I'm at that stage now where most other mba applicants were 3 months ago - refreshing email 10 times a day (yeah, it's down from 10 times/hr to 10 times/day) to check for status updates. Alas! No other bloggers share my plight (except maybe those on the waitlist at various schools). It's lonely out here in status-limbo land.
To clarify (since "TICK TOCK..." isn't really descriptive), here was the timeline of both my apps:
Stern:
Submitted: Feb 24th
Invited to Interview: Mar 2nd (You like me! You really like me!)
Interviewed: Mar 9th
Admitted: Mar 22nd
Columbia:
Submitted: Mar 3rd
Status Change: Under Review on Mar 16th
This is not to say that I'm not super-excited about Stern; it's just that not knowing is really frustrating. I need CLOSURE dammit! I wish Columbia would concoct more intermediate statuses (statii?), just so we have slightly more frequent updates to fret about ("application printed", "application under review", "application filed under not-another-indian-software-engineer category", "application to be considered only if the other 999 I/S/Es decide to go to W/Chi/K etc.").
Anyway, in the meantime, there's always the ever contentious, never dull BW forums to keep me distracted. Oh, and work too, I guess. There's a looming deadline and it's the last thing I want to do right now.
In other news, I did have a talk with my boss, and they did offer me a pretty substantial raise, but not a different role (which would've been much more enticing than the raise), so I think I'm going to stick to my current plan. Hopefully, I won't regret it.
Lastly, congratulations to all the Best Of Blogging bloggers out there!!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Stern Preview Weekend
So, despite my somewhat inebrieted state, I made it to and through the Stern Preview Weekend, and managed to have a lot of fun in the process. The activities started on Sunday afternoon and ended Monday evening.
Day1:
The first session kicked off with a series of welcome speeches (one standard, two entertaining and one slightly lame). One of the interesting "exercises" in the course of the first session was for each student from NY (there were a LOT of us) to find someone who wasn't from NY and discover something (preferably something fun/cute/witty) they had in common in the course of a 90-sec conversation. The Top10 responses were very creative (unfortunately, I happened to be sitting in a group consisting mainly of NY-ers, so by the time I walked halfway across the auditorium to find a non-NY-er, all we could get to was "um, do you tapdance? did you run with the masaimara in africa, by any chance? hey! we both like zadie smith!")
The second session was the "Block Experience" where we were divvied up into blocks (60 students) and within the block into "study groups" and given a pretty entertaining assignment. This one was a lot of fun, and in the process, we got to know our individual groups pretty well.
The next session was pretty glitzy - a cocktail reception at the NY Stock Exchange. This is the first time I've been to the NYSE, and my first reaction was pretty geeky ("wow! checkout all those computers!"). The reception was a great opportunity to meet current students, some alumnae, professors and of course, a lot of my potential classmates. The people I met were extremely diverse in their cultural backgrounds, pretty smart overall, and mostly down-to-earth (there's always a couple of arrogant pricks at any gathering). While the professional backgrounds were diverse enough, I still found that a lot of people came from a finance background. I guess this was to be somewhat expected given the reputation of the school.
After an evening of wine and dainty finger food, we proceeded to the unofficial part of the weekend - an evening of beer and greasy barfood with current students at a bar near union sq (can't remember the name now). About an hour into the proceedings, my lack of sleep caught up with me and I had to leave somewhat reluctantly. I believe the party went on till the wee hours of the morning.
Day2:
After guzzling a grande latte, I made my way down to W.4th street for another day of meeting and greeting. I skipped a couple of optional events (housing tour and breakfast) and headed for something called the "Torch Expo", which was a great opportunity to talk to students in specific industries and figure out what the do, how they landed the job etc.
Lunch was another fun round of socializing with future classmates. Dean Cooley addressed the crowd with a short speech. The Keynote speaker was the President of Liz Claiborne International. The theme of his speech was, as is to be expected, about Stern's impact on his career, and his career story. Pretty impressive, I thought. The only disappointment was the food.
Post lunch, we headed into classes of our choice. Apparently, I had picked (I don't remember doing this) a Strategy class. I attended the "Strategy and Game Theory" class by Professor Adam Brandenberger (ex-HBS). Call me a nerd, but for me, this was the best part of the weekend. The professor was witty and the class was pretty entertaining, in addition to being informative. And not just that, he correlated the major topics he covered in the class with real-world business situations for each of those. The students were very interactive and the class was simply awesome! Can't wait to start school!
