Hundreds of MBA aspirants from the NCR region converged at the ‘Mission MBA’ seminar organized by HT Horizon, the education supplement of Hindustan Times newspaper, and MBAUniverse.com, the No.1 management education portal in India, on Friday, 5 March 2010. The venue was Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Usha and Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management (BULMIM) in Delhi.

The theme of the seminar series is: “How to Crack Group Discussion & Personal Interview and Choose the Right B-School?” The first seminar was held on 18 February and the last two seminars will be held on 11 and 12 March.

The key speakers who addressed the MBA aspirants, which included many CAT 2009 successful candidates, were: Dr Sunil Rai, CEO, Mumbai Business School and former Jt. Director of SP Jain Institute of Management & Research; author and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus Sidin Vadukut and Yash Saxena, second year student at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi.

Addressing the gathered students Dr. Rai said, “You all want to know what do B-schools look for in a candidate. The answer is: Academics (Education and Entrance Test); Experience  / Exposure; Achievement  (Professional, Academic, Social), Personality ( Disposition, Communication), Awareness (Environment, Dream), Drive (Resolve, Direction).”

Dr. Rai further added, “You also must be confused as to how to select the right B-school for yourself. You should pay attention to the following things for picking up the right B-school: Placement (Desired role / Dream Company); Prepares you for a career and not just Job; Faculty (Practical Relevance); Infrastructure (Teaching – Learning) and Experience (Diversity, Network).”

Mr. Sidin Vadukut, author of the book ‘Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’ shared with the MBA aspirants his learnings from his life at IIM Ahmedabad. Speaking on the occasion he said, “Life at IIM Ahmedabad was exciting. I passed out of the MBA school in 2005. The pressure at the school was crazy and the environment was close to insane, but we enjoyed.”
 
Sidin outlined the following 10 learnings from his life at IIM Ahmedabad:
 
1. You get the education that you demand: Even at a top B-school like IIM-A you have to extract the value of your education. There is no spoon feeding. Even at IIM-A you could do very well and still not learn many things. Learning is about how you extract the value from the teachings of your professors.

2. Learn to manage high pressure: When we had joined IIM-A we used to think that we are superior human beings, but later on we could not cope up with the extreme high pressure. Slowly we learned how to handle the pressure, and that helped us in our corporate life.

3. Determine your own metric of success: I don’t work for Goldman Sachs but I am happy. My priorities were clear. I wanted to be a writer and now I am happy.

4. Learn to appreciate others: Our schooling system doesn’t teach us to appreciate others. The life at IIM-A taught us how to honour and respect brilliant students.

5. Take risks: You should not worry about the three meals, but focus on what you want to achieve in your life and take risks to achieve it.

6. Learn to network: Networking really matters. Without networking skills I would not have been able to publish my book.

7. Learn work ethics: We should follow rules and not violate them.

8. Humility: To be humble is a great characteristic of a good human being.

9. Have pride in yourself after attending a top B-school.

10. Seize the moment: India is growing at fast pace. The next 5 five years are great and have high potential for MBA aspirants. This is the right time to join MBA and reap the benefits.

Yash Saxena shared with the participants the important Do’s and Don’ts for the GD-PI round. He said that the candidates should try speaking politely and give space to others in the GD round. For the PI round he suggested the students to prepare very well on general awareness and body language.

To attend the MISSION MBA seminar on March 11 and 12 click here: http://www.mbauniverse.com/an_overview.html

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