The Indian Alchemist..

New Website

2011-08-02T10:11:00.004-04:00

Post MBA, I am writing now at www.devanumolu.com. It contains excerpts from readings and my experiences.

Update..

2008-04-17T22:20:00.003-04:00

Thought I will update the readers on my progress.. I got an internship in consulting. Unbelievable isn't it? But it's true.. There is an interesting story behind it. We won a case competition (me and 2 other students from Kelley) sponsored by one of the big consulting firms beating 3 other schools. The first prize is a summer internship in the management consulting practice of the firm..

May be whatever the alchemist said is true: "When You Know What You Want, The Whole World Conspires With You To Achieve It."..Be crazy..Be foolish..

I hate to answer in words when people doubt my ability. Many times my actions spoke..I am not proud, but just confident.

Love,
The Indian Alchemist.

Stopped..

2008-03-02T12:00:00.001-05:00

Friends,

I am killing this character called Indian Alchemist. I hope it served the purpose for what I created it. Through the past 3 weeks, I pondered and decided that it's the time for me to move on and not just write about my usual chores. I will write another blog with another character as the center.

Good luck with everything ad e-mail me if you have any queries and I will try to answer them.

Love,
The Indian Alchemist.

Concerns and Queries..My response

2008-02-08T16:06:00.001-05:00

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.

Interview..I am glad

2008-02-04T20:39:00.000-05:00

After many days, I felt good about my skills and my confidence. I handled todays interview very well. I was composed, answered the questions to maximum extent and confident.
At one point of time he was so impressed that, we got into a discussion about the intellectual property protection and how it is really difficult in emerging markets. He appreciated that and told that very few candidates think about that in interviews.
There were some pitfalls too. I did not think about the competition in one of the questions and he was waiting for me to bring that up but I did not. I cursed myself for my ignorance of so basic stuff.
The interviewer is a Harvard MBA and simply superb. He is with this company for about 20 years and handles Finance.
There was an interesting tale behind this interview. Around three months ago, I discussed my interest in the company with a second year student, who interned at this company last summer. He was very helpful and told that he had a great experience there and guided me on what should I do. Also, I spoke to a couple of Alums in key positions. But, this company does not recruit international students. It is their policy. So, I did not get into the preference list(interview short list). I contacted the second year student again and told about this. He asked me to write an e-mail to one of the alums I spoke to. I did that and the alum told that she is yet to get the list and will let me know if there are any free slots. After a couple of days, there was a mail: Attend the informational event on Sunday and interview with Finance. I met them for an informational chat on Sunday. Man, They are so down to earth. I can feel their feel for IU and I felt the warmth. It should be great team to be associated with, I thought.

I felt glad that my networking helped me. There are people who get a job without networking. I have a couple of close friends here who got into Deloitte consulting. One for Strategy and the other for Technology. They did not do any networking. But, I strongly suggest students to network with various companies. It helps you to understand various companies, their cultures and finally, you will know how to talk to people. I learned a lot of these through my networking. Now I can strike a conversation with anyone about Weather to the WTO issues.
My on campus interviewing ended today. I had 3 interviews till date in total and don't know if any one of them will convert to an offer. Now, I have to reach out to people outside.

Finally, I felt glad today. I may or may not make it. But, this feeling is good to feel and share. Congrats to all the round-1 admits and goo luck to all round-2 applicants.

Interview fever..

2008-02-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

Ya.life goes on.. I have attended one more interview last Thursday and it went quite well. Though, I am not sure when will they get back for the second round. It is a procurement intern position in a large retail firm. I would love to work in that as the scale is around $50 billion. I can learn so many things from that experience. I had a very cordial discussion with the interviewer. I sent an e-mail to him a couple of months ago asking for an informational interview. I did not know that he would be the person to interview.
He got back to me a week ago and told that he can interview me if I am interested in. I was already on the interview list and told him the same. We had a nice discussion and he asked me to give him a call if I have any questions. I took that as a positive sign.
I have an interview on Monday with a big Chemical company. It is for Finance position. It would be a nice position to work on as they have huge international operations.
As you can see, all of my discussion goes around internship interviews and not the courses. I am not reading anything for classes these days. I feel sad that the courses are o good ad I am not doing much. If I can finish this internship early, I will jump on to that.

BTW: What do you guys feel about the MSFT, YAHO deal? I feel that there are not any synergies to be realized as both of them are lagging. And, see the cultural differences. Yahoo is a cowboy and MS is a old king. Can they ever agree on anything. Many acquisitions fail as the key people in the target company leave after the acquisition and it will happen with Yahoo too.
There is a nice article: Microsoft and Yahoo!: Happily Ever After?

Update..

2008-01-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

I did my interview today. It was a tough one as I expected. The first question was what you want to talk about? He was pushing me all the times and I was attacking again and again. I am not sure how did it go. I have to wait one week to know whether I will make it to second round. I will take some rest before getting on to the path. Sorry that I have to delay my post as I have been having a crazy life these days..

Feeling the pressure..

2008-01-22T14:44:00.000-05:00

How do you feel when you have one arrow at hand and have to hit a target? What if hitting the target can get you to where you want to? What if you are one of the seven selected to try to hit the target though there were 69 people, who want to hit the target?

That is the position I am in now. I have been shortlisted by one company for internship. I did network with a lot of companies but, got only one at hand. The position is definitely a good one to work, in Corporate Strategy. Whether having one in hand is better than having none? May be? May be not.

But, just having one at hand is draining me out. I need to get this internship or I need to work hard and send emails to people and alumni in the industry. It is always easy to get a job on campus. I am not concentrating on any classes. Not just me, many people. Have assignments to do and cases to discuss. I am trying hard to pull myself and hoping that I will be the one that they are looking for. I will prepare to the level best and would shoot my one and only arrow. Let us see if I will hit the target.

Second week of first quarter

2008-01-19T22:21:00.000-05:00

Second week was different from many others we had till now.
We worked on the Marketing memo over the last weekend and submitted the same. The Finance assignment has been done too.
The internship process is showing its affect. People are not that concentrating on classes ad it is totally understandable. There were people who received a couple of interview calls. There are a couple who interviewed already and waiting for the result. People started panicking whether they will receive a call leave internship. I understand the concern, but, there is nothing more than being patient and continuing the networking efforts.
As I see the whole process, the internships in consulting will at most be 3 or 4. This is very different from full time scenario, when 20-30 people will have consulting jobs. Finance and Marketing are the most and between these two definitely Marketing is the most sought after by recruiters.
My efforts to push my resume outside are going on. I sent my resume to people whose contact I got from the Kelley database. It takes lot of time and effort to contact them. But, it is like a practice.You can talk to these people and see how they listen to your story. I am trying to do the same thing.
I had an interview with my career coach and she commented that I am being modest to put forth my achievements. In retrospect I was. I do get many examples from my experience to strengthen my case for a job, but, I feel I should not boast. There is a line between being cocky and confident. I am not even close to the latter leave the former. I practiced a little today and am feeling good. Also, she told that I speak in high pitch and speak faster when I get a little tensed or uncomfortable. These are things that I do unconsciously. Many times I told myself that I have to control these consciously. I tried too and am partially successful.
The report on report on HP and Compaq has to be postponed to the time I get to do some more analysis on that. I think I can do that only after a couple of weeks.
The friend I mentioned in the previous post has got a call from IIM-K and another friend from IIM-L,K,I and another from IIM-L. I hope they convert them. Also, may be one day we all will be presidents and directors of various organizations. May be this is how we see friends taking higher positions at various companies these days. May be they were like us a couple of decades ago. Of course, I am dreaming as usual. :).
The quarterly system has got its own side effects. You have to write a midterm after three weeks. Next week we have one. :(.

PS: I advise applicants to not to apply to business schools in US unless they have at least 4-5 years of experience or 2-3 years of tremendous experience. The typical software engineer will not convince recruiters as there are plenty of them. You need to show them how you can leverage your past experience along with B-school experience to add value to the company. It is just the basics. Business schools in US are not like in India, where you can just crack CAT and crunch numbers and get a good job. It is not criticism. It is just to point out the difference in the recruitment process and preferences.

First week of First Quarter

2008-01-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

It started again. We are done with first week of classes. The beauty of Kelley MBA is that you can customize it to your interests. IN my case I am taking the following courses in the first seven weeks. We will be done with these 4 courses in the first seven weeks and will take another 4 in the next seven.

1. Marketing Performance and Analysis
2. Firm in the capital markets
3. Managerial Accounting
4. Management Consulting

As you can see, they are as diverse as it can be. I most likely will not major in any function though I will take more courses in Finance. Finance is the strongest at Kelley. Man, the professors are awesome.

Along with the courses come the assignments. We have two assignments due next Wednesday and the schedule over the coming weeks be no different.

Now, coming to the important aspect: Internship (is it?). We have bid for companies that come for 4 weeks starting Jan-22. Some companies gave their shortlist also. I got one ding and am waiting for the other firms to come out with the results. We give so much importance to internship as if it is the essence of MBA. I agree that it is an important art of MBA but not the essence. We are paying $35,000 per year. If you take 200 working days, it comes to $175 per day, which is equivalent to $87 per class. That is I am paying ONE dollar for every minute I sit in the class.

I used to think that I need to do some research (not to the level of Ph.D) and learn about various problems that today's corporations face. I did not do much till now. So, I am shifting gears again.

I took a self-assignment of studying some of the Mergers and Acquisitions and write here about my learnings from them. As many as 70% mergers fail to create the expected value. You know what the main issue is? The cultural differences in the workforce, confusion and insecurity. There has been a helluva of activity recently in M&As and it's high time that we learn something about their successes or failures. For this purpose, I am going to take the Merger of HP and Compaq. Many people argue that it did not deliver the synergies it was supposed to or the talked about. I will post my learning here. If you would like to read them here are the articles:

The HP-Compaq Merger - Knowledge@Wharton
HP-Compaq: Rush to Judgment - CFO.com
HP: Why Effective Governance and Ownership Matters - INSEAD Research
HP-Compaq: A Battle for the Heart and Soul of a Company - INSEAD Research
Lessons from HP and Compaq - Stanford Research

I duly respect the copyright of the above documents and give the due credit their respective publishers. You may need to register for Knowledge@Wharton but it is free and takes just a minute.

Finally, There is an interesting article on Starbucks in NY times. Read it for a lot of insight and fun. Curing what Ails Starbucks.
We may have created a good past, but, now, it is not as good as it used to be or the definition of good has changed. CEOs and Chairmans should learn this and lead the businesses with that in mind. That is the essence of the article but the narration is awesome.

Good luck guys and see you guys next week.

First week of New Year..

2008-01-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

It was a fun filled week.
I spoke to the delayed flight friend. We shared many things which are common again. Also, my uncle knows their family. We discussed about that too. The difficulties we face here from monetary perspective, the dreams we have. We talked like kids though I know tha I am a matured guy. This makes me enjoy my personal side. MBA makes you so professional that sometimes you forget that your personal side has to be very informal. I like people who have a rustic side to them. I can be in NY, but, I want to talk about my hometown too. Some people lose that when they grow up in other lands. The first thing that I look for when I talk to a person is whether he/she has got that feeling for things at home. I expect to spend some fun-filled moments with this new friend in fall.

Coming to the things at home, My mom and sister went to Chennai for visa interview. They came to know that there was a theft at our home when they were in Chennai and there were items stolen to the tune of Rs. 100,000. They went ahead but my sister again could not get the visa. The unfortunate thing is we have got everything. Loan letter and all. The Visa interview did not even mark what is the deficiency. Immediately after the interview they returned home. I called them up when they were on the way and my mom and sister were very sad that there was a theft and we lost many valuables.

Then I called them up after a couple of days and it seems we did not lose many things. We lost the silver that the bank gave my dad as gifts and prizes. It is worth Rs. 15-20,000. Also, we lost around Rs.8,000 in cash. They were relieved to know that. My mother has the habit of keeping the gold not inside the alma rah but at places like albums etc.

Also, they found that the Laptop I bought for my sister just before I came to US was there. Also, the watch that I presented my dad was there. The gold chain that we took out from bank with the loan that I got was there. So, the sadness was more from sentiment than from
the loss of things. I shared this one of the good friends that I made after I came to US and that made me feel lighter. At the end, we are all happy that we did not lose much.

Coming to m friends aspect, One of my friends back in India has got a JMET rank of 136. We were trying for MBA ever since we were friends at NITW. It was for the past 6 years. I came here for that he took a long leave of 3 months this year to appear for CAT and other MBA exams. The CAT results will be out tomorrow. I am glad for his JMET rank and hope for good score in CAT.

Coming to the things at Kelley, we applied for interviews in the first 3 weeks starting January 22. We are waiting for the shortlist.
We have classes starting tomorrow though I need not get up early as my first class is at 9:30 AM. I got a GPA of only 3.3 in the last semester. I concentrated more on networking as that is one of my weakest areas. Now we have to prepare for interviews. Hope every thing goes good.

All the best to second round applicants.

Wish you a happy new year..

2007-12-31T15:42:00.000-05:00

First of all, I wish the readers of my blog a very happy new year. The same day last year, I was thinking whether I will be able to maintain the blog. I am ale to do it thanks for the continued support from the readers.
Coming to my chores in New Jersey, it was a good week if not great. I spent a couple of days with my cousin in Princeton, NJ. We cooked chicken, did watch Cheeni Kum and roamed around.
I got a new pair of creative speakers (T3100) from my cousin as a gift. I love them. I am just waiting to go back to Bloomington to have a blast with them.
While coming to NJ, I met a person from my university. Later I came to know that the person is from my hometown. I never met anyone from my hometown in US till now. I was very happy at that time. I thought I will meet the person again in NJ but could not do that as our schedules did not match. I wonder when can I meet the person again as I love people from my hometown. It is not the regional feeling but after speaking with that person, I understood that we share similar views. A view where you want to learn the western science, a view where you want to sail on the serene Godavari, a view, where we want to serve our country.

