Blogging after a very long time ... This morning at around 7:30 in the train, my thoughts drifted to something which has become part and parcel of my life, unwantedly. The 'RACE' has begun. Everyone is competing for placement, power and marks and what not. A completely different feeling where I come from - a commerce college, where only competition was to get the girls :-) .. And when I look back at those days, I miss them dearly.
The main difference being that, even though we competed for the same girl, we still were friends and always together... and when the time came to make a choice, ironically we always chose our friends over the girl .. Here in the more 'CIVILISED and MATURED' MBA college, the focus seems to be more on the things that you are competing for, rather than enjoying the competition itself. I personally have enjoyed the process of competing more than the end result of the competition. Probably the reason being that the process of competing lasts for a longer time than the result, and consequently I have learnt to stay happy for a longer period of time :-D ..
What surprises me is that in BCom the people seemed to have a long term perspective than the people here in the professional institution. Here, we seem to be caring more about the corporate rather than the students and our colleagues here, without realizing that after we pass out, we will be dealing with our colleagues in future and not with these corporate. The point is that we are not going to be working for the same company for our life time. A time would come when we would want to switch a job or probably a career. And it would be our colleagues in the college and not the corporate who will be helping us to make this switch. We will not have the luxury to go to the companies and 'PITCH' for ourselves. Therefore, I would like to add one more objective for joining an MBA college and probably the most important one at that - TO MAKE FRIENDS. It makes more sense to maintain better relations with the students rather than corporate, which cannot be done when students are forced to do a few things which they do not want to.
A few coveted colleges in the city have reached their position by looking after their students, in the time of the need, and not by looking after the companies. Probably it has helped them build a strong alumni base as well. The recent example being promotion of entrepreneurship by JBIMS, which does not even have the word 'ENTREPRENEURSHIP' in its name :-P ...
Ultimately I have figured out that it is the attitude that matters more than the college. And I believe that is what companies seek as well. They want competition inside the organization. I would prefer to become an MBA student who would make a CEO insecure about his job and force him to update his skills and knowledge, rather than becoming a manager in his company by sucking up to him.
Well, this is what just the 1st semester has taught me ...NOW would All ya Doctors and CAs still dare to say MBA is theoretical :-p .. I have my share of differences with others, but I still love my life and the college ... And I am very sure that we will see the light not at the end of the 2 year tunnel ... but somewhere in between ... And I hope its sooner rather than later..
