MBA freshers: 5 must do things before joining your dream B school; groom yourself for next 2 years

Columnist & Author, MBAUniverse.com

Updated on June 18, 2016

Getting prepared for the B school depends upon how do you want to perform in next 2 years and then in your career path

It is no more theoretical teaching in MBA class room since after completing your MBA you will face the real life as it comes to you and you will be required to make the best out of it

With admission offer from an IIM, FMS, IIFT, NITIE, JBIMS, MDI, IMT, IMI or other B-school of your dream in hand, sure you are beaming with aspirations and are in close discussion with your near and dears how to get ready for the graceful entry at the B-school on its commencement day and what to wear. But has it occurred to you that you need much diversified and deep preparation before taking entry to the B-school where you will always be starving for time to do even very small things?

Ask your seniors and they will unfold many untold stories. One of them is that if you are free all day and have planned for an evening or night show, don’t think it would surely materialize as you may suddenly at 5PM get assignments to prepare and present the very next day. All your cursing will not relieve you of the task. So make sure that you utilize well the next few days and prepare yourself well for the B-school.

If you wish to remain among top rankers in the B-school, you need to do many things but if you have no big plans you can move as you like. So getting prepared for the B-school depends upon how do you want to perform in next 2 years and then in your career path.

Get to the Basics
You may or may have not studied many basic topics related to various fields of academics. This is a hard hitting fact as it is not necessary that you belong to Commerce, Economics, Accountancy or Finance back ground. You may have engineering, science, medical, para-medical back ground where such topics were never taught nor you needed to study them while preparing for your entrance exam.

Besides even if you have studied them theoretically, it may have not occurred to you to read their practical real life cases involving problems which are supposed to be solved by you. Now you should study them as with a problem solving methodology. The best is to get access to cases of IIMs or other good B-schools. These cases would be of much help to you during your next 2 years of study.

The problems you must study on the topics are - Accounting- Cash Flow, ledger, final accounts; Economics-basics and advanced; Finance- budgeting, NPV, IRR, Annuity, ratio analysis, time value of money.

Apart from the above, you should be well aware of statistical tools especially the topics on Correlation, Probability, chi-square, Mean, Mode, Median, Std Deviation among others. It will be better to read them well and understand how to apply as you will frequently need to put them to application during next 2 years of your course.

Get good knowledge of computers
No doubt you must be having good functional knowledge on computer system. This is the time of advanced technological skills and you must be well aware of it. Please remember you may need the power point presentation skills almost every day.

Good knowledge of softwares like SAS, SPSS, Matlab will add to your skills and will save your time. Get a good working skill on Excel, Spreadsheet, MS office with key functions required to complete the work quickly.

Read Good Books
IIMs or other top B-schools are famous for the rigor they expect from the students during their study. Sometimes it may flare up some different emotions within you. So it will be better to make friend with books and read the self help books before joining. Books like One line Management, One minute management, How not to get depressed, How you can win, How to do away with dumbness should be explored. Read the books authored by top management gurus how did they get over the negative feeling in their B-schools despite getting low grades.

This is the feature of top B-schools that even the top rankers joining the MBA programme there, have self doubts, get depressed, remain anxious and with loads of sudden work – get sleepless nights. So be prepared to take them as normal and make it a habit to read the books which can relieve your distress.

Change the mindset
You will no longer be taught in the class room as you were being taught till graduation. You are supposed to learn how to get to solutions and not get stuck to the problem cases and the methodology. Your professor may not be discussing the case but would like to have alternate solutions.

It is no more theoretical teaching in MBA class room since after completing your MBA you will face the real life as it comes to you and you will be required to make the best out of it. In your B-school of repute, more than a thick register like material online or offline in hard copy will have to be read by you on a daily basis. You will have to study it thoroughly and will have to arrive at the desired result.

In fact it is the peer learning process and not class room learning in your MBA programme. So prepare yourself with a changed mindset that you had till graduation. Now you will have to read, follow the things with understanding and then get to the solution.

Fix the priorities
It is time that you begin prioritise what is important and what is less important. There is no dearth of activities, competitions and festivities at your B-school. How much you should get engaged in them, is upto you. Getting high score or getting very low score in a top B-school is sure a difficult task. Which way you wish to move, you have to get ready for the same.

During next 2 years you will groom your life and the experience will be entirely different. Make sure you achieve the best and keep yourself happy through-out. Although unlike Wharton, there is no designated faculty as ‘Dean of Happiness’ in IIMs or other B-schools in our country, but there is always hidden ones in every B-school, the need is to find the person out to keep you happy. The memories of next 2 years will always be an asset in your life, so get ready to have the best of them.