Finally, I pray god to give me the strength to face the challenges and put me through the problems that can challenge me at every critical point in my life. This will make my life so beautiful as it has been in the past 25 years of my existence.
Good luck to one and all..

Love,
The Indian Alchemist.

My life - Where do I wannna go..

2007-12-27T22:09:00.001-05:00

That picture summarizes my thinking at any moment.

There are 4 options:

NY: New York. My dream about consulting will come true. I would improve the operations of clients adding value to their supply chains and helping thier operations become lean

Koduru: My hometown. The opposite of the above. I would go back to my home town and do business. Of Course, it is after at least 7-8 years down the line after MBA.

Bangalore: It is similar to NY. But, in India. India is the hottest place now. I don't want to miss that as an Indian.

Egypt: I want to see the beauty of this world. From serene waters in Kerala to pyramids in Egypt to the age old Greece.

I always think about all these. Every decision that I want to take including marriage, children, money depends on what path I want to take. Let us see the sweetness of life as it unfolds in the future.

Vacation Week-1

2007-12-24T18:54:00.000-05:00

It was an awesome week. I came to NY after a 3 hours delay in Atlanta. I went to NY on monday to meet our school alumni at PwC. They were simply superb. We discussed the opportunities at PwC in various practices over lunch. They were simple, practical, and understanding. They told that they will try to put me through the Performance Improvement practice guys.
On Tuesday, I woke-up at 5 AM to go to NY and meet Citibank guys. It was a good meeting and I learned about the opportunities at Citicards from the experience of the current Associates.
On Wednesday, I was home lazying around and sleeping for most of the time.
On Thursday, I went to meet a Principal at a Investment Bank. He is an alum of our school. I concluded from this experience that I will not get into IB.
Friday I was at home and went to visit Sridhar in Stamford, CT along with Swaroop. Both are friends from B.Tech. I spent saturday with them and we went to watch Taare Zameen Par. It was a nice movie.
I came to NY on Sunday noon to meet an Associate at McKinsey. He was straightforward. We discussed about consulting and his experience. He told just one thing: IF YOU ARE COMMITTED TO CONSULTING, YOU WILL GET A JOB IN THAT FIELD. How truthful can it be.

I continue to receive news that hurt me. I am numbed by now to feel sad for that.

Sixteenth Week - The final week of CORE

2007-12-19T07:38:00.000-05:00

We had 3 exams this week. They were ok if not great. I was sending out emails to people all along the week to get an appointment to talk to them.

Friday was my birthday and that was the end of core day. We had finance final in the morning and I took some rest before going to the Bluebird at 8:45 PM. It was whole lot of fun an our team presented a card to our mentor. She has been helpful all along the way till now.

I am going to miss my team. Now we will be taking electives and everyone will form their own team. Everyone i my team is so sweet and diverse. Th following is my team

1. A lady, who worked for non-profit
2. A man, who worked as an engineer in crash testing of cars
3. A lady, who worked as an accountant for a huge oil company
4. An young man, who had just 1 year of experience but good marketing ideas
5. Finally me.

I came to New York to meet some people here and enjoy with my friends and cousins. I tried to maintain this blog till now. I hope I will be able to do that in the future though I am a little skeptic now.

Fifteenth week...

2007-12-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

This is the last week of classes. Turns out that I am going to miss the hectic core. It has been really demanding through out from personal as well as professional perspective. Things did not materialize as I wished they could. We gave a standing ovation to all the professors in the last class. They were very impressed. That's what differentiates Kelley. You feel significant. You feel that you are a part of the happenings. You fee that you have a great number of friends for help.

We had two finals. One on Friday and one on Saturday. They are supposed to be alright. I don't know. I am going to New Jersey the coming Sunday. I will be there for 2 weeks and am trying to meet people at various firms. Nothing much of a progress has been made till now. The main motive is to meet my friends and the cousins I have over there in Jersey and NY.

Finally, one of my friend was telling that he heard that MBA is all about Networking. That's perfectly true. Business is all about relationships and you need to get acquainted with new people easily and get the business done. It applies to jobs as well. We need to look social to the interviewer and show interest in their firm. I am trying to do that. I have sent more than 70 emails in the last 3 days asking people to help me understand the opportunities at their firms and about their work. Again, I am partially successful. Some people replied. I feel happy whenever I see a reply from them. It means that your email is not a waste of time for them and its not Junk. I am learning a lot. I thank Kelley for putting me into this process.

Fourteenth Week..

2007-12-01T16:01:00.000-05:00

The week started on a slow note. I missed the first class on Monday as I could not get up before 8 AM. I made up for that on Tuesday. On Wednesday I attended classes from 8 AM to Evening 5 PM as one of my friends wanted to attend my classes on Thursday. I was at home Thursday sleeping and enjoying for more time.

I contested for the President of Consulting Club. My plan was to contest for Vice President. But, after I spoke to current president, she asked me to contest for President. I did that. I got into the race just one day before the voting. I did a great presentation. But, I lost the election. Can you guess how much margin I lost by? ONE VOTE. Yes. It’s so minimal. The new resident and the current presidents and others are asking me to run for VP. I don’t want people to fee that whatever initiatives I am planning are not targeted for a position. I would carry them even I don’t have a position. That’s what I told them.

Others are asking me to get into Alumni relations so that I can help not only Consulting Club but school in general. I need to decide that by tonight. I am not sure. Coming to the Chicago trip, many people showed interest and we will do that. We will be contacting the firms starting this Monday. We had a case competition on Monday and lost in the third round. My opponent won the final round too. There is a $400 iPod as gift. I missed it. :-( .

ON the personal front, my parents are trying hard to do arrange the things for my sister's visa. I hope everything goes smooth this time. All in all, I am suffering, coming up and enjoying my small victories and trying to improve myself. B-School gives us a great opportunity to improve our weak areas. For someone it is soft skills like leadership skills and for someone it is analytical skills. I am improving my soft skills and I am happy with my performance thus far. Next week we have final exams starting up. I have to read at least something. :).

Thirteenth Week..

2007-11-27T19:53:00.000-05:00

We have holidays the whole of this week. It was a much needed break after 3 months of arduous Kelley Core. I was at home for the first 4 days watching movies all the time. I did watch 3-4 movies a day. It was a fun break.

Then I had a friend from Champaign visiting and together we went to Louisville. We have a friend over there and we spent two days over there. We went to a casino and it was too costly man. We had to bet a minimum of 15 dollars per bet. We won the first bet and got 15. But, we lost the other two and so we stopped that there.

Then we went home and played poker for fun. We played till 4 AM in the morning. It is really an interesting game. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and played videogame football. Then we were on the road at 5 PM and reached Bloomington by 7 PM. My friend left at 8 PM to Champaign.

Twelfth week..

2007-11-23T02:09:00.000-05:00

Not many things..We made it to the finals in case competition but lost it it there. We worked till 5 AM on the day of the Case presentation. In the first round, professors liked our idea. Man, we put so much effort into making the slides that I could not believe myself that we came up with such great slides. If we compare them with our initial slides (we had a case comp when we joined MBA), we made a dramatic improvement. Judges from Cummins and Whirl-pool gave feedback in the final and they recounted that our slides were good.

My sister did not get the visa. She has been working hard alone to come to US for MS. My parents were upset. But not me. After all, we have put in the best efforts. Its to the chance now.
Ofcourse, we will be trying once again in a month or so.

Eleventh Week..

2007-11-09T20:50:00.000-05:00

I scored slightly below average in Quant Final. I am not worried about that. Also, we are doing some case preparation and it was going alright. We had a class on real options strategy and it was really good. The pricing strategy in marketing was awesome. I want to read something on price wars and pricing strategy.

Coming Thursday we have an internal case competition and I am excited about it. We worked hard on the case over the weekend. It was a nice case.

Coming to contacting Alumni and have informational interviews, I spoke to around 6 people in the last week. They were really receptive. Some of them even talked about the problems they faced as a consultant and how their new job after consulting has been going on. I am really happy that we really have so eager alumni, who can give insider insights at the consulting firms.

As I told, I got the money from my friend though I have not yet spending them. Also, I got the money from my PF and that helped me pay installment of the loans back in India.

Tenth Week..

2007-11-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

It was so fast that I did not realize that we are through with it. Days are just rolling by. I did a little of case preparation. We had to submit marketing memo and quant assignment on the same day. We worked till 12 for memo and I could not get up to go to the class the next morning. That made me bunk the class for the first time. It is a finance class.
I realized that day that I have to take a break when I can no longer push myself without sacrificing efficiency. We successfully submitted the marketing memo and quant assignment. The marketing classes have been interesting. The pricing strategies are really mind blowing. I want to do some reading on pricing and price wars.
Our quant professor told that they are looking for PhD candidates to teach. It seems that they will pay upwards of $100,000 to a professor and that goes up if the professor is from accounting. Those made me think again about my plan to get a PhD. But, I convinced myself that I need to work for some time before going for a PhD.
I got some contacts at big consulting firms while searching over the net and wrote to them asking for information. One of them replied and asked me to call her at 5 Pm on Tuesday. I have to prepare for the phone call. Also, I got in touch with our professor to discuss about a trip to big consulting firms. He told that it is a good idea and he can help me set this up. Also, he suggested that one of the recent alums arranged a similar thing and asked me to get in touch with him. I emailed him and got a reply. I need to speak to him on Monday.
We have just one more week of classes before the case competition. Case competition contributes 10% to the semester marks, so it is an important event.
Also, I am a part of the Toast masters and next Monday I am the key speaker. I have to prepare for that too. My english is not that great and I need to improve spoken communication. My accent is british and sometimes it is becoming difficult for peoplr to get me. My written communication is good.
I am out of the money that I brought from home. I need to call my friend and get the money. Time has become the biggest constraint these days. We need to manage so many things yet, I set myself free over the weekends and watch movies and talk with friends.

Ninth Week..

2007-10-28T01:54:00.000-04:00

Ninth week was the one with no surprises. We are getting along easily and its been a slow week. Not much of a pressure. I started off my case preparation on a good note though its a long journey for cases. Everything has been going fine. I was speaking to my sister and we took a date for her visa, 23-Nov. We are trying to make all the arrangements at back home in India, gathering money and putting that into bank.

We did not have any assignments due in this week. But, we have a marketing memo and quant assignment for next week. So, we worked on quant and are almost done. My team is a real cute team. We plan a lot and work together for the common goal. We are working on the marketing memo now. It is due on Wednesday. Finance class has been pretty good. We are studying options.

We had a faculty auction. We can bid for dinner with a faculty member. The proceedings will go to a cancer institute. We won the bid for our Operations professor. He is very nice and approachable. I am looking forward to the dinner with him. There was a horror play at school. I wanted to go but dropped out at the last minute.

Guess what. I took my teammates for dinner to an Indian Restaurant and they liked the food a lot. They asked me to come for the Halloween party. I was not able to decide and they persisted. Finally, I did go. I got a Tiger outfit from my teammate. I did go in that. I will try to post the pictures in next post.

The core semester is running very fast. We are around 60% done and just 1.5 more months and we will be done with the semester. How fast it is.

A boy, his dreams and reality...

2007-10-25T22:33:00.000-04:00

That was December-14-1982. People didn’t know whether it was a good or bad day. They still don't. Only the future will tell that. But, they celebrated it a lot.

A boy born on that day, three days after his aunt died of appendicitis. He grew up in a village of small size studying with Telugu as the medium of instruction. He never knew what happened outside that village. His maternal grandmother used to come visit him once in a fortnight. She used to bring lots of chocolates and ice creams. He used to boast with friends that he has all the things in this world. He got the second straight handle cycle in his village and he showed that off. He was not the topper in class until 4th class.

It took a turn in 4th standard. He worked hard and became the topper of the class. His mother worked in the same school. His father is a banker. He has got the advantage from both of them. He was got the math skills and science skills. But, there was a competitor who always beat this guy in math and science and this guy bet the competitor in all others there by maintaining his edge.

He used to play with his friends at the temple site. They used to play a lot of cricket. Once his mother sent him to get some groceries and he went to play cricket and did not turn up until late. His father chided him for that. On another occasion, he did not want to go to school and was telling stories to his father. His father bet him with the power cord of their old radio. It was the first and last one from his father.

It was 1994. He became the topper in his manadal(a small group of villages) in 7th standard. He celebrated it with his teachers by buying cool-drinks (INR 3 each) for them. Everyone was happy. His father never came to school. There was never a requirement to come.

He did not work hard for the next 2 years and lost his edge. He topped his class in 10th standard but, could not top the boys from other schools. The time has come for his father to decide on where to send him for his intermediate (+1, +2). They could not afford the high fees being charged at some of the best schools. They were ambivalent till the last moment and decided to go to a good school. Went to a couple of schools but they were late. Seats were filled up. After searching for ac couple of more schools, they got a seat in one. He did not have the money for school. His grandfather and relatives helped him. His father did whatever he can and arranged the money.

The medium of instruction was English. He could not understand many of the things. In one chemistry class He spelt principle as principal and got the wrath of his chemistry lecturer. But, his math skills helped him and he moved to the top section after quarterly review. He got the best training possible. He Worked hard and could not spend money as he did not have much. He stuck to his friends from his village and worked on hard on physics as it was his best interest.

Things turned out positive and he got a rank of 185 out of more than 100,000 contestants for one of the engineering entrance exams. He did not have the money to pay the deposit for Undergard School. Again, his father borrowed it just the day before the admission day and He got a seat at one of the best colleges in the country.