Class was followed by a workshop specific to your selected industry. I decided to go with the Consulting workshop since it sounded like more fun than the fin one. We got to work on a sample case study and come up with an elevator pitch at the end of it. I think, in both the group exercises, I ended up with the most fun, laid-back and kooky team. We had a lot of fun doing the case and also coming up with a somewhat bizarre elevator pitch.
The last event of the weekend was "International Passport Day". This was a LOT OF FUN. The students had set up a huge tent outside the Kaufman Mgmt Center, within which the event was held. It was basically a food fest featuring food from around 20 countries!! Finally some YUM food!! Alongwith the food, there were dance/music/martial arts performances by students from some (each?) of these countries! The DESI MBAs put on a KICKASS dance performance - BHANGRA ROCKS!!! So, after mingling some more and stuffing myself silly with everything from lamingtons to samosas to paella to barbecue to sushi, it was finally time to head home and get some sleep.
On the whole, the event was a great way to meet people, and a good introduction to the hectic mba-student lifestyle. After this weekend, I'm not praying for Columbia as fervently as I was before :-).
Day1:
The first session kicked off with a series of welcome speeches (one standard, two entertaining and one slightly lame). One of the interesting "exercises" in the course of the first session was for each student from NY (there were a LOT of us) to find someone who wasn't from NY and discover something (preferably something fun/cute/witty) they had in common in the course of a 90-sec conversation. The Top10 responses were very creative (unfortunately, I happened to be sitting in a group consisting mainly of NY-ers, so by the time I walked halfway across the auditorium to find a non-NY-er, all we could get to was "um, do you tapdance? did you run with the masaimara in africa, by any chance? hey! we both like zadie smith!")
The second session was the "Block Experience" where we were divvied up into blocks (60 students) and within the block into "study groups" and given a pretty entertaining assignment. This one was a lot of fun, and in the process, we got to know our individual groups pretty well.
The next session was pretty glitzy - a cocktail reception at the NY Stock Exchange. This is the first time I've been to the NYSE, and my first reaction was pretty geeky ("wow! checkout all those computers!"). The reception was a great opportunity to meet current students, some alumnae, professors and of course, a lot of my potential classmates. The people I met were extremely diverse in their cultural backgrounds, pretty smart overall, and mostly down-to-earth (there's always a couple of arrogant pricks at any gathering). While the professional backgrounds were diverse enough, I still found that a lot of people came from a finance background. I guess this was to be somewhat expected given the reputation of the school.
After an evening of wine and dainty finger food, we proceeded to the unofficial part of the weekend - an evening of beer and greasy barfood with current students at a bar near union sq (can't remember the name now). About an hour into the proceedings, my lack of sleep caught up with me and I had to leave somewhat reluctantly. I believe the party went on till the wee hours of the morning.
Day2:
After guzzling a grande latte, I made my way down to W.4th street for another day of meeting and greeting. I skipped a couple of optional events (housing tour and breakfast) and headed for something called the "Torch Expo", which was a great opportunity to talk to students in specific industries and figure out what the do, how they landed the job etc.
Lunch was another fun round of socializing with future classmates. Dean Cooley addressed the crowd with a short speech. The Keynote speaker was the President of Liz Claiborne International. The theme of his speech was, as is to be expected, about Stern's impact on his career, and his career story. Pretty impressive, I thought. The only disappointment was the food.
Post lunch, we headed into classes of our choice. Apparently, I had picked (I don't remember doing this) a Strategy class. I attended the "Strategy and Game Theory" class by Professor Adam Brandenberger (ex-HBS). Call me a nerd, but for me, this was the best part of the weekend. The professor was witty and the class was pretty entertaining, in addition to being informative. And not just that, he correlated the major topics he covered in the class with real-world business situations for each of those. The students were very interactive and the class was simply awesome! Can't wait to start school!
Class was followed by a workshop specific to your selected industry. I decided to go with the Consulting workshop since it sounded like more fun than the fin one. We got to work on a sample case study and come up with an elevator pitch at the end of it. I think, in both the group exercises, I ended up with the most fun, laid-back and kooky team. We had a lot of fun doing the case and also coming up with a somewhat bizarre elevator pitch.
