Bertrand has an attitude that is unbelievably awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed all three classes.
However, I did not enjoy all the work :( I read almost 100 pages of material for each class. Starting next week, each class has some sort of an assignment to be submitted. Since I'm trying to do as much as possible for all classes, I did read everything I was supposed to read and showed up ultra-prepared (and slightly sleepy) for all three classes. It was one long stretch from Friday morning till today afternoon.
So I am celebrating such a successful class week with a movie night. I know - I should be sleeping, but my Netflix DVDs had piled up and I had to do something. So now after two movies, I thought I'd write about it all before I doze off. Any friends reading this, no calling till noon okay...
Monday, September 22, 2008
Recruiting v2.0
A sunny morning
and Bon Jovi songs
A warm cup of chai
and a WSJ mourning Wall St.
A clean shave
and a hot shower
A pressed attire
and a splash of dash
Everything looks perfect, to begin full time recruiting here at the GSB...
The next few weeks promise to be intense and fun, and hopefully will have a good ending!!!
Good luck to me :)
and Bon Jovi songs
A warm cup of chai
and a WSJ mourning Wall St.
A clean shave
and a hot shower
A pressed attire
and a splash of dash
Everything looks perfect, to begin full time recruiting here at the GSB...
The next few weeks promise to be intense and fun, and hopefully will have a good ending!!!
Good luck to me :)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Back on the fast lane
Life's been busy! Very busy!!! I had a ton of responsibilities to attend since returning, and I've been mostly successful in attending to each of them.
Classes haven't begun yet, but preparations have. I thought I had my schedule set, but I decided to drop one of the classes since it clashed with many recruitment events. This was a class I was really looking forward to, but the same prof is offering the same class next quarter as well. So I'm now planning to sign up next quarter. Also, now I have to find myself a class in the next round of bidding. I've never had to bid in the third round for a class. So I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of bidding in this round, with fewer classes on offer. Hopefully I'll get the class I'm keen on.
Chibus is happening! When Tsu (my co-editor-in-chief) and I took responsibility of the paper, we had a long list of things to change. We've constantly had to grapple with the pressure of getting the paper out in time, along with all the school work, so we never got to them. Now that we have some time to work on the paper, we have set out to get all of them done before school starts. Some of them, we feel, are very important to get the slumbering team morale back on track and make life easy for our precious staff. Others, are just an effort to improve the paper from what it is. We hope to set the bar a few notches high, and pass on the baton to the next class, who will then find things that we failed to see, and improve things from thereon.
The Class of '10 is here. They've been to the Random Walks and are almost done with CORE. I have met with many of them, and it is good to see so many familiar faces - people I met through the numerous admissions committee activities. It has been a pleasure to pass on the little I've learnt during my first year. AND - I have three mentees!!! I've been spending a LOT of time with them - trying to ease them into their school life. Looks like I have done a decent job so far, I don't think anyone is overwhelmed and I think I've been telling them the right things. They figured out the bidding process and all of them have classes - so that's one hurdle down. Now it is time to handle their recruitment.
Oh yeah - I'm recruiting as well. So I've been spending the rest of my time on trying to prepare myself better. Given the current economic situations, recruiting is gonna be difficult. Hopefully I'm prepared well. Companies are in campus starting Monday!!! The on-campus-recruiting process ends by mid Nov and I hope to have a job by then. I've been spending quality hours everyday, trying to sort out things and seeking advice/help from friends, classmates and GSB Career Services folks. So far so good and hopefully things will work out the way I want them to work out. Good luck me!!!
As you can see - things are happening. I'm back to the state I'm most comfortable and most satiated - juggling a ton of exciting things and keeping myself constantly occupied. Feeling constantly pushed, but enjoying that stretch.
Life is fast! Life is busy!! Life is fun!!!
Classes haven't begun yet, but preparations have. I thought I had my schedule set, but I decided to drop one of the classes since it clashed with many recruitment events. This was a class I was really looking forward to, but the same prof is offering the same class next quarter as well. So I'm now planning to sign up next quarter. Also, now I have to find myself a class in the next round of bidding. I've never had to bid in the third round for a class. So I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of bidding in this round, with fewer classes on offer. Hopefully I'll get the class I'm keen on.
Chibus is happening! When Tsu (my co-editor-in-chief) and I took responsibility of the paper, we had a long list of things to change. We've constantly had to grapple with the pressure of getting the paper out in time, along with all the school work, so we never got to them. Now that we have some time to work on the paper, we have set out to get all of them done before school starts. Some of them, we feel, are very important to get the slumbering team morale back on track and make life easy for our precious staff. Others, are just an effort to improve the paper from what it is. We hope to set the bar a few notches high, and pass on the baton to the next class, who will then find things that we failed to see, and improve things from thereon.