He moved to the undergrad school after spending a couple of months in his home village. It’s a new world and new people. He was a conservative boy through out and he remained the same. He mingled with everyone nicely but, he has got a core team of friends. They played hard but never studied. He was able to get first class and a job finally. He has big dreams. But, He joined that manufacturing firm and worked over the hot pouring steel. He had to work in night shifts and learnt it the hard way.

After one year he moved to work in his uncle's firm. Then he moved to work with one of the software firms. He could not find much of these things interesting and that made him think about his forgotten dreams. He worked on them. But, he almost failed when the last ray of hope did turn in. He just jumped on to the last thread of hope and is hanging there now. This was one of the threads that he dreamt of in his under graduation 4 years ago. There were many personal failures along the line, he was able to cope up and come out. He was passionate about his people, his work and his way. He lived life his way.

Now, at 25 years of age, he is trying to use the new thread to go to the places which he did not see before and was dreaming to see. He has to invest some of the things that he did not possess and tried hard to do that. Again, he almost failed to get them till one of his relatives came to help.. Now here he is..Pursuing the dream..Sometimes thinking whether this is what he wanted..

Eighth Week..

2007-10-20T09:40:00.000-04:00

Eighth week is called Academy Intensive Week. As the name suggests the week is really intensive. It all started on Monday, when we were formed into groups and were given assignments to present on Wednesday. We have a total of 8 teams’ presenting on 4 firms. Deloitte, Huron, PwC, McKinsey. For every firm there are two teams - A and B. I am with McKinsey B.

The objective is simple. Prepare a presentation that depicts to MBA students why should they join a particular firm. We were a team of 7 and worked on constructing a story to collecting the data. There are many takeaways from this assignment.

1. Know the audience. The story should be carved to the audience.
2. There should be a flow in the presentation. The story should seem natural and not jumping around from one thing to the other.
3. The presentation should not have many typed words. It should have many graphs and pictures and the presenter should talk about them in the presentation and should not read from the points that were there on the slide.
4. There should be a clear coordination among the members when they are exchanging the presenting positions.
5. You should anticipate possible questions based on the audience and be prepared for them.
6. While answering the questions, one person should answer and not everyone should jump on it.
7. Answer the question that audience has got and never try to evade it with some goofy answer.

We did a good job as per my view. The other important take away is time management and team dynamics. We lagged in time management because we have only 2 days to prepare this presentation and did not allocate time for each activity and stick to it. We all agreed that that is a lesson for us.

The team dynamics is other important aspect. We will come across conflicts and resolved them. We did not debate much due to time constraints. We learnt that we have to kill an idea even if it is mine and does not fit into the scheme of things.

And finally, we got second place among the eight teams presented. I was happy with it. We worked for 17 hours on two consecutive days and it paid off finally.

That’s the story for first 3 days. On Thursday we went to Chicago to meet our alumni and present what we have prepared the 3 days before. We went to Deloitte, Huron, and PwC. We can see the clear differences in their cultures and styles. Some are more informal than the others. Some are more open than the others. Some are more entrepreneurial than the other. That’s what is called Fit. Consulting companies look for fit when they recruit people. That’s the first step in the recruitment process.

Last but not least is the friends I have made in these 5 days. Now my McKinsey B team is really close. We fight and share and enjoy. Consulting life is tough and rough. But, if you want to be in consulting, you have to endure all these.

Seventh Week..

2007-10-14T20:57:00.000-04:00

The three things that matter to you in life and career are
1. Curiosity
2. Passion
3. Integrity.

We had a guest for our Sunday’s AIW kick-off. He is an alum of Kelley and had worked with A.T.Kearney for 18 years. He retired as the head of the firm. He worked all over the world and his story of his life has been amazing.

The past week is one with mixed results. The economics and Critical thinking results were out and I did not fare really well on those. Indeed I fared blow the mean. That’s a huge concern. Also, we submitted the Marketing memo on Colgate and it’s been really tough to come up with the recommendations. We worked from 2 PM to 11 PM over the last Sunday and so we were comfortable submitting that on Tuesday.

Similarly, we worked a lot on Quant assignment also. SO, we had an easy time submitting it on Saturday.

I had a couple of friends visiting me on Friday and we did go to Indianapolis and had some fun. We planned to go for an Indian movie in Indianapolis. Unfortunately I could not go. But, my friends went to the movie and came back to Bloomington again. We went to the Indian restaurant over here and it’s really good. I took some rest after that and went to bed a little early at 10 PM.

We did go to Wal-Mart on Sunday and I bought some essential stuff as the winter is on the horizon. All in all it is a good week and how can I miss to mention about the Finance midterm on last Friday? It seems I did pretty well on the exam. I really believe that Finance is one of my core competencies and I am really curious about the results.

Deviation..Nostalgic..

2007-10-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

I always felt that I am indifferent to feelings. That’s what I used to think. Nothing matters to me expect my work and duties. Especially, there is no room for sentiments.

But, I am feeling a lot nostalgic for the past 2 days. The cool people, simple life and countryside back home in India are my frequent reminiscences. I am fighting back and am able to come back. But, when I think of my hometown, i feel a deep hole down my heart. Its the balance between pursuing the dream and missing the basic things that made me what I am today. I love you my Mother, My Dad, My Sweet Sister, My Grandma, I love you my Home village. I will come, may not be sooner but later.

I wrote this post deviating from the normal routine of one post per week to shar my feelings. After all, this blog knows more about me than anyone else..

Sixth Week..

2007-10-06T10:23:00.000-04:00

Sixth week has been the toughest so far and the most funniest. We are done with Economics mid-term yesterday and I feel that I did well. Anyway, feel and think does not matter in exams and only results matter.

The week started off with finance concepts in beta and portfolio performance. Its really great and intuitive. We completed the finance assignment due for next week. We have planned a lot in last week and we are able to complete ahead of the planned schedules. Add to that the good news from Accounting professor that there is no assignment for Accounting and its mistakenly given in the schedule. Finance and Accounting can be heaven if one gets the intuition and not just look the numbers as numbers. Numbers always tell a story. I am trying to look at the story and its been amazing. I am loving these two subjects a lot. On the other hand, if one looks at them only as numbers the subjects can be nightmarish.

The Data Analysis classes got into really good stuff. Decision Trees. I like them a lot. We really did not use them in my previous experience in Business Intelligence but I know that concept and that interest me a lot. We simulated simple decision trees for an airline company, an option pricing problem. Also, we started off with the Assignment for Data Analysis that is due next weekend. We progressed comfortably on that too.

I did not tell about marketing previously. But, it’s the most energetic session that we come across. The professor has got lots of experience in various business schools and he is simply superb. I observed that most of the marketing sessions are last in the schedule. We have to attend those after two grueling 1:15 minute sessions in the morning. But, Boy! No one feels weak in that class. Professor runs all around and makes sure that everyone in the class participates. I love that. He emphasizes one point always. CUSTOMER IS KING.

One of my friends went to NSHMBA Conference. He doesn’t want to miss the classes and so we swapped the classes. It means that I will get a full day off on one day and have to attend full day of classes on the next day. I did attend the full day of classes on Thursday from 8 A.M to 5 P.M. I could not grab lunch in between the sessions as the half an hour I got from 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM as I had an appointment with a second year to discuss some things.

Guess what. The afternoon 4.5 hours on Thursday we have strategy and operations case together. That is both the Strategy professor and Operations professor take the class along together. That has been amazing. Though I felt a little weak for the lack of sleep last night and lunch in the noon, my interest in operations helped to move me forward. I made meaningful contributions in Operations and not that much in Strategy. But, I am able to discern the problems in the company’s strategy clearly. I spoke to the strategy professor at the end of the class regarding the fall of the company we discussed in the case. She told. “Boy! The fall of ABC”. That sound like a title for a good book. We had some humor and then I headed home.

Fortunately, on Wednesday I have completed 5 chapters out of the 6 for Economics exam. After heading home I realized that I forgot my Laptop charger at school. I can not do anything with out my lappy and so have to rush back to school. I lost one hour in the process of getting the charger. Then I got into Economics immediately and glanced through the last chapter and then through some of the previous quizzes and the midterm. As I told earlier, I think I did well in the exam.

Its not the end of the story. DELOITTE guys are on campus to give us a taste of case interview and we had a case workshop. They gave some insightful comments into how they evaluate people in case interviews and the main dos and don’ts.

I have spent two 16 hour days in school in this week while we were doing the assignments that I have mentioned earlier. I could not sleep for 6 hours a day and sometimes I woke up after 5 hours and could not sleep. I like that. May be I got accustomed to 5 hour sleep. :-).

Fifth Week..

2007-09-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

It does not feel so. I am transformed in just four weeks. I think fast and do things faster. Last Sunday I went to dinner with a friend from M.S. It was fun. We went 3 hours and it was awesome. I met a person outside MBA for the first time and we talked about things other than MBA. I returned at 10:30 PM and read two cases till 1:30 AM before going to bed.

Monday started with the Finance Manager from INTEL talking about one of the projects that they are considering. It was about NPV calculation and I have participated in the case to the extent I can. It was really good. The marketing cases are always lengthy but they are fun to read.

Accounting has got a case to be read and I did read it. How can I miss it? We discussed the income statements and analyzing them. Operations class has been interesting all along and it is getting into real life scenarios. Next week we have to simulate a real factory scenario. I have to work with my team mate on that over the weekend.

There are many companies that came to campus this week. Delloitte, Discover, Microsoft, Huron and many more. I attended most of them, just to know about their operations.

I am done with the critical thinking exam today and I wrote the paper in 1 hour as opposed to the exam time of 2 hours. Have to look how I have done. Last week Quant midterm results came out and I scored 68. The mean was 70. I don’t mind. I am around the mean and that’s fine in that subject for me.

Also, I have attended the consulting club event. We will have case cracker sessions from next Friday onwards. How can I miss them? I love and love cases. I am going through some casebooks and am able to navigate through the case in a structured manner. I have to improve a lot on that. Also, I spoke to the second year guy, who is the current Vice President of professional development for consulting club. I talked to him about the tasks he take up and the difficulties and hurdles in the post. I would like to work in that post. I like developing others as part of the strategy and in turn developing my interpersonal skills.

Next week there are many home works lined up. I know. I tell the same thing every week. But, that’s the truth. It gets intense as we go on and I hope to cope up with that.

Fourth Week..

2007-09-22T13:36:00.000-04:00

I have to write this post yesterday evening. But I could not. Man, when second years and faculty told that CORE will be overwhelming and when I got through it for the first 3 weeks easily, I thought they had been exaggerating. An it turned out to be a big NO. I was toppled by CORE this week.

I got 96/100 in Finance quiz and 98/100 in accounting quiz. And I screwed up Data Analysis mid-term big-time. Of course, I have 8 subjects to study and my target is to excel in 5 of them and doing ok with in 3. I am trying to do the things on the same line.

We had to read a case every day and sometimes a couple of them and do a lot of other things side by side for networking stuff. It takes best of your organization skills to balance your work and relations. I figured out to do things in an order. I will do what requires my attention immediately. Then I will do the next one to that. I figured out that it is the optimum way I can do the things.

Coming to the Classes, they are in full swing as I told. We had to do Cases in Finance, Accounting, Operations and all. Economics got interesting when we discussed about FED funds rate cut. And how can miss to mention Marketing. One of the second years told earlier that once Marketing Professor comes to into the course, you think that you are working only on marketing. It’s perfectly true. He made us read 50 pages per day for every class of his and made us interview a consumer outside. We interviewed the mother of one of our teammates about her thinking and preferences when she bought a new Refrigerator recently. Marketing is really a fun class.

We had Consulting Academy Kick-off day on Friday. Many consultants (many of them Managing Directors at their firms) came and told us how they recruit, what they work on and how life in general as a consultant. Then in the evening we went play golf with them. This is the first time I am playing golf and you can expect the out come..:-).

We have assignments to be submitted on Monday and Wednesday. My team wants to meet on Sunday to finish them off. So, we can count Sunday as a working day. That makes only Saturday as the free day..We have a china night today and will attend that. It is an event organized by our Chinese batch mates.

I am freaking a lot on weekends. I watch movies till 4:30 AM and wake up at 10:30 AM. This is life on a fast lane, May be supersonic lane. I am enjoying it though..

Third Week.

2007-09-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

We are into the MBA Core deeply. It can take the soul from you away. It excites you to do so many things and gives you less time than ever to do those things. It's awesome.

Good news first. I have been selected for Students Admissions Council (SAC). Its not a great feat. We have 120 people for 60 positions. I felt really cool for this. I am excited to meet the new prospective students. It is going to start in a week or two. All those excited souls visiting campus to get a taste of the school. Every SAC member will do things like taking the prospective student to a class or for a building tour or information session. Drop me an email and we can try to meet even if you are not assigned to me for the day of visit.

I have been accepted into the consulting academy and so it begins.

I am really weighing my options as I go through the courses. Finance has been amazing. I am really impressed with the topics and their application. It is still on the top of my major list. The professor is amazing.

Accounting is getting into difficult areas and I am doing my home work to keep up with the pace. The good thing is Finance and Accounting involve numbers and I really love to deal with numbers.

Operations class was really good. We did a Case in which we can really see the effect of inventory and lead time. I am excited as I can bring in some perspectives from my previous experience and can relate them to the case. I read "The Goal" and submitted the summary. I was awake till 2 AM on that day to read 200 pages.

We have attended around four presentations by companies for summer internship. Man, you are into the classes only for 3 weeks and here you are trying to do something for internship. Thats what B-school is. Balance in a b-school is really tough. You got to read 8 subjects and so many social events and it takes good prioritization skills to swim through all these things.

I am happy for one thing. I am getting what I want - The Excitement of a world class program where you can meet the best people. Did I tell you that I am sitting in the first bench? :-) .