The last event of the weekend was "International Passport Day". This was a LOT OF FUN. The students had set up a huge tent outside the Kaufman Mgmt Center, within which the event was held. It was basically a food fest featuring food from around 20 countries!! Finally some YUM food!! Alongwith the food, there were dance/music/martial arts performances by students from some (each?) of these countries! The DESI MBAs put on a KICKASS dance performance - BHANGRA ROCKS!!! So, after mingling some more and stuffing myself silly with everything from lamingtons to samosas to paella to barbecue to sushi, it was finally time to head home and get some sleep.
On the whole, the event was a great way to meet people, and a good introduction to the hectic mba-student lifestyle. After this weekend, I'm not praying for Columbia as fervently as I was before :-).
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Stern Preview Weekend - Prologue
After partying all night (friend's birthday) and praying at the altar of the porcelain gods at 4am, here I am, just a few hours before my Stern Preview weekend, nursing a hangover, blogging (this thing's an addiction!), watching spongebob (needed a distraction from the hangover that doesn't involve any brain activity) and trying to figure out the schedule. And, of course, grappling with the eternal question - "What should I wear?" :-)
Oh, and did I mention it's been raining nonstop in nyc all weekend?
Nice way to start the whole MBA experience, innit? Anyway, pretty excited despite physical state.
Oh, and did I mention it's been raining nonstop in nyc all weekend?
Nice way to start the whole MBA experience, innit? Anyway, pretty excited despite physical state.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Dangling the Carrot
Earlier this week, I spoke to my boss about going back to bschool fulltime. Told him I hadn't decided yet, but would let him know in a couple of weeks for sure. At the time, he merely expressed the usual sentiments - "we'll miss you around here", "we hope you'll come back and work for us postMBA" etc.
Today, he sent me an instant message telling me that the company would like to offer me more exciting projects to choose from, as well as more exciting compensation, and that they want me to give serious consideration to sticking around. No details were divulged, but I have to face yet another meeting next week.
Kinda exciting! Makes me a bit uneasy to know that my opportunity cost is about to increase.
So, question for the day - for how much would you be willing to walk away from a bschool offer?
Today, he sent me an instant message telling me that the company would like to offer me more exciting projects to choose from, as well as more exciting compensation, and that they want me to give serious consideration to sticking around. No details were divulged, but I have to face yet another meeting next week.
Kinda exciting! Makes me a bit uneasy to know that my opportunity cost is about to increase.
So, question for the day - for how much would you be willing to walk away from a bschool offer?
Friday, April 21, 2006
Am I really giving this up?
Given the number of techies out there (especially us desis) who apply for an MBA, I thought this was worth a mention. In case all you bloggers have already discussed this ad nauseum since morning, I apologize in advance for beating a dead dog:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/top50/index.html
The best job in America is .... SOFTWARE ENGINEER!
YAY!!
Oh, wait a minute. I'm trying to escape it.
Seriously though. It does give me pause.If we techies are holding down the supposedly best job out there (based on growth prospects, flexibility, compensation etc.) , why are so many of us so eager to give it up and join the mba bandwagon?
Money?
Partly, but that's only if you want to go down the traditional IB/MC path. The median post-MBA income for other industries isn't all that better than the median tech income (atleast, the median tech income in nyc). Actually, are there any techies out there who are not going into IB/MC post-MBA?
Career Path?
I know there's been a lot of discussion on the value of an MBA career-wise, and I don't really want to ignite another one here, but this might be one of the biggest motivators, IMO. An MBA "opens doors" for you etc.
Quality of Life?
All said and done, we techies have it pretty good. More flexibility than most jobs, decent hours (considering the pay) notwithstanding the few weeks every year when we have to work insane hours.
Just curious.
My reasons? Personally, I've been doing IT at an iBank the last couple of years, and have developed a pretty strong liking for the business. Plus, hey, if I'm working wall street hours, might as well get paid that wall street bonus, eh? :-)
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/top50/index.html
The best job in America is .... SOFTWARE ENGINEER!
YAY!!
Oh, wait a minute. I'm trying to escape it.
Seriously though. It does give me pause.If we techies are holding down the supposedly best job out there (based on growth prospects, flexibility, compensation etc.) , why are so many of us so eager to give it up and join the mba bandwagon?
