The Main Banunga Ambani (MBA) phenomenon is something very special to me, for the fact that I had it's hype all over me even before I got admitted to a Business school. MBA or MMS or PGDM, whatever you may call it, isn't tough by itself, atleast if you go by the Tier 2 B-school ways of grading students. What is more tough is getting into a B-school (Read good B-school). Ain't so easy to NOT make it sound like an autobiography but I guess I'd still tuck in some sweet shit here and there and make it sound interesting, if not boring.
With two years and roughly tuition fee amounts varying from 200 grands to 550 grands for the next 2 years for the Hatchback/Sedan class public and of course 1 million to 2.2 million rupees plus the regular tuition fees for the coming 2 years for the Luxury class public (excluding the photocopies cost, booze costs, hangout costs, canteen food costs, transportation costs,date costs, formal clothing costs etc) it felt like a lot was at stake, atleast appeared to be. And the very thought of bagging a package of atleast more than half a million rupees annually post your MBA keeps you moving in these 2 years makes you feel there's much more at stake, as precious as a dear life.
So with the much anticipated 'Induction' that commenced with sessions on how mean and cruel the 'Corporate' world is, (almost went ahead in the semester pronouncing it as Car-pore-ate) the first grueling, cruel, taxing, tiring semester begins. You don't need a raise of hands to know the number of Engineers/Non-Commerce students that comprise your batch strength for the blank faces in the Accounts lecture tells it all. Not to forget that Statistics is the Spartan arena for the Engineer creed as they bam into their scientific calculators to arrive at the answers.
Marketing gives you the I am the Business hunk feeling as you show off all the Kotler jargons during your presentations coupled with vital stats, enough to impress any on looker and if not that, atleast your non-MBA friends ! And if you thought you missed out on Psychology, Philosophy or anything that was associated with Humanities, there is Organizational Behavior which would help you live your unfulfilled dream - of course even multiple shots of coffee do not help while preparing for it a day before the exam.
As I bitch about the different subjects that torment a student, one cannot simply avoid bitching about the 'Group members' he/she works with. You have a host of characters to face on a daily basis, from one presentation to the other. There'll be a few who're the Creme-de-la-creme performers just like Accenture : High Performance Delivered and there'll be many who love the Introduction or the Conclusion slide and basically contribute towards pumping your blood pressure high by not turning up on time for your presentation.
You fall in love with some, you swear to swipe the butt of some with a samurai sword, you feel like wanting to work with some people time and again in every presentation and then there are those guys who you'd want to bitch-slap back to where they came from. Then there is that kind of species which will pen down everything that was ever discussed in time and space during the lectures and these go ahead and become the kings and queens of the award-winning photocopies whose notes circulate in the hands of the entire batch with a hope of clearing the paper with whatever's written by them. That reminds me, the photocopy guy is the finest entrepreneur class you'd ever get to see. He'll keep some extra copies of completed notes with himself and lure you into buying them saying it's something you just can't avoid buying. (That's Direct selling for you)
With all the torment, all the insulting feedback, all the carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide produced after burning the midnight oil (okay okay sorry, too much this is), one finally steps onto writing the First semester of this globally hyped degree/diploma. It's a back to back bombarding of surprises with direct questions, neuron biting case studies, numericals that can make you weep in the middle of a paper and laws and theories that are synonymous in nature with the Milky way.
By the end of it, you make your set of similar nuts whom you prefer to hangout with, a set in which you can be yourself completely and true unlike the pretentious face that you learn to carry around right from your first presentation, first viva and first submission. You by now learn how to digest people, how to bear insults & epic fail situations with a HappyDent smile. One also understands eventually that being insulted isn't a big deal and that people just are on the lookout for such a moment and most importantly, you transform yourself into a Superhuman who can sleep for a bare 4 hours and still give an Oscar winning speech next morning in a presentation.
DISCLAIMER : I do not intend to become the great Mr. Chetan Bhagat nor can I ever be. But if you plagiarize my content without prior permission over the internet, I'll make a fortune out of it by suing you sweet :D Apart from all of this, any resemblance to any person, character, identity, place et al is purely co-incidental. The only genuine thing above is Me, rest all is fictitious. Still if you think you can associate yourself with this and see yourself as a part of this story, feel proud. Don't crib about it. :D
No comments:
Post a Comment