We have submitted one assignment for critical thinking and attended one Finance quiz today. The quiz is really good. Though it's not really tough, it tested the concepts that we learnt till today. We came to know that as we get into the course, it really gets tough.

Also, I have joined the Consulting club. It is different from Consulting Academy. Academies help you to get in touch with recruiters through networking events. Club helps you to be familiar with case interviews and other education stuff. Just an hour before I wrote this, my laptop almost crashed.

I tried some junk stuff on vista themes and it made my system unstable. Fortunately, I am able to recover the system after a little struggle.

Second Week..

2007-09-07T18:14:00.000-04:00

We got into full swing in week-2 and it was pretty exciting.
We went through the cases, prepared for classes till midnight and woke up at 6:45 AM to make it for the classes. Some times I came after the classes and slept on the floor while using my laptop. Then I realized that it is having its toll on me. Till Then I was really pulling myself hard to not to sleep in day time.

We are getting the updates from Graduate Career Services (GCS) on what to do and what to prepare. As part of it, I went to Vault site and downloaded "The Art of Schmoozing". I felt that it is a good book after I skimmed through a couple of chapters. I have put a couple of points into practice and realized how easy it is to deal with people. People wait for you to talk with them (Boys as well as Girls). So, you need to take intitaive and start the conversation. In the last two days, whenever I got into bus, I made it a point to start conversation with anyone who sits beside me and did that successfully. So I made three new friends in just two days.

Coming to the assignments part of it, we got into assignments mode and submitted one team assignment yesterday. We worked on it for 3.5 hours though we expected it to be complete earlier. But, It was fun working in a team to attain the common goal. Also, Our Data Analysis Professor told that we will have a mid term in a couple of weeks ahead. So, I have to look into that. Finance and Accounting professors are going to conduct a quiz (you have to do problems on paper) next week. I need to prepare for those problems too. Operations professor asked us to read "The Goal" novel. I read that a couple of years ago and remember that it is about theory of constraints. I have to read that or skim that again.

I Met the Students Admission Council (SAC) for an interview. I have applied for a position in SAC as it interested me a lot. It involves interaction with prospective students when they come for campus visit or interview for admission. I will definitely feel good if I can get a chance to do those things.

I went to meet the Director of Consulting Academy and it went well. I was able to successfully put forth my case for consulting. We have to wait for the result.

As usual we cooked chicken over the last weekend and it lasted for 5 days. We have to cook the things again tomorrow.

Today we had an evaluation session with Kelley Alumni. The program is called "Kelley Idol". You have to put forth your brand positioning about yourself to the alumni and they will rate you on various parameters. It was really a great Idea to get feedback.

Also, today we have had an LDI Assessment. In that they put you through a set of roles. I acted as Vice President of Marketing for a firm and have to do 4 exercises in that role.
1. Discuss with the Board of Directors on an issue.
2. Meet Exec Vice president and convince him on an idea.
3. Meet a Director, who is not getting his team along and got a poor quarterly review.
4. Address a media meeting and answer their poking questions.

The best thing with this whole thing is they record each and every second of all this and give you a copy of that along with a feedback. So, you can just see yourself and know the mistakes in your expressions and also the style.

Kelley gives a lot of personal attention. The GCS director will remember your name and address you with that every time you see him/her. They are trying very hard to get you where you want to go. I am really amazed at their efforts. I can only tell one thing. If you want to be in a school where you DON'T want to feel that you are lost, Kelley is the best. I have not seen other schools. So, I will not comment on them.

From Now on, I will try to post my experience week-wise. We have got a total of 16 weeks in the first semester and we were through with 2 weeks already.

The First week..

2007-08-31T22:48:00.000-04:00

We have successfully completed the first week in the program. It was really good. The following are the highlights:

1. Strategy case discussion for 4 hours continuously. You can not complain. This was the best of the week.
2. Operations case discussion: Started off on a well note with a case.
3. Corporate Finance: Again, words coming out from the professor who has been consulting for Intel
4. Accounting: You can never feel you are learning Accounting. He is agile(he is a basket ball player and loves to play with students) and can call your name and ask you to explain the transaction. So you will be on your toes.
5. Critical thinking: A comic way of teaching teaching the interesting yet intriguing subject.

There are many more..We are able to go through all these and just had a small party at home..Looking forward to the great excitement of clubs and academies..

Inducted into MBA..

2007-08-25T15:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we were officially inducted into Kelley MBA program. The dean and faculty welcomed us into the program. The classes are going to commence from Monday. Kelley has increased the batch size to 240 from 200 and we are all geared up to start the program.

The following are the photos from the induction ceremony.

Me, Camilo and Tomo

Me and Tomo

Steve, Tomo, Brian, Me, Courtney and Tommy (kneeling).

Academies, Curriculum, Round Tables and Kelley Code

2007-08-23T18:03:00.000-04:00

I am here at Kelley. The school, thats giving me the exposure or experience that I have never thought of. I am happy. It is motivating me to put the extra hours. From Monday starts the Kelley Core. It is one of the most rigorous time that I am going to go through in these 2 years. I have to study 8 subjects. I am excited to face it though I know that its going to overwhelm me.

The one specialty that makes Kelley stand out from other business schools is its Academies. Academies give you the training and the contacts in your interest area. I am interested in consulting and so there is no problem deciding on that count. But, If you are open, you can see so many academies each trying to propel you into the direction you want to go to.

For example, McKinsey does not come to recruit on campus at Kelley. But, thanks to the director of our Consulting Academy, the second years are going to McKinsey for a week long experience on one of their live projects. MBA is all about networking and you will get lots of opportunities to network with the top guys in whatever function you want to get into. Thats why Academies are so special about.

The other specialty about Kelley Curriculum is that you need not specialize in any one Major (Ex: Marketing, Finance..) and you can design your own courses. It is called design major. Kelley offers so many courses to customize your curriculum that you can take courses from the wide breadths.

Coming to the networking part, It starts well ahead of what you think. Today we went to meet recruiters. Yes. Today and you are right that we have not started our classes yet. Classes commence from next monday. We had an informal chat yesterday evening and a formal session today with the recruiters where we discuss about their companies and the positions that they offer.

Kelley is very strict about its code as most business schools do. You have to abide b the high standards of integrity. It means that you may not do the 100% work, but you need to be genuine.

All in all it is exciting. It is like knowing that you are going to e hit hard, but, You want to experience the victory once you come over that. Go Hoosiers..!

Orientation.. Case competition..

2007-08-17T17:22:00.000-04:00

What a week it has been. The most hectic it has been in my life. We have attended social events and there was a case competition for the new first year students. It was really amazing. We have to analyze the case for 2 full days and present it to a team of 3 second years.

Our team worked a long 18 hours yesterday (8 AM to 2 AM) and when I went to bed yesterday it was 4:30 AM. I woke up by 8 AM as we have to present the case recommendations at 9:30 AM. We were not able to win the competition. But, there are alot of learnings from this.

1. Case should definitely show the financial implications of a particular recommendation. We missed on this part. Though we have got some estimates, we did not really incorporate them into presentation. The judges felt that it is very important to show numbers to back up recommendations.

2. The presentation should be more visual than we think it has to be. We have put lots of information into slides and I felt that it is not a god way. We have to put numbers and graphs into the presentation and explain them in the presentation rather than reading out the content from slides.

But, the financial estimate we did was really thoughtful. It made us think like if Apple introduces a new product, what will be the market for that?. To answer these type of questions, we need to make some assumptions based on the existing data and not just take some number rapidly.

I am looking forward to more learning as we proceed. There is one more social event tonight. Will have to attend that. I am afraid whether I can maintain the frequency of my posts on my blog. I will try to..

Team Building, Bradford Woods...

2007-08-14T17:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we went to Bradford woods. It is a 2500 acre woods area owned by Indiana University. We went there for some team building activities and it was really fun. More than fun, it helped us to coagulate ourselves with others in the team. We played outdoor games that really need team work and we really got satisfied when we were able to complete them though we faced difficulties.

We got together for dinner in the IU Alumni hall and it was like a british mahal. It was really good. After the dinner, we went to Yogi's, a famous bar in Bloomington. We took some drinks there and enjoyed discussion with friends and seniors.

If you are concerned about the rankings, here was where Kelley stands:

INDIANA RANKINGS
Full-time MBA rank:

2004:	18	1994:	7
2002:	20	1992:	8
2000:	20	1990:	15
1998:	21	1988:	12

You can see that Kelley was in the top 10 in 1990s but slipped and it is again gaining momentum. They are taking so many measures those I am confident, are going to make it one among the best again.

Jump start, IU, International Orientation and The weekend party..

2007-08-12T01:56:00.000-04:00

The jump start ended finally on yesterday. It was truly amazing. We had jump start in Excel, Finance and Accounting. Man, the professors are really amazing.

The accounting professor is so energetic that you can not get away from participation in the class. We did a little exercise on Accounting statements and it gave us a taste of real accounting.

The Financial professor is cool. He explained the time value of money neatly and threw good examples to make us understand.

The Excel professor was the coolest of all. He shown us how his dog plays and he has shown us the trailers of Dogs carving for beer.

Don't think that it is all fun. We were on our toes in every class to answer the professor's questions or understand the things they convey. They are so energetic that you can ask them any stupid question and they will answer to the most satisfactory point.

They are the professors who are going to teach us the core classes. I am looking forward to them with eagerness.

Coming to Indiana University, what shall I say. It is one of the best places that I have seen. The university is so big that, where ever you walk down, you see a IU department over there. School of arts, music, journalism, and what ever you can imagine.

We had the international students orientation today and We met a lot of international students. Many of them are from Asia and Japan. The Japanese are really humorous and made us laugh. The experiences vary from working in police department to working for stock exchanges to working for Auditing firms and of course IT. I am looking forward to the rich experience that I can relish in the coming days.

And after the orientation, 7 of us got together and had a party. I am writing this at 2:08 AM. It is like, you never know how time passes by. But it is truly exciting..

Jump Start started..

2007-08-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

We have a weekly course called jump start, where in you will learn the basics of Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Methods using Excel. Today is the first of these classes and I have attended the QM and Finance classes. The professors are the ones who wrote famous books in their respective fields.

It is exciting to learn many new things in using Excel 2007. Also the finance class was interesting with the examples given by the professor to high light the time value of money.

I got up early at 6:30 as the classes start at 8 AM. I need to run in the last minute to get the bus at 7:38 AM. I need to be more organized to be able to do the things in a little time.

I have got a book on Corporate Finance from Library. I need to have a look at it. Also, the excel prof gave some examples to work out. I have not attempted them today as I slept after returning from the classes.

Update on setup at Kelley..

2007-08-03T18:07:00.000-04:00

Here goes the full fledged update from me.

I and my future roommate booked the ticket together. We boarded Kingfisher Airlines at Hyderabad on 30-July at 5:40 PM and there started my journey to U.S. We got to Mumbai at 6:45 PM and got through the clearances and checking by 10:30 PM. Here I have to leave out 5 packs of 7'o clock blades and a small scissors. We took some rest before getting into the Delta flight to NY at 12:20 AM. We traveled nonstop to NY for 16 hours and reached NY at 7 AM. The food in the flight is good but not great. Again we got through the clearances and I have to leave out my Vaseline and Shampoo at the security check as they are prohibited and I forgot to put them into the check in baggage. We got into the Indianapolis flight at 10:30 AM and reached Indianapolis at 1:00 PM on July-31. Here we met another guy, who is joining Kelley and we took a limo service to Bloomington. Our journey took an hour and the driver took us around the university for free before dropping us at the apartments.

We forgot the apartment number of the friend, whose room we are going to use for the next couple of days as our apartment lease going to start only on August-2. Finally we were able to figure it out and joined him. We were there for 2 days and he was very courteous. We shifted to our apartment on August-2 and are still settling the things up. The funniest thing is the sun does not settle down till 9 PM as it is summer here.

Meanwhile, one of my uncles, who is in US came to see me on August-1 and we went roaming around the city in his car. We want to cell phone providers, supermarkets and many other place. He gave a laptop for me and when I want to pay for it, he did not accept the money. He told that he want to resent it to me. Also he asked me to check up with the University guys about the Cosigner loan. I felt so glad for that.

We got our student Id and its free to travel in buses with the id. Also, we went to look up the library, school and book store. All in all it is going great. We have got a lot of people here and having fun. We have started cooking for ourselves and I dont think it is going t be a problem for me as I can adjust to any type of food. We got some food stuff from near by stores and are using that for tha past 2 days.

We have not got any furniture till now and we have to look into that. We are sleeping on the carpet with a blanket and its not that bad. So..The journey has started. I am not running like I do every time when I start something. I am composed and want to start it slowly and steadily. Thats it for now.

Finally, I am in US..

2007-08-02T01:20:00.000-04:00

I have not posted for a week because I was totally busy arranging the things for flight and after arriving in US I need to do alot of things. Now I can just say that I landed in US and I am ust setting the things up. I will post more details as I go on. Its already 1:30 AM and I need to get some sleep.. :).

Hurray..Things are getting into shape..

2007-07-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

Many of things fell into place. Importantly, the finance has been arranged. My rescuer is the one, who came to my rescue many times before. She is my Aunt. After I got to know that my friend can not arrange the funds, I spoke to her and told the case.

She spoke with uncle and he called me up and asked how much I want. I told that I need 2 Lakhs (USD 5,000). he told immediately that 'OK'. Come and take the amount.

I went to Tirupathi (A holy place in India) along with my parents and sister and from there I alone went to my uncle's home in Bangalore and took the money. Also we exchanged it for dollars. Also I did some shopping and bought a suit, a pair of shoes and a trolley for cabin baggage.

