Excited about going home!!

Come this Friday and I will be off to India for a 2 week vacation (should I call this vacation?). While I am thrilled to visit home, the truth is that it would not be a typical vacation, by any means. Sadly, there are assignments to be completed over the winter break and am carrying those along with me as additional baggage. That aside, I really look forward to seeing my wife and parents after 4 months.

Right after my return from vacation next month, I head off to Edmonton for the Strategy Case (MBA Games) competition. The MBA program is getting better with every period. This period, in particular is quite interesting with courses such as Marketing, Strategy, Globalization and Finance. Periods change, teams change but one thing that never changes is the workload. It is interesting how I find myself always loaded with things. Some tasks on the “To-Do” list, which I compile every week, never get finished as planned and simply spill over to the next week.

The coming week will begin with a strategy case and a hour-long finance test but am already looking at the end of the week and yeah, I can see myself boarding Qatar Airways at the Montreal International Airport.

In the blink of an eye

Six weeks of P1 followed by exams and in the blink of an eye, I am in P2. The last week of P1 was very exhausting and it was such a relief to see P1 through. The celebration, though, lasted only a day as P2 began the following day.  At the back of my mind, I know I could have done better in P1 but it was a good learning experience. Going back to school after such a long time and then to stay on top of things right away is not easy. If I have to pick one skill to be successful in MBA, that would be “Time Management”. It is very important to balance academics, personal commitments and professional development. 

This period, there are quite a lot of readings for every class and more number of cases too to work on. Macroeconomics seems to be a very interesting course primarily because the prof. tends to focus more on current affairs than on the textbook stuff. 

By the way, I have been offered the Marketing Director (Social Media) position with the Marketing club of the MBA Association. I am excited and looking forward to it. 

Moving forward, I will try to be a little more frequent with my blog updates, perhaps, once a week.

A New Beginning !!

After procrastinating for a month, here I am with my first blog. It has been a month since I arrived in Montreal for the 1-year intensive MBA program. I intend to post and share my MBA experience at HEC Montreal as I embark on a year long journey. This was by far the toughest decision of my life. Hardly after 9 months of marriage, I had to leave my wife back in India and come here to pursue my MBA. I have to thank my wife for being supportive of my career ambitions. 

The MBA Program started with the “intensive” Management Simulation week. Initially, I was a little apprehensive about this course especially because it was at the very beginning of the program. However, at the end of the week, I realized that all my fears were misplaced. I did learn much more than what I expected to, from the simulation course. It was fun, intensive and competitive. You get to learn all facets of business management at a high level from the course.

Currently running into the third weekend of Period 1, things are just beginning to get tighter. This week, we had a oral presentation on Management Skill and it was quite an experience. It was a 2-minute presentation at the end of which, you get feedback from colleagues. The interesting part is that you are recorded as you present and the video is emailed later for self-evaluation. First, you are asked to watch the video without audio and then with audio. The idea is to evaluate only the body language first and then match it with the speech. This gives a very good idea of what needs to be worked upon. That was fun.