Money?
Partly, but that's only if you want to go down the traditional IB/MC path. The median post-MBA income for other industries isn't all that better than the median tech income (atleast, the median tech income in nyc). Actually, are there any techies out there who are not going into IB/MC post-MBA?
Career Path?
I know there's been a lot of discussion on the value of an MBA career-wise, and I don't really want to ignite another one here, but this might be one of the biggest motivators, IMO. An MBA "opens doors" for you etc.
Quality of Life?
All said and done, we techies have it pretty good. More flexibility than most jobs, decent hours (considering the pay) notwithstanding the few weeks every year when we have to work insane hours.
Just curious.
My reasons? Personally, I've been doing IT at an iBank the last couple of years, and have developed a pretty strong liking for the business. Plus, hey, if I'm working wall street hours, might as well get paid that wall street bonus, eh? :-)
Giving in to my obsession
My new blog is going through multiple identity crises. Given my varied interests (more about this later), this was initially supposed to be a mish-mash of postings about all those interests.
However, the last three months of my life have centered around one thing and one thing alone - Getting into business school at either Columbia or NYU (personal reasons for staying in NYC). And in this process, I have found great comfort in reading about other applicants' trials, victories and downfalls. So, to fuel the obsession further, I am throwing my hat into the MBA Blogger ring and converting this blog, atleast for now, into a forum for documenting my journey through the MBA process.
The story so far:
After almost two years of agonizing decision-making (read: flipping a coin to decide whether to mba or not), Desigal decides to give up the life of a code monkey and have a go at applying for an mba in 2005. After taking the GMAT in mid '05, gets cold feet at the prospect of giving up a comfortable job with flexible hours, a good-if-you're-living-anywhere-but-in-nyc income, going into debt and living the student life for two years. Finally, after much procrastination, decides to give it a last-minute shot. Gets into Stern (yay!) and still agonizing over Columbia.
Coming up:
Waiting for Columbia... Stern Admit Weekend... Quitting my job... Figuring out what I want to do post-MBA...
Stay tuned!
However, the last three months of my life have centered around one thing and one thing alone - Getting into business school at either Columbia or NYU (personal reasons for staying in NYC). And in this process, I have found great comfort in reading about other applicants' trials, victories and downfalls. So, to fuel the obsession further, I am throwing my hat into the MBA Blogger ring and converting this blog, atleast for now, into a forum for documenting my journey through the MBA process.
The story so far:
After almost two years of agonizing decision-making (read: flipping a coin to decide whether to mba or not), Desigal decides to give up the life of a code monkey and have a go at applying for an mba in 2005. After taking the GMAT in mid '05, gets cold feet at the prospect of giving up a comfortable job with flexible hours, a good-if-you're-living-anywhere-but-in-nyc income, going into debt and living the student life for two years. Finally, after much procrastination, decides to give it a last-minute shot. Gets into Stern (yay!) and still agonizing over Columbia.
Coming up:
Waiting for Columbia... Stern Admit Weekend... Quitting my job... Figuring out what I want to do post-MBA...
Stay tuned!
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Welcome!
After two hours of painful pondering trying to pick out a blog name (boy, am I late joining the blog train or what!), here I am, posting my first entry and sending it off into the ether, not unlike a trepidant mother sending off her kid to his first day of school.
Anyway folks, welcome to my blog. The blog's monicker needs some explanation for those of you reading who aren't from the subcontinent. So, I pulled out the definition of Desi from - where else, but wikipedia:
DESI is a term used by South Asians to refer to themselves (in a manner that avoids any allusion to the specific state of origin and pointing to a common broader identity). This is also the name of the subculture found amongst the South Asian diaspora.
So, there it is. I am a desi gal in the Big Apple, and this blog will contain my brainfarts, drunken musings etc.
Anyway folks, welcome to my blog. The blog's monicker needs some explanation for those of you reading who aren't from the subcontinent. So, I pulled out the definition of Desi from - where else, but wikipedia:
DESI is a term used by South Asians to refer to themselves (in a manner that avoids any allusion to the specific state of origin and pointing to a common broader identity). This is also the name of the subculture found amongst the South Asian diaspora.
So, there it is. I am a desi gal in the Big Apple, and this blog will contain my brainfarts, drunken musings etc.
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