My uncle in US told that his friend has got a new DELL laptop recently and he is going for an upgraded machine and just want to sell it off. My uncle asked him to hold it so that I can take it. So the laptop is ready in Indianapolis. I can pick it up once I reach Bloomington. Also, I am going for the insurance from School so that I don’t have to take any risks. Also, one of my friends in Champaign told that he can give a $1000 and it won't be a problem. I will think over it once I land there.

All in all, things are getting into shape. We are arranging a party to our relatives tomorrow. It is a small one. I don't want to have it, But, my mother insists that we should have it so that we can make all of them happy.

Woes with funds..

2007-07-20T00:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I posted that one of my friends has applied for the personal. The story turned in to a sour one as his parents don’t want him to take the loan as they may need it in future. He has a sister to marry off. of course, they are rich and they can do the marriage with out this loan. May be his father is not relying on me. I can understand them. Who can bet on a person, who is going to be in U.S for the next 2 years and how can one rely that even if he comes back he will repay it.

Of course, I know that I will repay the money by fighting tooth and nail. I get the reminiscences of my school and UG when we used to scramble for hundreds and thousands. Now we are scrambling for Lakhs (hundred thousands). But, I like the way life turns around for me. For me it always has been a Snakes & ladders game. I climb and slide down. But, the joy of doing that is the ultimate thing in life.

Yesterday when I visited the village i got the reminiscences of my childhood, when we used to play a lot and do little politics in groups. Also the little love stories of many of my friends is very funny to me now. All in all, life places the hurdles and gives you the strength to overcome them. :) .

My trip to village..

2007-07-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

I have been making small trips to my hometown and the village where I did my schooling. The people in my hometown were so happy and one of them told that I am looking like a guy from US. They just know that one can earn alot in US. So they are expecting me to earn a lot. :) .

Also I visited the village, where I did my schooling 10th standard. I had been in Telugu medium till 10th standard and went to a near city for 12th. I met some family friends over there and they too felt happy for me. Also I have visited two temples, where I used to go when I studied in the village.

On the loan front, my friend has submitted all the required documents and we are awaiting for the verification and approval.

My newly bought laptop has got infected with Virus and I have to sweat out for 2 hours to make it work again. We are planning to visit Tirupathi this weekend. :)

At home..arranging the things..

2007-07-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

Finally, I left Bangalore permanently and reached home on Friday. I was not able to post in the last few days of my stay in Bangalore as I was busy buying the things that I have to carry to US and also I bought a Laptop that I want to keep at home so that my Sister and parents can use it. The state of internet connection in my town is worst and only today I was able to get connected through Laptop. Also we did some shopping for dresses in my hometown.

I have to order a laptop in US that can be delivered before we arrive in Bloomington. I need to do some research on that. We have finalized on Lenovo T61 and with a good configuration it will cost me $1450. On the loan front I will not able to avail an educational loan as the manager is skeptic that the total cost of $100,000 is too high and the loan amount $20000 he can provide is not sufficient. One of my childhood friends is suggesting that he will take a personal loan to the tune of INR 200,000 ($5,000) so that he can pay the EMI of INR 5,500 over a period of 4 years. I am glad that he is very interested to help me.

I will post more as I go on with my shopping and other arrangements.

Done with office..

2007-07-07T22:39:00.000-04:00

I am done with the office. Friday, 06-July, was my last working day. My team lead gave a treat to the team and wished me luck for my dreams. The settlement process went on quite easy and I felt a little sad to give away the ID card that gave me the full power to roam anywhere in the office. I had taken a temporary badge on the last day and I have to be like a stranger in the office as security people look at me skeptically because of the temporary badge. I met some great people at work and they are simple and hard working. I learnt a lot from them.

Also. I feel sad to leave a distant cousin, whom I came to know just a week ago. Though we know each other for quite sometime, only recently we came to know that there is something common.

Finally, I have to give away the laptop, which was with me for the past one and half years and shared my feelings in the MBA application race. Thank you my dear laptop for your patience during my usage of you.

On the loan front, Dad says that the Manager is yielding and he agreed to give loan on the property that we have in the village. I will post more on this once I go home. I am leaving Bangalore permanently and am going to my home town this Thursday.

My trip to Home, loan and a friend's marriage..

2007-07-03T07:12:00.000-04:00

I went to my hometown last Thursday. The purpose was two fold : 1. To have a chat with the Manager of a local branch of a nationalized bank. 2. To attend the marriage of the guy who is coming to Kelley with me and also my would be room mate.

My first interaction with the manager did not go quite well.
I went to him with all the documents including VISA and have shown them to him. After looking at them, he told that its good that I have studied at NIT Warangal. And at last he said that whatever it, as he told earlier to my father, I have to get a property in the town to mortgage. I told him that we don't have anything in the town but we have property in the near by village and we can mortgage that if required. He insisted on the urban property, which we don't have. I have shown him the printout that I took from the Bank's website and told that the rules say that I need not mortgage anything if the amount is less than INR 400,000. He told that the rules will be like that and they need to take the default situations in the branch to approve loans without mortgage and he can not do it. All this went on while I was just standing in front of him. He did not even offered a seat. He told that I can go and come with the things that I was told.
While going to my hometown I took a printout of the contact numbers of General Managers and other executives of the bank. After the above conversation, I called up one of the General Managers and told him the situation. He gave the contact of the Zonal Manager (ZM), under whom our branch manager works. I spoke to the Zonal Manager and explained him the situation. He asked me to go to the manager and give a call from there. So, I went to the manager and called the ZM and handed the phone over to the Manager. He said ok to whatever the ZM told on phone. Then he asked me why I have called up the ZM. I told him that I don’t see anyway that I could get a loan as I don’t' have any property as the manager told. He told that he will speak to my father on this. I told him that there is nothing my father can do and my father can just sign for surety. The manager asked me to go to Bangalore and come back and told that he will do the loan once I am back to my hometown. I thanked him ad got out.
After I returned home, the ZM called me up and told that the manager agreed to process the loan once I come back from Bangalore and asked me to call him if there is anymore problem. I thanked him and told that I will call him once I am back from Bangalore.

On the other note, I have attended the marriage of the guy, who is going to be my roommate at Kelley. The wedding was marvelous and I wished them the best for their new life. The silver lining is that the surname of the bride and my surname are same. So my new roommate is my Brother-In-Law.
I am back to Bangalore today morning and I have lots of things to do. :) .

Went to Tirupathi..

2007-06-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

I went to Tirupathi after coming from the visa work in Chennai. I got tonsured in Tirupathi as a Courtesy to God for making my life simpler after a hell of activities over the past quite sometime. We climbed the hills and it took around 5 hours to reach the temple at hill top. We are a total of 9 members including my uncle and aunty. We started the hike at 8:15 PM, went on with chit chatting and reached the top at around 1:00 AM. We went to the reserved apartment and kept the luggage and I went in search of the place where I can get tonsured. I have searched till 3 and came to know that the office will be opened at 4 AM. So I went back to apartment and slept till 5. We got up at 5 AM and went to visit the god. We were out by 7 AM. Then I went to the public tonsuring place and got my head tonsured. Then we got back to Apartment and left Tirumala at 10 AM.

Then, on the way to Bangalore we went to Kanipakam (Temple of lord Ganesha, The god who can eliminate the hurdles) and Reached Bangalore at around 9:30 PM. We went in the Tavera of our Uncle and had fun through out the Journey.

Visa..Got it..

2007-06-22T02:19:00.000-04:00

Finally I am done with the last and the important part of the process. I got the visa to travel to USA.

It went like this:

VO: Good morning sir.
Me: Good morning sir.
VO: You r going for an MBA?
Me: Yes.
VO: Show me ur UG certificates.
Me: Here they are.
VO: Any backlogs?
Me: No
VO: What was ur favourite subject?
Me: Mathematics
VO: Which one in maths?
Me: Calculas
VO: Why?
Me: [:o] It can prove many physics theorems [:P].
VO: Ok. Show me ur GMAT score report.
Me: here it is.
VO: What is ur father?
Me: Asst Manager.
VO: When will u come back?
Me: Immediately after MBA [:P].
VO: Ok Sir, I am granting you a visa.
Me: Thank you sir.

I went in at around 7:30 AM and was out by 8:30 AM. It went really cool and fast.

Thanx to one and all who gave their support and suggestions for Visa.

Love,
IA.

Going for Visa Interview..

2007-06-19T01:06:00.000-04:00

Hello friends,

I am going for visa interview to Chennai. I will be there this Wednesday and Thursday. For the past two days I have looked after the required documents and got everything into place. I will post my experience after my return.

Working Efficiently..

2007-06-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

I thought about working efficiently many times. I think that I have to work in a systematic way. But when I come to work I don’t follow the rules that I set for myself. For the past two days I am working on a new installation of software. I did the installation before too. But I am facing problems now and had to do the installation twice to get it work.

So, I thought again. I should have got a check list for the installation. I should have followed the steps and not just click set-up to install it. I did not do it. It should have been easier if I have got this done in a systematic way. I wonder whether many people work like me. If they do, its a waste of lot of valuable time. Many people think that working in a systematic way means following a lot of documents and doing a ritual. It’s not so. It’s just to know what to do and what is the best way to do that. If I have to go to a place, its better to know how I can go before starting than get lost in the way and go round and round to reach the place. Its simple. But we don’t do it many times. Life gets easier and simpler with arranging things and planning and we can avoid many frustrating moments.

Hope, I will follow this simple thing to make life easier.

Gabriel wrote an interesting article on systematic working. Check that out here

Good to Great..What a book it is..

2007-06-13T01:43:00.001-04:00

I read the book Good to Great. It was prescribed to me by one of the Professors at Kelley when I sent a mail to her. And it turned out to be an amazing book. Many of the myths I had were shattered by the facts stated in the book. This book is the result of a 5 year research by Jim Collins and his team.

Here were the 3 main myths that I had:

1. CEOs of the best companies are larger than life personalities:
Ans: CEOs of some of the best turnarounds in the history are not charismatic people. They are demanding and they work as a fellow man to get the things done and they don’t want to have a 13th floor office to show the status.

2. We have to motivate people to get the things done:
Ans: If we have the right people at right positions, we need not motivate them. They will be motivated by the determination of the leader. They believe in him if the goals set are realistic and achievable. One need not blabber the motivational talk to get them aligned.

3. Strategy is the important part than people:
Ans: Totally wrong. Many turnarounds were made possible by hiring the best people and having a strategy for turnaround. So, the first thing in a business should be who to hire and not what and how. The who can decide what and how and when.

Anshu from NUS has got an interesting review on this. check it here.

There are many great points like these. So grab a copy of it if you want to go through all of them. I hope you guys will enjoy it alot.

Update on Visa front..

2007-06-13T00:34:00.000-04:00

I have not posted for quite a long time. I went to Hyderabad last weekend and was there till yesterday. I got the Charted Accountant certification done there. This completes my documentation for Visa. Now just have to put everything into order. One of my friends has a H1-B visa interview on the same day as mine. So, we booked a hotel room in Chennai.

Also I met a lot of friends from College, school and my previous company. It was really fun. Also I met an aunt, who told that she can help if I have any problem. It was truly amazing trip except for the part that I lost my spectacles again (Third time in Six months). I got poorer by INR 2000 with that.

It rained heavily in Hyderabad on Tuesday and I was soaked in that just before coming to the Airport. I came back to Bangalore by 7:45 PM and went to a friend's room. My cousin attended GRE and scored an awesome 1320. He attended the test a month ago and got only 970. He was preparing for it for the past 1 year. I was really happy to hear the news. May he get into one of the good schools for MS.

My Last month..

2007-05-31T04:03:00.001-04:00

Told my team lead today that its time for me to move. He was a little disappointed and told that "You are a critical resource from the technology front and requirement analysis, but since you are going for higher studies I can't ask you to reconsider your decision".

I was feeling deeply sad to convey the news. Yesterday we were discussing some things and he told that you are sufficient to discuss this with the client. I asked him to involve another guy too so that things don't get complicated once I move out. My relationship with the new lead is a very short one but he is very considerate, cooperative than many of the other guys I have seen.

Also, we discussed that most of the work will be done before I move out and we can really work the things out really. I am already feeling a sense of going away from my loved ones. This organization has given me the thing that I value most - freedom. I used to work at my own timings, my own setup. As long as the work was done, no one objected. I will write whole of my experience, once I move out..

Operations - Is it low paying? Is it lousy?

2007-05-28T03:18:00.000-04:00

When I tell people that I am interested in Operations, they come up with a couple of points, of course, against taking up a job in operations. I will try to answer what I feel about those.

1. Operations is low paying: Yes. The function has been looked upon as an ugly shop floor job, where you have to sweat out among the machinery along with the not so educated work men. Also, the finance guys will question everything that you want to invest for new operations equipment. But, its not easy to understand the operations of a company and propose measures to operate efficiently. There is a good scope for consultants who can help a company produce more efficiently.

2. Operations is Boring: Do they know how much potential is there for savings in the operations and supply chain? The existing operations at many organizations are not so lean or efficient and it strikes you as soon as you look at a production setup or supply chain. You can always come up with a better alternative. And operations is not just producing the goods, it is producing them efficiently and as we reduce the prices of the goods to accommodate the price cuts by the company to sustain the competitive advantage, it is the duty of the operations guys to produce the goods in an efficient way to reduce costs.

Supply Chain: I think its this, that is going to take the world by storm. Massive supply chains, originating at the polar ends and culminating at the middle of the earth. Can we imagine a cotton seed originating in India, exported to China, weaved into a beautiful cotton pant for the shopper at Wal-mart in US? That is what is happening in today's world. You source the raw materials from the opposite corners of the world and produce the goods. So, at each step in this chain there is a potential for savings. I think the British have done a great job during the initial days of Industrialization, when they have to source the materials from many of their colonies and produce the goods.

After all, money is just one aspect of it. Finally, I Always go where my heart feels home and not where I have to squeeze my heart to make my brain work on the things.