The Class of '10 is here. They've been to the Random Walks and are almost done with CORE. I have met with many of them, and it is good to see so many familiar faces - people I met through the numerous admissions committee activities. It has been a pleasure to pass on the little I've learnt during my first year. AND - I have three mentees!!! I've been spending a LOT of time with them - trying to ease them into their school life. Looks like I have done a decent job so far, I don't think anyone is overwhelmed and I think I've been telling them the right things. They figured out the bidding process and all of them have classes - so that's one hurdle down. Now it is time to handle their recruitment.
Oh yeah - I'm recruiting as well. So I've been spending the rest of my time on trying to prepare myself better. Given the current economic situations, recruiting is gonna be difficult. Hopefully I'm prepared well. Companies are in campus starting Monday!!! The on-campus-recruiting process ends by mid Nov and I hope to have a job by then. I've been spending quality hours everyday, trying to sort out things and seeking advice/help from friends, classmates and GSB Career Services folks. So far so good and hopefully things will work out the way I want them to work out. Good luck me!!!
As you can see - things are happening. I'm back to the state I'm most comfortable and most satiated - juggling a ton of exciting things and keeping myself constantly occupied. Feeling constantly pushed, but enjoying that stretch.
Life is fast! Life is busy!! Life is fun!!!
Monday, September 08, 2008
Good to be back!
It is indeed good to be back. There are aspects of Chile i miss though - a few things, some people! Overall - I'm certainly kicked about being back.
Things have started rolling and my calendar is full of a million things already. The Class of 2010 is here and I've been meeting many people from the class for different reasons. I have three mentees to begin with - and hope I'm doing a decent job of helping them with their first few days in GSB. That is on top of my priority list at the moment - at least till i get busy with recruiting.
Oh yeah - recruiting. Recruiting starts for second years on September 22nd; which is like 2 weeks away. While i cant believe that i find myself again at the tryst of another gruelling, tiring 3 months - I am really looking forward to starting the process. After one year of business school and an exciting 10 weeks at internship - I think i have better clarity on things i want and those that i don't want. And it is even more exciting to get back to recruiting with that clarity. Or so i think. We'll see...
Classes start on September 25th. I got all the classes i wanted to sign up for. I have three great courses with awesome professors - Competitive Strategy, New Venture Strategy and Financial Statement Analysis. I'm pretty thrilled about this quarter. I just need to be disciplined enough to be able to do well in the courses, along with recruiting.
Oh, and yeah! I met with my ChiBus co-editor-in-chief and we brainstormed about the things we want to do over the first few weeks. So i have a ChiBus to-do list that i need to sort out pretty soon. Hopefully we'll achieve those things within the aggressive timeline we set for ourselves.
So - second year is a few weeks away, but i already feel like second year has started. I guess it is only good to have a head start and keep working as hard as i could. Hopefully this will be a great year.
Things have started rolling and my calendar is full of a million things already. The Class of 2010 is here and I've been meeting many people from the class for different reasons. I have three mentees to begin with - and hope I'm doing a decent job of helping them with their first few days in GSB. That is on top of my priority list at the moment - at least till i get busy with recruiting.
Oh yeah - recruiting. Recruiting starts for second years on September 22nd; which is like 2 weeks away. While i cant believe that i find myself again at the tryst of another gruelling, tiring 3 months - I am really looking forward to starting the process. After one year of business school and an exciting 10 weeks at internship - I think i have better clarity on things i want and those that i don't want. And it is even more exciting to get back to recruiting with that clarity. Or so i think. We'll see...
Classes start on September 25th. I got all the classes i wanted to sign up for. I have three great courses with awesome professors - Competitive Strategy, New Venture Strategy and Financial Statement Analysis. I'm pretty thrilled about this quarter. I just need to be disciplined enough to be able to do well in the courses, along with recruiting.
Oh, and yeah! I met with my ChiBus co-editor-in-chief and we brainstormed about the things we want to do over the first few weeks. So i have a ChiBus to-do list that i need to sort out pretty soon. Hopefully we'll achieve those things within the aggressive timeline we set for ourselves.
So - second year is a few weeks away, but i already feel like second year has started. I guess it is only good to have a head start and keep working as hard as i could. Hopefully this will be a great year.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
ExpertCollective - A Review
So a few weeks ago Josh Hohman from ExpertCollective had left a note on my blog regarding a survey compilation that he thought would be useful for MBA applicants. He was requesting me to review this report so that it could reach potential applicants. I read the free report and found the material interesting - so i decided to review the full report.
While I was in the preliminary stages of applying to business schools, one of the primary hurdles was to find genuine and personal information about the school from people in the school - staff and students alike. This, I understand, is a considerable issue for international applicants like me. This report aims at providing an answer to that issue.
