To be very honest, I was just
another one of those wayward guys who seek an MBA to extricate themselves from
the hegemony of their current job. I desperately wanted to run away from my employer,
despite it being the most favoured IT workplace wherein I even managed to stay
on bench for more than 70 percent of the time. But something seemed amiss and
MBA appeared as a possible catharsis. And boy did it turn out to be true. Here
is an account of those 22 months at the coveted, the revered and the
indomitable Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies which have literally
made me and many more I know, into much more evolved beings than we could’ve ever
hoped to be.
For a Delhi boy, JB was a
far-fetched shot. With just 18 seats competed for by the thousands who appear,
my chances appeared squalid. And hence a final admit came across as quite a
bestowal. But as it always is, we all are a little too trenchant and full of
hubris. While on one hand I was definitely humbled to get my golden shot at
being a part of this glorious tradition, I was still the obstinate guy who won’t
quit. So my first brush began with a rather acerbic touch wherein I questioned
the inevitable lag in the entire admission process and the subsequent
induction. To not spill many beans, the
induction process is a very cordial, heartfelt, earnest, pliable and wholesome
process wherein you’re allowed to come and go when you want and even otherwise
it’s pretty much a cakewalk. And almost anyone who’s been through the cult
program will vouch for it. So I was immediately granted pardon for my misdemeanour
with no questions asked and it all started on the right footing there. And amid
all of this, we finally kicked off on the journey of a lifetime.
Realization #1: Unlucky, No time for love
So while JBIMS batch of 2015 had
a rather rigorous debate on the exorbitantly skewed gender ratios at top b
schools, with one able and innocent man drawing fire from a set of confused
ladies, to whom he finally apologized, without them knowing if he owed one or not
(Actually the induction was so serene and tranquil, that everyone was sleeping,
so no one knew what the hell was going on!). The story stays pretty much the
same for most of those who came to a b-school with the hope of seeing a
reversal of fortunes in that regard. So if you’re one of those timorous guys
who never asked the girl next cubicle out, and became a heckler when she got booked,
then even post 22 months things will stay the same either because your girl at
the b-school is already gone, or because she never really made the cut! But
that doesn’t mean you get crestfallen. Post 22 months, your prospects with the
arranged marriage route become accentuated by 10 times on an average. So
congratulations!
Realization #2: You’re no longer an undergrad
Okay so if you thought you still
have the look of Adonis, you’ll soon be clad in formals that will definitely
take you out of contention for being a
part of a random gorgeous girl’s snap because her selfie pout appears better
than you with her. You suddenly appear much more suave and sophisticated and
develop a charisma of your own. Gone are the days of that grisly stubble and
250 Rupee EL Hardy which with proper bargaining could’ve cost 150 actually. And
now you develop a style and gait, and don’t just walk but strut, only to
realize that your shoes are all spoilt when doused in mud during rains, and
that your shirt is a mess because you travelled so long. But you still manage
to show up on time and in style, thinking you’ll be noticed. You’ve watched
suits so you know the appeal and she should know it too, right? But you’re
actually branded professional now, and just because undergrad guys and gals
have to mandatorily fall for gypsies(Who may actually be decades older than you),
you’re their ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ already.
Realization #3: Yes, You’re no longer an undergrad indeed
Okay, undergrads are bullies,
they’re renegades, they’re apostates, but undergrads can study and still attend
classes, either by force, or in some exceptional cases, by volition. But by now
you realize you’re too old for that. And on the top of it, you’re having at
least twice as many lectures as you had to attend back in the olden days. So
here begins the seemingly eternal and unnerving struggle between that part of
yours which is luring you so that you could get that perfect sleep while the
statistics professor is singing lullabies, and that part which forces you to
wake up when a 95 percent confidence interval has been established of the same
statistics professor having noticed you snoring!
Realization #4: Anything, almost anything can get ‘fucked’!
Many of us were acquainted with
MBA grads, past and present, from various B-schools. So we were pretty much
familiar with multiple facets of the same. We all knew the buzzwords upfront.
Faculty, industry interface, curriculum, ET, case studies, innovation, entrepreneurship,
MBA 2.0 and the quintessential hallowed word of them all ‘placements’. So while you’re struggling with a flurry of
lectures of all sorts of subjects and you barely took a note of their count,
you’re now staring at the consecrated and with a halo on top of it term “Summer
Internships”.
So here comes the season of pre-placement
talks with companies coming down to the campus to sense the energy and
gumption. But wait, you’re sleep deprived and some of you were even
hallucinating, so how the hell are you going to make sure that you’re on time,
in proper attire, and that your conduct is just what’s expected? So here is where the figures 150.300 and an
occasional 500 work like magic wands and everything falls in place. You’ll know
how this works once you’re in Bajaj. And yeah, while most people get the
profiles they need, you might witness unusual things being termed as getting ‘fucked’. Anyways, everyone is happy at the end. I was happier
for the fact that I finally managed to make my resume after all!
