Concerns and Queries..My response

Friends,

I have received some questions about life at Kelley and various career prospects. Here is my take on this.

Kelley is best for Marketing. No more questions about it. NO one can question it. Companies ranging from P&G to Air Products hire at Kelley for Marketing and Kelley ranks in Top-10 for marketing.

Finance, though they say is second best to Marketing, I would rank it to be the best, in terms of curriculum.
Here goes an example, I was asked a Finance question in my last interview and the professor was discussing the exact question two days after the interview. I thought, man! I would have cracked that question if we had this class just two days earlier.

Consulting. For many students especially, Indians, this is the dream career.
Coming to how Kelley fares in Consulting, every year there are around 7 people going for summer internships and around 20 people going for full time job. So, if you are very interested in consulting, though you don't intern at a consulting firm (as many of the students), you will definitely get a job in consulting at one of the good firms. At present, I know many second years, who interned at various going for a full time job in E&Y, Diamond, Huron, PwC, Deloite.

But, guys,Consulting is not as rosy as it looks to be. You get to travel a lot. Around 80% of your job. Get up Monday morning, fly to Client's office. Work hard (like a donkey?) for 4 days and be back to office on Friday. Someone mentioned in a forum that consulting is not that good at Kelley as I did not get any interviews. Frankly, Though I like the problem solving aspect of Consulting, I don't like the travel part as I would like to get married 1 year after my MBA and travel is not my cup of tea. I am looking more towards internal consulting at Big companies where you do M&A analysis and strategic growth analysis. I will keep you posted about this.

Investment Banking. Again, Kelley gets firms like Bank of America, Piper Jeffrey and some other. But, the internships are less compared to full time. Again, there are many guys, who put in effort and get what they want. At the end of the day, MBA in U.S is not like an MBA in India, where you will get the companies on campus and get the things done. Here people travel to NY to meet the employers and discuss interest and push their application. Yes, it is painful. But, at the end of the day, you get to learn many things from dealing with people to getting the thing done.

Finally, the choice of school depends on the preference. I would definitely recommend Kelley to anyone who is interested in Marketing, Finance and Consulting if not IB. Guys, MBA is not just for career shift. It is a lot of learning and I guarantee that you will find that at Kelley.

Internship opportunities for International students are less compared to full time not only at Kelley but at many schools. We struggle for internships, but, everyone will have one at the end. It is a matter of time and people express their anguish if things dont workout for sometime. I understand the insecure feeling. For Full time, everyone (including internationals) will have an offer by January except for few exceptions.