After all, Kelley was one of my dream schools in UG

2007-05-25T02:32:00.001-04:00

I was at home a couple of weeks back and was going through the books and articles that I have collected. I collect a lot of business books (of course at cheap rates only) and when I have to move out from my last job I have to send those books in a gunny bag to my home.

The point is that when I were in B.Tech Final year at NIT warangal, I used to search for Best business books and Best business schools through google in the college digital library. I used to order the view books of the top colleges and when they arrived, I relished looking at the beautiful campuses and the best companies of the world recruiting from those schools.

So, Last week at home, when I was searching through those books, I found out the view books of U of Mich, LBS, ISB, Kellogg and finally KELLEY. The view books are dated 2002-03. Exactly five years ago, I got them from the schools and I was happy to know that after all I got into one of my dream schools. Of course, in 2002-03 I don’t know much about how should I go to those schools. For how many years should I work before applying? Can I go there at all? I was appearing for CAT (Admission test for Indian Institutes of Management) and completely forgot about the foreign schools. But it suddenly happened before I can realize.

I am into one of my dream schools. You are destined for what is right for you.

My problems to get an Educational loan from India

2007-05-23T01:59:00.000-04:00

I went to a manager of a Public sector bank yesterday along with my uncle. My uncle knows some of the key contacts in that bank. We went there and after showing up all the documents the manager told that they are not giving loans that actively these days.

We have shown my B.Tech Degree certificate from NIT Warangal, I-20 and loan approval letter from Kelley. He asked about the kelley loan and told that it may be difficult to get a loan because I already have a loan from Kelley and it is going to be burden some on me to repay. He is skeptical that betting on me is a huge risk as I have to repay around 40 lakhs in loan (Kelley loan + this loan). He told that he will speak to the regional office and will let us know. I understood that this is going to be a fruitless task. Let us see what happens. I am fighting tooth and nail with the little contacts I have to connect to some of the bank managers and convince them for loan. We know a bank manager in Hyderabad but we don’t have any assets to show as surety. So the problems continue..

On the job front, I have decided to put my papers in the first week of June. My current manager is very friendly he doesn’t know about my MBA. He is involving me in each and every task and am happy for that. But it may get difficult for him to do the things with a new resource if I go very late. So, don't want to bother him. I will tell early so that he can make his plans.

H1B Problems for Foreign MBA Students in US

2007-05-18T08:12:00.000-04:00

It is getting tough to get H1B Visas after an MBA in US. The increased number of students and the cap of 65000 visas are making the things difficult. Business Week has an article on this. Its painful to see this at a moment when many of us are pulling our socks to get ready for an MBA in US.

But..The tough will survive. Now and Always..Dont be bothered. I am sharing this just to let you guys know about this.

Read the Full story Here:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2007/bs20070514_587413.htm

Interesting blog on Lean manufacturing..

2007-05-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

As told earlier, I get excited to learn new lessons on Supply Chain and Operations. The more interesting thing is the optimization of the existing systems, which can produce to meet the growing demands of the fast increasing upper middle class. Many people think that it's great to achieve lean manufacturing and optimization in systems.

But, I look at it this way. The purchasing power of the middle class has been increasing greatly and the percentage of people in middle class is increasing at a never seen before rate. Especially the Asian countries are experiencing huge growth in income of their workforce.

What does that mean? We have to use the best processes and produce more than before with the same resources. If we utilize more resources to produce more then the demand for resources would go up and so will be the costs. This is wat is happening in some of the industries to day and that is causing the inflation to move to higher levels.

I have come across a blog named Lean Blog. It has got lots of good references and articles on lean manufacturing.

Going forward, lean manufacturers outpace others and new giants will emerge as Toyota bet GM, which was the market leader for around a century.

Received I-20..And other stuff..

2007-05-15T03:51:00.000-04:00

Got my I-20 yesterday. Unfortunately, there are no Visa dates available in the near future. I have to keep checking for it. Today I have paid the Visa fees at HDFC bank.

The work for visa documentaion is going on at a snail's pace. My father is trying to arrange the documents regarding fixed assets. I am trying to get some more money into my account to meet the funds requirements apart from Kelley loan.

Also we have booked an apartment in Bloomington at Fountainpark. I am sharing it with a guy from Hyderabad. We paid the deposit. Also we have blocked Air-India tickets for 31-July. We will think over other stuff once i get the visa.

Project Management..What is it?

2007-05-08T08:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I sat together with my project manager to prepare the project plan for the next 3 months and man, After brainstorming for 2 hours we got the brains out of our head. There are so many constraints and so many dependencies. And we have to delay working by 2 weeks just because of a thing which is not in our hands..

I used to think project management as allocating resources and asking them to work on a set of objectives. But, Project Management is not easy as it seems to be and more commonsense goes into managing projects and resources. Last week I Read Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and it was a compelling stuff. Everything portrayed in that is commonsense. It shows that how we are carried away by the flaws that were established some years or sometimes some decades ago.

It shows how to use common sense to manage the critical resources and improve overall performance of a production environment. The business side is mixed with the personal story of a business school professor who studies the critical chain and other things. Over all it made a good read. It shows how to manage projects where we have overlapping priorities for resources and dependencies. It is really a food for brain book.

I have experience in operations and maintenance and my mind is acute towards that. The numbers game and optimization in a manufacturing and supply chain environment interest me. So am thinking of concentrating on those functions in my future consulting career.

Delay in Receiving I-20..

2007-05-08T08:41:00.000-04:00

Spoke to the International Admissions guys yesterday and came to know that they have a pile of files before mine and it will take considerable time before I get the I-20. They told that it will come in the next 2 weeks. So I have started off with Visa documentation. Contacted a CA and got the list of the documents required for property evaluation.

Will try to do everything before I-20 arrives and will take a visa appointment with in 10 days of receiving I-20. Meanwhile, my friend from hyderabad has got I-20 and we blocked tickets to Indianapolis from hyderabad. We are still searching for some better deals and convenient timings.

A bunch of students coming to Kelley went through the VISA process and they all have got Visas till now.. So I am hoping for the best..

I-20 on the way..

2007-05-02T01:12:00.000-04:00

Finally, received a mail from INternational Admissions at Indiana that they are done with my I-20 and it will be sent soon through an express mail. I think I will get it to my hands in the next week. International Admissions has to process the admissions of all the UG and PG foreign students and so the process has not moved as I expected it to. I thought that the I-20 will reach me the last week itself. Anyway, if I-20 comes to me, atleast then I can start the process for VISA documentation. I am lazying around these days, with out much of productive stuff..Atleast now I shall concentrate on the visa work. Last weekend I went to a movie with two of my cousins and it was worst. In the hottest midday we were hit hard by the movie. Adding to the woes I lost my 10th standard marks sheet. I am finding the ways to get a duplicate one. :) .

Funds for Visa..A dilemma..

2007-04-25T08:09:00.000-04:00

I am still thinking over how to arrange for funds to demonstrate to the Visa Officer that I have sufficient funds for studies. From my calculations I need to show atleast 15 lakhs and its near to impossible to show that amount from personal or parents' funds.

The other way is to take a loan from any indian bank and use the loan approval letter as source of funds. But showing all the amount as loans, one from Kelley and other from a bank here may sound like I am very much lack of funds.

Another way is take the support letter from an uncle and use that. I am skeptical again here that they may doubt why my uncle is supporting and not my father.

I am in a dilemma. MBA can not be achieved only through wits. It needs might too. :-( .

Update on Kelley..

2007-04-23T01:39:00.000-04:00

Received the loan letter from Kelley showing that I have been approved of loan for $33K for each of first and second years. This letter I can use as a proof of funds for Visa purpose. Called up International Admissions and confirmed that they too received the loan copy. So they would be processing my I-20 and I am expecting it to arrive in this week.

Went to a Visa consultant and asked abot funding. They too were telling that its better to show the funds from any of the family members (Father, Mother) than from Uncle etc..Also spoke about the CA certificate..I have to get the certificate for fixed assets and their value for the CA certificate. I think thats the one that is going to take some time. I will enroll with these consultants this week and jump start the work.

Here the tasks that I have to do as soon as I get the I-20:

1. Enroll with consultants and start the documentation.
2. Speak to banks about educational loan.
3. Estimate the time it takes to do the Visa dcumentation and Take an appointment for Visa as soon as possible.
4. Get in touch with people to look out for possible travel date and flight ticket.
5. Think about apartment.

Shopping and all that I can do after I get the Visa..

Essays: To Hire or Not to Hire a Consultant ?

2007-04-17T06:20:00.000-04:00

One of the questions that comes to the mind of many applicants when they have started the Application process or when they are done with the GMAT is whether to hire or not to hire a consultant.
The answer really depends on each individual's case.

To Hire: The consultants have got lots of experience and they can give your essays a good form using the key words and formats. But, when you hire a consultant don't ask him to write the essays. Write your essays atleast in bullet point format and show it to them and ask them to check the structure and presentation. You need to shell out considerable amount to get this done through a good consultant. Remember..Never copy someone's essay and modify that to suit you. It will not reflect a fresh story.

NOT To Hire: I have not hired a consultant or for that matter even have not read any book for essays. I have gone through the internet and have seen some of the essays for structure. May be not hiring a consultant has cost me dearly as you can see I have got 8 rejects out of 9 applications. But, I have applied to the top schools and it really did not hurt that much to get a reject because I am fighting for the cream. One of the other drawbacks of not having a consultant is you may not get good reviewers for essays. This is the case with me. None of my friends have gone through this process or not much aware of this essay process and so I am not able to get good reviewers for the essays. Reviewers are very important to check grammar, structure and content rationality and relevance.
Finally, The one best thing of not hiring a consultant and doing your essays and getting into a school boosts your confidence. I am confident now on my skills to plan and execute the herculean task of Applying and getting into a B-school.

So, just evaluate yourself and see if you require a consultant. If you would like to hire one, speak to some of the people who have done that and take their advice. If you are not hiring a consultant here are some of the resources that may come to your help.

1. Essay Edge- Sample essays..As told not copy them..They are public and lack the freshness.

2. How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs by Richard Montauk - I have not read this, but another blogger told that she has gone through this and its very nice. Again, don't copy anything, but use them for reference and style.

3. MBA Game Plan- Sample Essays..Good resources of samples..Go through them.

Finally, Know yourself and start writing the essays well more than 2 months in advance. The first application will take more time as you have to write the content for first time.
From the second application onwards you can use the content from the first application. But for the Why school? answer write really something you spoke to current students, faculty and came to know and not that Its great school for consulting.

Consulting and Case Interviews

2007-04-17T02:09:00.000-04:00

Consulting is all about asking the right questions. Its the evolution of thought process from the problem to possible solutions.

1. Understand the business problem : This is the first and important step. Lets take an example. We are asked to address the issue of declining profits of a large retailer. So, understand what really is the problem. Declining profits and not the revenues or something else.

2. Analyze the problem: The most important of all - The analytical skills come into picture here. Profits are declining only for client or his competitors also? Is there any increase in Costs? Is there any decrease in Revenue? What is the market trend? What is the trend in Clients profits? Are there any changes in the market through innovative selling?

3. Analyze the options : What are the options available to increase the profits? This is the next step to the above (step 2). From the analysis in step 2 we will come to know what is the main reason for declining profits is. We will decide the best possible options to increase the profits.

4. Execution of the options : How can we execute the ideas that we have got to increase the profits? Do we have the required resources? Should we put in more resources or buy? What is the rate of return for the new investment? How does this investment reflect in long term strategy?

By this time, you must have realized that case interviews and consulting jobs are all about asking and answering the right questions. It should evolve as a thought process and the practice of lots of cases makes the candidate's thought process more evolved. I have not yet started my B-School studies. I can post more on this once I get started. After all solving cases does not require an MBA. It requires commonsense and logic.

The Ranking Myth..

2007-04-13T01:58:00.000-04:00

There are many rankings available and the applicants first look at BW rankings or US News rankings to decide on the schools that they want to apply than to speak to people at schools or alumni. This is the BIGGEST Flaw in the application process.

There were many cases when people went to great schools and suffered because they cant really get what they want. SO just dont depend on the rankings. Think it this way..Harvard, Wharton and Chicago churn out around more than 4000 students per year. If these guys are going to take up the juicy jobs every where there will not be anything left out for anybody else. SO, not that everyone going to those will land in a best job..OK..Let me come to the point here.

As far as I understood..There are two categories of schools

Category A: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago, Columbia, Tuck, MIT, Kellogg.

Category B: The rest..

Its not that Category A is the only thing we should go..But they can get you a chance to interview with the high-fly recruiters. At the category B schools its going to be same for most of the candidates. The High-fly recruiters take very less number of candidates from these schools and prefer people with relevant experience. So its very difficult.

Just a caution: Set your priorities before coming to school. And know what can you expect from school. Frankly, I am not expecting Kelley School to show me an opportunity to interview with McKinsey or for that matter any Big consulting firm. I will be very much satisfied if I can make a career switch to consulting in Corporate Finance, Operations and Strategy. Thats it..And I believe that Kelley will be able to show that path to me..

I remember an instruction from My teacher in +2. Go to one of the top engineering schools, take any branch of engineering and work hard over there. You will be on top. I forgot this when I was in Engineering and faced some problems. Now I dont want to do that..

Its not easy for Desis in US..for Internships..

2007-04-12T07:34:00.000-04:00

Its not easy for Desis to get good internships in US. The fight for Internships is fiercer than for Post MBA jobs..Many companies like to offer full time jobs than internships. The fight for internships thru campus recruitment can be crazy. So many less spots and so many people with good profiles..Especially the Desis with the similar experience in IT. The key is differentiation. It pays to differentiate by industry(Telecom, Insurance..) or function(Finance, Human resource..) than just say Technology...Many recruiters prefer past work-ex in the industry or domain as the internship period is at the max 2 months and there is no point in learning to do the things at that time..