Realization #5: One doesn’t simply balance a balance sheet.
So here begins the saga of
subjects which you’re not willing to have as a part of your specialization but
which you have to pass anyway. Marketing guys curse accounts and FM, and
Finance guys curse every other subject where you don’t have numbers, and
Operations guys don’t even know if there will be an operations batch so they
hold on to their cards. And there is a sea of struggle all around. No one knows
how something got debited or credited, no one knows how the cash flow turned
out that way, and no one knows why we had so many marketing lectures. And
finally, everything fizzles out with a simple realization that “Everything is
matching”.
Realization #6: Yeah, I see all ‘em gold coming.
So everyone joins their
companies, knowing that they may have to reappear in some second sem exams, but
money weighs more heavily. So people disperse happily with everyone putting
ether their name plaque as a dp, or someone putting group photos of their
internship batch(with many girls!) to the envy of those who’re seeing how
toothpaste is sold, or worse, how deos can become sexier. But everyone is happy
because money starts flowing in and the cash inflows exceed outflows for the
first time since you joined an MBA. Life’s gotta be a bliss right?
Nope. It’s only in the middle of
the internship that half of the guys and gals realize that the pleasure of
getting a PPO/PPI is notches higher than in splurging all the money even
without showing up for days. So suddenly, energy levels go up, attention levels
soar by leaps and bounds, and the real MBA begins going to work every day,
until some realize that the sanctified ‘offer’ is not far away, and some
realize that their job sucked anyhow!
Realization #7: Ini mini miny mo, with which specialization should I
go?
You realize there are three kinds
of people in the batch. One’s who from the very day of them making their intro
to the batch were sworn allies of the marketing or finance fraternity. The
second caucus includes guys who flipped their preferences during their internships
because they saw them for what they were. And three, the guys who still have no
idea what’s going on. And the decision
making process of the third category is just about as well understood as the concept
and subsequent removal of heteroscedasticity is.
Realization #8: Competitions. Yeah, time for some god level ideas!
So then commences the season of
corporate and academic competitions. You were waiting for this all the time as
folks from your senior batch grabbed perks from offers to handsome cash
amounts(Which in fact, seldom get credited!). So you already know your teams
and you barge all guns blazing the moment the first flier comes out.
You sit up with your team, all revved up and invigorated. You bring all the management acumen to the fore. SWOT, PESTEL, ANSOFF and BCG matrix, and what not comes into play. Deserted and desolate professors who only witnessed students sleeping and coming late and paying the penalty by sitting in the first row, now become pretty much sought after. In short, you put in everything and do everything and you literally prize that sanctimonious idea, only to see it get hurled away because the presentation chosen from campus was either having an annoyingly simple idea, or because the submission didn’t have an embedded idea but it was all too lurid and had so much content that the panel got overwhelmed. So the winning team fights again, and everyone else goes back to sleeping in lectures.
Realization #9: Fuck! MBA is about to get over so early!

And before you could catch a
whiff, the final placements season is all around and by now everything moves
like clockwork. Assignments, lectures, case studies, presentations, exams, they’re
all too menial now. You’ve seen it all. And now as you move towards the
executive placements season, it’s time to get the dust off those really pricey
books you never touched till now. Moreover, you suddenly realize you had a
business newspaper subscription all this time. You also see an air of eerie
restlessness all around because everyone is running here and there, and you can’t
even watch the next episode of Breaking Bad! Finally when you get your
placement, you’re too happy to resume watching it!
Realization #10: It wasn’t that bad, was it?

Realization #11: You feel indebted!
And as it’s time for
#TheLastLecture and #TheLastExam, you suddenly grow remorseful that you’d not
see the iconic portico of your college again. You get these photo sessions, you
collect as much of college paraphernalia, and you just crave for that one extra
day on which you could just visit the campus again. And finally, there comes a
day when you’ve got to say goodbye to everything. And so you do, but only with
the promise of coming back. You just have to come back to this place which has
by now become such an inhered part of who you are!
Realization #12: MBA is not a degree, it’s an experience.
So as you wrap up everything and
prepare for the first stint post MBA, you contemplate on what those 22 months
have done to you. You cant’s just pinpoint at one single aspect through which a
B school is evaluated. They say the ROI, the placements, the faculty, and the
industry interface is all that matters. And it’s only now that you spurn and
repudiate it all. It’s only now that you know all those aspects individually
are just a modicum of what an MBA has done for you. An MBA is much more than
the subjects and the prospects and the learning. An MBA is what redefines tour
attitude towards life and broadens your vision. And at least for an MBA from
JBIMS, I can safely say, it’s your key to that utopia!
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