Format:
The report basically has students of various business schools answering a standard set of nine questions. The students are from Stanford GSB, HBS, Columbia Business School. There's also a mini profile of each student - giving us the GPA range (ranges of 0.5), GMAT range (range of 50) and the pre-MBA professional background of the student.
The free report has 6 students - 2 each from Stanford, HBS and Columbia.
The full report has 35 students - 28 from Stanford, 3 HBS and 4 Columbia.
Pros:
The format is no-frills. The questions are not usual and are focused on helping an applicant as against getting a profile of the student. The report does not have a lot from the same person, but the standard questions allow the reader to easily compare across profiles. There is no unnecessary fluff in the whole report - just one interview after another one. Pretty sleek and effective.
Cons:
The list of questions is not extensive; but i'm not sure how to fit in more questions without making the report heavy. Also, standardized is not gonna help people with individual questions - but that is a standardized report anyway. The biggest drwaback for me is that the full report is heavy on Stanford. 28 out of the 35 responses are from Stanford.
Verdict:
It might be useful if you cannot visit schools - but as of now, I can imagine this being helpful only for Stanford applicants. I am not sure of the price - so thats for you to check as well. People have different price points! Bottom line - download the free report and check for yourself.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated to the person or the website mentioned in this review. I'm doing this simple to point applicants to a resource that they could find useful. Please dont hold me responsible for your experiences with this website or the resource under discussion.
While I was in the preliminary stages of applying to business schools, one of the primary hurdles was to find genuine and personal information about the school from people in the school - staff and students alike. This, I understand, is a considerable issue for international applicants like me. This report aims at providing an answer to that issue.
Format:
The report basically has students of various business schools answering a standard set of nine questions. The students are from Stanford GSB, HBS, Columbia Business School. There's also a mini profile of each student - giving us the GPA range (ranges of 0.5), GMAT range (range of 50) and the pre-MBA professional background of the student.
The free report has 6 students - 2 each from Stanford, HBS and Columbia.
The full report has 35 students - 28 from Stanford, 3 HBS and 4 Columbia.
The format is no-frills. The questions are not usual and are focused on helping an applicant as against getting a profile of the student. The report does not have a lot from the same person, but the standard questions allow the reader to easily compare across profiles. There is no unnecessary fluff in the whole report - just one interview after another one. Pretty sleek and effective.
Cons:
The list of questions is not extensive; but i'm not sure how to fit in more questions without making the report heavy. Also, standardized is not gonna help people with individual questions - but that is a standardized report anyway. The biggest drwaback for me is that the full report is heavy on Stanford. 28 out of the 35 responses are from Stanford.
Verdict:
It might be useful if you cannot visit schools - but as of now, I can imagine this being helpful only for Stanford applicants. I am not sure of the price - so thats for you to check as well. People have different price points! Bottom line - download the free report and check for yourself.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated to the person or the website mentioned in this review. I'm doing this simple to point applicants to a resource that they could find useful. Please dont hold me responsible for your experiences with this website or the resource under discussion.
A job through my blog???
I've been quite irregular in checking the email id mentioned in the blog. Even more so in the recent few days, as there's a ton of housekeeping work i had to do after reaching Chicago. And there's so much catching-up-with-buddies to do. After a week - I'm king of breathing easy.
I was thinking of the mails since yesterday and today morning i was motivated to follow up on all the mails. Among the pile, i find this one mail from a certain feedcompany. They are part of a recruiting initiative currently underway at Deloitte - Born2Consult.
So the deal is that i share this video (it is quite funny - take a look) and feedcompany would forward my resume to Deloitte. Quite neat eh! Many things have happened to me through the blog - finding a job was something I'd have never thought about. Blogging does give something back, apart from the pure pleasure of writing :)
Enjoy the video and wish me luck...
I was thinking of the mails since yesterday and today morning i was motivated to follow up on all the mails. Among the pile, i find this one mail from a certain feedcompany. They are part of a recruiting initiative currently underway at Deloitte - Born2Consult.
So the deal is that i share this video (it is quite funny - take a look) and feedcompany would forward my resume to Deloitte. Quite neat eh! Many things have happened to me through the blog - finding a job was something I'd have never thought about. Blogging does give something back, apart from the pure pleasure of writing :)
Enjoy the video and wish me luck...
Monday, September 01, 2008
Home good home!!!
I'm back in Chicago.
The flight went well. Me reached in one piece. All bags came through safe. Home is in good condition after the sublet. Chicago is hot and happening. People speak to me in English. Good to be back!
The flight went well. Me reached in one piece. All bags came through safe. Home is in good condition after the sublet. Chicago is hot and happening. People speak to me in English. Good to be back!
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