Whatever, the fight will be fierce and we have to get ready for this fight even before coming to the school. We should get some introduction to the courses that we are going to take up..(Finance, Economics, Accounting..) especially the desi techies..Many recruiters prefer people with local knowledge so the fight for the rest of the spots is huge..We have to hit the ground running when we land in School..I have come across a great struggle for intership by the famous Simba, the Pagal Girl..Read her blog for more..

What is Consulting..?

2007-04-10T23:37:00.000-04:00

I am posting this as aresponse to a comment given by a Rajuram in my previous post The life of a consultant?. Many people have the mindest that Consulting is Just Strategy Consulting and you have to work only at McKinsey to be a great consultant. Of Course McK pays the largest amount and thats why many are interested. But there are a bunch of companies other than McK, BCG and Booz Allen that realy do a good job.

Consulting is a broad term and it has many sections. We can break down consulting into two main ways.

1. Functional-wise : If you are good at Corporate finance, then you can be a consultant at Megers or Future investments. If you are good at Operations and Supply chain you can be a consultant at Production and sourcing and distribution Strategy. If you are good at Marketing, then you can work on product and promotion strategy.

2. Industry-wise : You have good exposure to consumer durables industry. So you can use that to give advice on various functional areas in that Industry.

Don't think that you have to work in McKinsey to be a great consultant. After all many McKinseyites quit after initial 2-3 years to settle down in a company. The work is too hectic and many have to sacrifice personal lives for work..And if you dont perform to the expectations you are out..

The life of a consultant?

2007-04-10T07:47:00.000-04:00

If you want to know how it feel to be a consultant at a BIG strategy consulting firm see the following link.

http://angelangie2008.blogspot.com/search/label/consulting.

I am very thankful to $udha, thru whom I am able to navigate there.. I am very greatful to the author who has really wrote a thought provoking post for the people who want to consider consulting as a career after MBA.

Working on the Financial documentation for I-20...

2007-04-09T06:05:00.000-04:00

For the past one week I am working on the financial documentation to be sent to Kelley. Kelley releases the I-20 only after proof of sufficient funds..Fortunately Kelley is giving a loan for $33K and it covers a huge part of the expenses. The total estimated expnses are around $47K for first year. So I just need to show the $14K proof. Borrowed the money from relatives and put that into a bank in Hyderabad and got the letter from Bank that my father has $$$ amount in account. I need to send this document to Kelley and will do that Today. Already I have sent the Loan request form to Kelley.

It takes around One month after sending all these documents for the I-20 to arrive. Also today I have accepted the offer from Kelley and paid the deposit of $500 thru credit card.

MY colleague goes to XLRI

2007-04-03T01:23:00.000-04:00

One of my close colleagues have gone thru XL. We wrote CAT last year and I fared at 98.2 and he at 99.4. We both did not get any calls due to screwing up of one of the sections. I went o GMAt and he wrote XAT.

Today came the great news that he has got an admit from XLRI. I have taken his mock interview and gave some suggestions..I feel very good to hear the news..

Kudos man..Lets complete it in 2009 and go places..All the best..

My feelings about Kelley..

2007-03-28T23:05:00.000-04:00

My feelings about Kelley:

1. A great public school.
2. Lacks marketing efforts to make it an ivey league. They have not focussed much on Asia to increase the image..Now they are doing so.
3. Faculty is the best according to everyone.
4. Disadvatage of location (Bloomington is somewhat far to major cities). But I like living in calm cities than cities of unconnected hyper active places. So no qualms here.
5. Too good for marketing. Kelley is a Great marketing school as per many. My interest is to get into Strategy and Consulting, where around 12% class of the kelley goes. But I believe that if I am among the best in the school, I can live my dreams.
6. Alumni base is really good. The program is quite old and has got many alumni.

Yes..I can wait and try to get into a top-10 school. But Kelley has got many good students (as per my knowledge from indian admits, where people have got good profiles)..After all what I need is just a break..A break that I have not got in the past 4 years..So WILL GO TO KELLEY, who has shown the love that no one else has shown..(Kelley was my last application in the application process and unarguably my best application).

9 months..8 rejections..2 sleepless nights..and THEN....

2007-03-23T06:01:00.000-04:00

I have started this application process in June 2006 when I have decided to take GMAT. It has been 9 months since then..It took the best of mein these nine months on how to project myself and introspect what Ireally want to do with my life. I thought about my goals, aspirations. Applied to 9 universities..And 8 of them rejectedme..Some after showing an initial interest to interview me and someother without showing any interest..I have had 2 sleeplessnights..One was before the result date of one university and then theother after rejection by another university..I have had many breakdowns thinking what am I worth for..My perseverance has been coming down and finally I gave up a week ago that its not written forme to do an MBA and may be I am cut for something else..M B A..Thethree letters for which I am fighting tooth and nail for the past 7 years..from the year 2000..looked to be a dream of life..

Then..finally god decided the other way.. He has shown mercy and gave me another chance..KELLEY School of Business at Indiana University has shown love on me and gave an admit for MBA for the class startingFall 2007.. M B A..The letters at the end of my name are in a visible distance..

Thanx for one and all who has given their support in this process..I am indebted to many who consoled me in grief..who encouraged me in competency and who are sharing with me the fruits of success..

Thanx a lot..

With Love..
The Indian Alchemist.

IN at Kelley..

2007-03-22T23:36:00.000-04:00

After 8 rejections, Kelley showed love on me..I am in at KELLEY..will post the details soon..Chill out guys..

What am I cut for ? MIS ?

2007-03-16T07:13:00.000-04:00

Its a post on my goals and interests..

What am I cut for? I have applied to MBA to get into business roles..frankly I dont have much focus and what I wanted to do is to analyse the numbers and come to conclusions..(I consider myself a Quant jack..). Also I work in Business Intelligence, one of the hottest topics in IT..But is MBA a right thing for my aspirations?

As I have gone thru this whole process of applying I came across this question..Many a time..Its not just because I have not got an Admit..But..I just want to make it clear to myself? Do I have it in me to foresee the trend and create a market or build a strategy to oust the competitor..I am not sure..

But..Do I have the wits to analyse data and come to conclusions? YES. And this is waht my area of interest..I want to see how business is performing by numbers..How can we really measure the performnce of the business? Are there any real hidden measure that can give more value to information? These are my interests and When I researched I found that MIS (Management Information Systems) caters to the info management and Business Intelligence and in today's world of Mountains of data we have to really have good wits to seggregate the really useful data..I am researching on this side and for masters in MIS..

As I used to say.."Whatever happens, happens for Good"..:-) .

Rejected by Tepper..

2007-03-12T15:11:00.000-04:00

As expected, Rejected by Tepper With out Interview..

Rejected by UNC..

2007-03-12T11:19:00.000-04:00

Rejected by UNC...I dont feel that bad..May be I am exhausted to feel bad..

Two nightmares .....

2007-03-12T07:53:00.000-04:00

March 9, 2:20 AM, The day before Duke results: I could not get any sleep after I woke up due to a brief power cut for 15 minutes..Tried hard to get sleep but could nt manage and finally woke up and started reading "One hundred years of Solitude"..Read till 4:15 and tried to sleep again..But after rolling over for 10 minutes I could not really manage any sleep..So woke up and took bath and got ready by 5 AM to office..My office is just 10 minutes away from room..So started to office and was there by around 5:20 AM. Opened the mail from Duke and as expected it said..Sorry Alchemist "We Dinged You"..Though I am expecting a ding, in a corner of my heart I was expecting a good news..And it is not there..Worked till 6:30 PM and got out..Felt empty for the initial half an hour after knowing the result..But again got the stuff..After all its not my first..Its fifth...

Went to my friends room on saturday and again woke up at 3:30 AM and could not get much sleep..So watched "40 days and 40 nights" till 5:30 AM and slept..Woke up at around 8:30..UNC result is expected on 12th..It is One of the schools that I still have hope..Tepper and Ross did not like me and so did not invite me..Left is kelley, where people went on spring break and so will come to know the details only when they come back..

All in all..Its the tough time of life...I wrote cat 4 times and never felt this much..even when it was my life/death in +2. Thats what life is..Of course..a better challenge as we move makes us better..

The Fifth Ding...

2007-03-08T18:58:00.000-05:00

As expected..The fifth ding has arrived..from Duke (Fuqua) . I am not sure..But I feel low..although I am prepared for this..

My Shirdi Trip..

2007-03-05T05:27:00.000-05:00

Shirdi Temple..

Middle of the way to shirdi..at Narayan gaon

In the hotel room in shirdi..Me in RED..

At temple..

At Shirdi Bus station..

On the way to Pune from Shirdi..

In train..

In Coimbatore exp..

Here are the details from my shirdi trip last weekend...It was more of a travel than a trip..I traveled almost for 30 hours..20 hours from Bangalore to Pune and then 5 hours to and fro from Pune to shirdi..But it was quite relaxing and filled my soul with new air..

There is Karnataka Express to Koperagaon from Bangalore..Koperagaon is 30 km away from Shirdi..But i could not get a ticket on that..So got ticket for Coimbatore Exp.
I got into Coimbatore Exp at 4 PM and reached pune by 10:30 AM the next day. I came across a huge group students from Mumbai who came to Bang for an Industrial tour...So had some nice time with them chatting and playing cards..Took hot Parota for dinner and retired to sleep..Pune is not as posh as I used to think..Atleast for me it seemed so..Met my friend, took bath and we were back at the station by 12:30 PM. There was a train to Koperagaon from pune at 1:30 PM. .. But since its a passenger train we dont want to depend on that and went to Shivajinagar bu station of Pune..We took a good lunch of hot chapathis there and left for shirdi at 2 PM. It was an awesome view we have got on the Pune-Shirdi highway..There are many valleys and the good thing was..Around every valley there are some 10 houses and the people are farming the land and raising some domestic animals..How cool life seemed to be..May be one day i will go there and live there for some time..

Then we reached Shirdi by 6:30 PM. We proceeded to darshan immediately and completed it by 8 PM. My friend was exhausted and even I did not want to strain myself to go back to pune again at that time..So we had good dinner, took a room and slept in shirdi..

We woke up at 7 AM the next day and after getting ready went to temple and took some photos and it was 9 AM by then. We enquired about going to Shani Singanapoor..We came to know that it can take 3 hours to and fro and I had a flight to catch at 5:30 PM in pune..So the good cab driver advised that it may get difficult to catch the flight..So we curtailed the plans to go to Singanapoor and headed to Shirdi Bus Station..There are 2 routes to Pune from shirdi..One is a shorter router and a little longer, which goes thru Nagar. So we aited for the shorter route bus and We got into the bus at 10 AM. Reached Pune by 2:30 and rushed to lunch..Took a good lunch and I took a fast bath and we started to Aiport by 4 PM. We reached Airport at 4:25 PM and I got in for Check-in. The flight took off at around 5:45 PM and I was back in Bangalore by 6:45 PM. How beautiful its to get that faster. I raced to room to take some rest..

PS: It took me 1 hour 30 minutes to reach from Aiport to my room in Electronic City..Longer than it took from Pune to Bang..No qualms..Bangalore is developing..

Results..A new way to enjoy..

2007-03-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

UNC sent mail that results will be available on 12th March..Ross also sent a mail that results will be available on 15th March.. I dont have an invite from Ross..So the story for Ross is obvious..Duke is also expected to give the results on 8th March. I have decided to not to visit PagalGuy till I get the e-mails from Adcom. I will wait for the email and post the result on PG on the particular thread and will come back..I think this will give a real thrill to me as I will not have much info on what is happening..It may seem to be ridiculous..But..I just wanna enjoy the feeling..So today will be the last visit to PagalGuy till the next result comes..

How do u derive ur happiness -2

2007-03-01T22:47:00.000-05:00

Here is my sequel to the last post on happiness. In part-1, I discussed some dilemmas I face and think about..Now here comes the answer to those..

What are the things that a man requires to be happy?
I got a book How to Get What You Want Out of Life when I went to my chennai trip a fortnight back and the book is a nice one I felt..

So here comes the answer for the question..How do u derive ur happiness?

There are 4 things that make a person happy:

1. Money : Obvious. You need money to do whatever you want and whereever you go. So it is inevitable that we should earn sufficient money to fulfill our soul dreams.

2. Love : Without someone to love and share evrything, what is life worth? For whom and with whom are you going to do everything you do in life? Thats what..A soul mate will give you a reason to live and spend the moments of happiness and sadness together.

3. Ego Food : Yes..This is called food to satisfy your soul that your are good. If you achieve something and someone Appreciates you then you will get some Ego food..Dont take it wrong because it is Ego food. It is the food required to satisfy your soul..When you helped someone they thank you and you feel elated from heart and that makes you happier than when u take bacardi.

4. Health : IF you want to do anything with life, you need to be healthy. So never ever underestimate this or NEGLECT this..Keep fit..Eat well and sleep well..

So..do an audit..how much money you are getting now and how much you need? How is your relationship with parents, spouse, and others..? Are you doing a challenging job and getting ego food? Are you keeping good health?

Never think that if you are a IT engineer and want to be a camera man for NGC (I wanna be) you cant make it..See the intiatives you have to take and step into the shoes and do them..Nothing is as difficult as it seems to be when you have the motivation and interest to do the things..

Applications update..

2007-02-26T06:47:00.000-05:00

There is no interesting update as of now. Thats why these days you will see a series of personal mails than MBA. I am not sure whether its diluting the blog..But..I feel it good to share everything..

Interviewed by Kelley, UNC and Duke..
Have not heard from Tepper and Ross about the invites..

