The Journey called MBA

25^th March 2010, A day when my academic student life came to a full stop,  although I would remain a student forever as I strongly believe in Steve jobs famous  statement, “ Stay Hungry stay foolish” and moreover the wise men have always said that Life is the greatest teacher J Yet my student life has come to an end in the sense there shall be no more of the students privileges like

No more bunking classes

No more partying whole night almost every day (especially semester 4)

No more sleeping the whole day, knowing that someone would have marked my attendance

No more carefree attitude

No more No accountability ... 

During the thirty four hours journey from Pune to Howrah , the past two years reflected in my mind like thoe flash back movies often seen in Bollywood. I was bound to notice the transition in me during the last two years . The tenure  of MBA has definitely transformed me into a much better person  professionally and personally.This blog is about those leanings . No don’t worry this is not about the academic learning one has but it’s about the other learning’s which are not to be found in books aka tacit knowledge :D

The best  part of these two years was the interaction with a varied mix of people , we had students  who were right out of college and also students who had up to four years of rich corporate experience.Students were from varied backgrounds ranging from psychology to engineering- medicine to fine arts. This fine blend of a varied background helped us understand  varied perspectives, it made us realized that each one us has a unique talent . We need to focus on each other’s talent and learn from them and absorb their rich experience and at the same time share the unique talent which we have.

I being a fresher was new to a lot of things one among them was working “efficiently “ in a team. During Engineering there were very few group assignments  hence I was not used to working in a group. Whereas during MBA most of the assignments  were to be done in a group, whose team members were selected by the professor. Such teams seldom had homogeneous members and as such one had to deal with issues like the ignorance of a fresher , the attitude of a experienced  among other things J It was truly very painful initially to work in sync with other team members. It is only at the end of these two years I realized that working in a team actually is more efficient resulting in achieving goals in a shorter period of time with high efficiency. A team can do a lot of things which one single professional cannot do ever, this is something which I took a lot of time to imbibe. Moreover  I am told that in organizations all projects are done in a team which always have people whose mind is completely out of sync with us.Thus this habit of working in new varied teams has prepared me be a efficient team member in future. Moreover I have had the best of memories  while working in such colorful groups and it is during such group activities I have found friends which made my stay @ SIMS full of fun .

In MBA we learned to prepare presentation at very short notice, in life we do not always get a lot of time to win an opportunity  and MBA has taught me to do any kind of assignment at short notice and at minimal given time. This was realized specially in the fourth semester when although we were given sufficient time to prepare but we always prepared  important presentations only a night before J - which led to this eureka moment. Initially I found it extremely difficult to make a presentation if I was not given all the relevant data but today I am confident that I can deliver an hour presentation based only on a few words of data, rest I have learned can be safely assumed :) 

Professional life is to be kept separate from personal life this was told to me during my  engineering days , but its actual importance has been learned only in the last two years. This lesson was learnt when I had to complete assignments in a team whose members I did not like personally yet I had to professionally acknowledge him/her and work in sync with that person.  This taught me that one needs to learn to work with team members whom we may  loath personally yet who is our professional  partner. This is one of the major learnings and now I am confident to work  with any kind of team members without having a grin on my face .

The last two years also has changed my thinking perspective. During my graduation days I used to look at any business/professional situation from an employee’s perspective but today given any such situation I think from the management’s perspective , I think about the benefit of the organization and how  the shareholders wealth can be maximized. The basic functionalities  of an organization as taught in  MBA, namely  Finance, Marketing and Human Resource are as important and applicable to our own life as they are to an organization 

Let me elucidate –

Finance –The basic concepts of Finance like cash management and asset liability match if applied to our own personal  finance would enable us to manage our own finances more efficiently. Concepts of Balance sheet, P & L account  and Cash flow analysis can be applied to our own life and would enable us to manage our finance in the most optimal way.

Marketing -  This is something which attracts and retains customers which are the blood line of any firm. Similarly if such marketing concepts are utilized by us it would enable us to attract and retain the figurative customers  of our life . For e.g. when we appear for an interview we need to know how to sell our personality and retain the job .  Similarly our reputation is similar to the brand of a product.  We need to know how to manage our reputation similar to managing the brand equity of a product or a firm.

Human Resource – This is to acquire and retain the right talent in an organization and ensure that its employees are satisfied.  Similarly we need  to identify the right people as good friends and we need to retain them forever. A poorly performed HR could result in having the wrong people in an organization leading to increased dissatisfaction among employees and would be detrimental to an organization  the same can be applied to personal life also .

Most importantly MBA has equipped me  to face the unexpected with a smile on my face. 

The last two years were the most fruitful time of my life till now and at the same time has given be memories which would bring a smile on my face always.....