Going to Shirdi..On Friday..2-March-2007

2007-02-26T06:42:00.000-05:00

I am going to shirdi on friday..I have a friend in pune..So..I will go to pune from bang and will go to shirdi from there..We are planning to visit shirdi on saturday and come back to pune by night. So that we can have the sunday for local visit in pune..Came to know that Lonawala and Khandala are good valley spots and am interested to visit them. Booked Indigo flight from pune to bang on sunday at 5:30. So will be back to bang on sunday evening by 7. Will post the details once I come..

I dont have a good camera with me and it hurts to borrow it everytime..For chennai trip i took it from one of my friends..She is suggesting to take the same..I will see..If can manage any other camera..I will not take it..else..:-).

How do u derive ur happiness ? --1

2007-02-23T03:12:00.000-05:00

When do u feel happy? How do u derive ur happiness? From Love? What do u expect from your spouse? U want her/him to be with u and extend all her/his love for u?

These were the questions that come to my mind very frequently. Does love mean hooking on to each other and spending the large possible time together? What if u and ur wife are in different locations?? What if u can't see her for a couple months..And even when u meet u can be with her/him only for a couple of hours?

Do u speak daily on phone? At the end of the day and discuss how it went?? What if she has to go somewhere and can't call u at one night? What if she is busy with her work and messages u that she cant cal u today and will call next morning?? Where as U were desperately waiting for her call from 4:30 PM, when u called her up and she replied that she was out with friends..??

As I told u many a time before I get philosophical many atime and who else is there to express myself than u?

Thats what..Your happiness should be derived from what do u do and not from anyone else..(even if it is ur spouse)..Am i Wrong??

I will post a part 2 for this...

Met a classmate after 4 years..

2007-02-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Yes..Met a classmate of mine after 4 years..We went apart in 2003 may and we met now again. She did MBA after B.Tech and now working as an analyst. She is working in an office, which is near to my office ans so called her up and made a schedule.

We went to a juice centre and discussed our careers, our class mates and future plans..I am happy that she is doing good and I hope she will do great..She knows from college that I am trying for MBA and she told.."Oh..You r still in the Battle" I told Ya..May be the last fight in the battle..:-). Anyway I am able to improve my communication with people and able to network..
Reading a book on What to do with life and what you want to do and its pretty interesting..Of Course everyone knows the things written..But..This is giving some inner stuff..Will post the summary soon..

Chennai Trip Details..

2007-02-19T07:01:00.000-05:00

Here comes the post with chennai details..

Boarded Lalbagh express at 6:45 a.m. I hate travelling at night as I could not get the little sleep whatever I get. So started in the morning. Reached Chennai Central railway station by 12:45 P.M.

Went to mamblam in a local train and the first thing i did after reaching my friends' room was to take bath. Chennai is infamous for hotness and sweat and I started to feel that when I was 50 KM away from Chennai. After bath took a great lunch at one of the near by Andhra Mess' and man its too good. Bangalore is lacking in Andhra Mess' comparatively. Took rest for some time and when I was wondering how to go to the Reception venue (Green Park, Vadapalani), one of my college friends who is in chennai came to the room. He also is attending the marriage with his wife (they both are NITWians and their's was a love marriage..). So Went to the reception with his help..

So the next day was friday and all of my friends had to go to office..So what did I do..Of course did not sit idle..Went to Mahabalipuram alone with a camera.

Above is the shore temple in Mahabalipuram. As the name suggests it is on the shore where Tsunami hit the life hard. Thanx to the care taken it still survived..

Me on horse at Mahabalipuram. You can mount a horse with Rs.30. I was thrilled to mount it and did. Man..its not easy to ride a horse and its not that enjoyable as it seems.. I was afraid and asked him to stop :-(. He told NO. You have to do the full thing..So enjoyed this too.

The above is the light house in Mahabalipuram..I think the kings used it to see long distances and find out about their enemies..A good technique in those days.

There are alot of other snaps too..

The next day was saturday and we all woke up by 10 AM. Took good biryani as dinner and went out. We went to Marina beach and the new Chennai Citi Centre.

AT Marina Beach

AT Chennai Citi Centre (Shopping Complex)

Freak is Back..

2007-02-18T01:12:00.000-05:00

I am back from chennai. Its a great trip to chennai I had..I met a few of my college friends as part of my networking and spent a couple of days enjoying..Will post the details soon with pictures..

Chalo Chennai..

2007-02-14T01:36:00.000-05:00

Yes..I am goingto chennai tomorrow morning. I have to attend the reception of a girl, who wasmy classmate at NITW. Also she was my projectmate..

I have a bunch of friends in chennai and we are planning to go to Pondichhery. Not yet finalised. I will post the pics once come back from chennai..Have a great weekend guys..

Tepper Adcom Says.. Applciation complete

2007-02-14T01:34:00.000-05:00

Received a mail from Tepper that my application is complete and under review. Frankly I thought that Tepper was not at all interested in me and so they dd not see my application till now..Finally..it seems they are considering me..It happened after a whole lot of hulla bulla over the missing transcripts. I have sent a scanned copy of the transcripts and they are using those as of now. So no probs..The wait starts now for the invite..Meanwhile..someone on pagalguy reports an invite from Ross yesterday and so am waiting for one if they send out any to me..

What is Economics??

2007-02-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

What is Economics ? Is it the way to conduct a business? Is it the way to estimate the financial markets? Is it the way to profitability? As many of us assume, Economics is not a finance related activity or business related activity. It deals with man, his interests and the ways to explain his decisions. I came across an interesting article on Economics at http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Robertsopportunitycost.html.

It is an interesting article and as I am reading Freaconomics, i feel relieved. Previously Economics sounded like an alien thing or frightenin thing to me..I used to think that I should have a PhD to understand economics. But Thanx to the books and articles that are available over net, I am able to get a grasp f these things. Ofcourse, I may not be able to explain the supply-demand curves..but the thought process behind the analysis I can see from these resources.

In Freconomics, we come across various examples that explain the rationality with good examples..Did u ever thought that crime will come down today because of the rise of abortions and legalising abortion 2 decades ago? may not right..Thats what the Freak thinks in Freaconomics. It makes a good reading as it don't ponder over the classical stuff but it takes examples and discerns the causes..After all Economics is about the theory of choosing the best from the available and making the most of it with rational thinking..And there is no place for Assumptions..Only facts will explain..

Kelley Interview..excerpts

2007-02-12T10:12:00.000-05:00

Attended my telephonic interview:

Called them up a good 4 minutes before the interview to take care of any line problems. Was put on hold for a couple of minutes before the seet voice told ..hi..i am here..
It was a pretty cool interview and a nice one to say..
Here were the arrows:
1. What do u want to tell about you?
2. Goals?
3. Why Kelley?
4. Team experiences?
5. Leadership experiences?
6. What will you contribute to Kelley?
7. Any questions?

The inetrview lasted for around 26 minutes..I am happy with it..Me and the interviewer got some humor inbetween and atlast she said..If you got up in the middle of night and got a question to ask me then send an e-mail..It was very cool interview in all..

I was very happy at the end of the interview..The interviewer was so good that she was like a friend..Though the time is short I explained most of the things..Lets wait for the second half of march to know the decision.

How do you feel to get FOUR Dings in a row..

2007-02-09T00:31:00.000-05:00

Four Dings in a row..From Wharton, ISB, Tuck and now from Darden.
How do I feel? I know that I have started late in my pocess and by the time I have submitted these application for -1, I did not have the enough exposure to Essay witing and other things..Frankly I am regretting my decision to not to apply in R-1 for every schools. But..for me it has done some good. Atleast I was able to write decent stuff for R-2.

Coming to how it feels, I feel hollow..Blank..Without any admit at hand and 4 Dings in a row and in a situation where I have to go for MBA this year at any cost..I feel its hard for me to think the course of action..Meanwhile..McDonough has extended the deadline to 12-Feb. Should I consider it an omen and apply to McDonough..Not sure..

But I always believed that I deserve some thing better than McDonough. Not that the school is not good. Its great school in a great location. But my heart is not getting attracted towards that. I love the schools that I have applied and I dont know ..but I dont love McDonough that much..

Monday I have the Kelley interview..I believe its a god sent invitation and I have to do my best..

Anothe DING..From Darden

2007-02-09T00:18:00.000-05:00

Yes..Darden rejected me with out interview..This year its pretty tight and ofcourse my application is not personaized to daden when I submitted this on Nov-30. I thought atleast I will get an invite..But Darden thought the other way. Unarguably Darden is a geat school. I would love to be at Daden. Any way the following is the message form Daden:

After careful consideration, the Admissions Committee regrets that it cannot act favorably on your application for admission to the Darden School MBA program. We can admit only a small number of those who apply to our program and must make difficult choices in allocating the available spaces. In most cases, there is no single reason for a decision not to offer an applicant admission. Your application received a thorough review by the Admissions Committee. Thank you for your interest in the Darden School. We wish you success in pursuing graduate management study and in your future career.

What I want to do with my life??

2007-02-07T07:46:00.000-05:00

Yes..As you guessed correctly, I get phiolosophical many a time..Its not the first time..
Whenever I get a little worried or frustrated..I think of this question..
What do I enjoy most doing? Frankly there is no single answer.
But There are a clouple of important ones:

1. I want to read..Read and Read on Economics and Business..I wanna be a Professor in Economics and Business and see how it can help the bottom line...I really enjoy reading..and Biographies and Philosophical novels make me sit for hours and continue withoout lunch or dinner. After my initial career in business I wanna become a Prof in any university and start research..Also I wanna set up a great university and sustain it with research in india..

2. The other thing that I really like is going places...Although I dont travel much, its my favourite..My soul gets rejuvenated with travel..But there are many constraints now and I cant really gear up for this..I wanna real travel with my soul mate once she arrives and wanna see as many places as possible..From kearala to pyramids to LOC. Everything..

Thats it..I see life as just as a span of 60 years and not as a life..So..I have to plan for next 35 years..By planning I does not mean that I have to do this by the time I am 30 and this by 40..

I want to see as much as I can..I want to learn as much as I can..and I want to contribute as much as I can..After all everyone dies..Gandhi..Godse..Keynes..Hitler..

But..some are remembered more..I wanna do what i want to do not because I want people to remember me (If u think I wanna do these for that then u r wrong)..I wanna do these for myself..To enjoy myself.. my life..my 60 years..

Expect some posts like this in the future too..And dont think I am mad..Of Course..I am a Freak..as Steven D. Levitt explores in Freakonomics..

Kelley Interview preponed..

2007-02-07T03:59:00.000-05:00

I requested a prepone of the interview to 12-Feb and it has been granted. I have to attend the marriage reception of a friend in chennai on 15-Feb-2007. Its an important one. So dont wanna miss it.

Kelley interview Scheduled..for Feb-15.

2007-02-05T08:41:00.000-05:00

Called the kelley admissions office and scheduled the interview on 15-Feb-2007. Took the morning slot at 9:00 AM EST. It will be around 7:30 IST.

Took 10 days just to realx and prepare..Why should I hurry? The result is due in last week f march and so there is no problem with 15-Feb.

Encounter with an young Software Lad..

2007-02-05T08:04:00.000-05:00

Ok..Here goes an account of my conversation with an young lad, whom I met in a local bus.

me: Hi..It is Indian Alchemist. Nice to meet you.
he: Hi..Its ABC..nice to meet you too..So where do you work?
me: I work in XYZ.
he: Oh great..which platform?
me: PQR
he: oh ok..I work in RST.. and my platform is JHI..(already he is speaking in american accent)..I want to do M.S. and am preapring for that..You know..my job is not that challenging and I am already here for a whole 11 months. And dont want to be here any more..my friends who got the training along with me left after 6 months and are getting upwards of 30 to 40K..How much are you getting?
me: i am getting **K (less than his friends).
he: Oh..how long are you with the company?
me: around 2 years..
he: Oh 2 years..how come..you can ask for a big hike and if they dont give you can jump..For me, they promised that they will give a hike after 6 months and didn't. Ofcourse now they will. But i am not interested to work..They gave me training on Sw1 and I told them that i have not studied that in college and so could not work..But still they gave me work on the same..How can i do?? And its not that great work..I am bored..My friends are telling that be here for one more month and with the name of the company for 1 year you can get a great job which ays around 40K.
me: There are hundreds in my company who completed 5 years and there many who completed even 20 years. Its not a big surprise and I consider my 2 years on lesser side. Oh ok..Which college r u from?
he: GH college of engineering, Bangalore and u?
me: NIT Warangal.
he: NIIT?
me: NO. NIT warangal. Similar to NIT suratkal.
he: oh ok. one of cousin's friend studied in NIT suratkal.
me: Oh..thats great..
he: I got a job in a mobile company too..but my friends and uncle advised me to not to work in that and go for the present company..
me: Ok..yes..Your present company is a good company.
he: Ya..but the pay is not that much..already my friends are earning 40K. and I am not.
me: Ok..
he: Ok man....seems u r sleepy.
me: (what can i say?)

My views: 11 months is to big to a lad who got a campus placement. I am not sure what is going to be the stage of these lads..Who work only for money..Yes ..Even I am working for money and i will definitely not work if they dont pay. But..I respect people here and the system here. I never would say that people at my company are bad..After al I was given an opportunity to prove.

I am afraid that money as the motive to work than the underlying joy of achieving the goal and the purpose will deteriorate the commitment our young generation shows towrds Work..

KELLEY liked my applciation and asks for an Interview

2007-02-05T00:11:00.000-05:00

Received an invite from KELLEY asking to schedule an interview.

Frankly, this is the first interview invite from a US school to me, initiated by school. Though I have attended UNC and Duke interviews, they were initiated from my side.

I love Kelley ..They love me too..

Will try my level best for this unique opportunity..and i believe the invisible is listening..