[MBA] 4 more to go

Just submitted the Tuck application. I was not 100% happy with the 'failure' essay but it was time to move on.

Next stop Haas. But in the meanwhile I really need to start giving some serious thought to the crazy Stanford essays !

[General] Careful what you wish for

For the past 2 1/2 years I have been pestering my boss to allow me to do some high level complex system design. Last week my wish was granted. Relax, I won't go into the details of the task here. Lets just say it's the direct outcome of one of the many telecom mergers that have happened of late. The 1st deliverable will be due early January. So now I have a nice overlap between the most challenging period of the MBA app process (5 schools !!) and a very complicated, time-consuming task at work. #!$%ing great.

I had posted a schedule for myself some time back. This is how I have fared on the 1st leg

By Nov 20
Tuck essays sent out for review - Done
Wharton essays sent out for review - Not really
Haas essays going through internal revisions - Sort of

I haven't flunked it as bad as I thought I would. But this was the easiest stretch. The toughest stretch starts now.

[MBA] Bay area twins

Just returned from a visit to Stanford and Haas. No surprises here. Unlike the two Boston or the two Chicago schools which have very different cultures and focuses, the two Bay Area schools have way more similarities than differences. Yes, Stanford has a stronger brand and it seemed to me that they admit a quirkier bunch of people. It is also said that Haas has a more rigorous curriculum than Stanford. I have no opinion on this one. The class that I attended at Haas was the most rigorous class I have attended at any of the schools - but then it was a 2nd year class. And Stanford has more of a standalone campus than Berkeley whose campus is quite lively.

However the similarities especially when it comes to the important things (except brand) are amazing. Small school, part of big prestigious universities, send more people (% terms) into tech industries than most other schools in the US, located in an area known for innovation and entrepreneurship, chilled out down to earth students (gross generalization alert!!), curriculum and culture with a strong focus on entrepreneurial and social ventures. The list just goes on.

Now, how does this affect me? Well, when I sit down and answer the 'Why Haas' question I don't know how I can make the reader believe that I haven't copy pasted my Stanford response. That has me a bit worried.

This trip reaffirmed a couple of decisions I had made some time back. Haas was a late addition to my app list. I think I made the right decision. I would be glad to go there. But Stanford continues to be my dream school. It pretty much comes on top wrt all the criteria I had listed in an earlier post. After the end of a very energetic class at Harvard, one of my fellow visitors turned back and told me 'What wouldn't I do to get into this place'. I felt like doing the same after the Stanford class. Except that I had a wall behind me and that would have seemed weird.

[Business] Away from the MBA madness

I spent the 1st half of this week in Dallas, attending a conference on 'IMS'. Spending 3 days in total non MBA app mode was exactly what the doctor and I_will_make_it had ordered.

In case you are wondering, 'IMS' is one of those silver bullets which the tech industry gets excited about from time to time. For geeks here is more information. For non-geeks and lazy bums, IMS is an architecture which is supposed to bring about convergence. What will get converged is an open question and there are a variety of views on this. The three most promising candidates in my opinion are :

Wireless-Wireline - you can start a call using your landline connection, continue it in your car using your cellular connection and terminate it over the wi-fi connection at your local drug dealer.

Internet-Telecom - it will become as easy (really?) to develop and deploy applications on the telecom network as it is today on the internet. So next time you hang up after telling your best friend how depressed you are feeling you'll get a SMS with a 'buy one get one free' offer from Zoloft. (think ads and gmail)

Tea-Coffee - you can make tea and coffee on the same machine. Just kidding - sort of.

My entirely ignorant, high level take on IMS is that like all new technologies it will fall well short of the hype in the short term but will change our lives for better or for worse in the long term.

On a personal note, most of the people at that conference were VP/Director/CXO types. Once when I was in class 4 (elementary school) in India, I had by mistake wandered into the high school part of the building. On the 1st day of this conference I felt as I had felt on that day long ago. But then I realized that my name-tag didn't carry my designation. So I spent the rest of the time doing my best impersonation of the quiet, deep, exceedingly brilliant yet humble genius. Was I able to pull it off? Don't know, but atleast I didn't get thrown out!! That should count for something.

[MBA] The blues

I am finding it difficult to motivate myself to tackle the remaining essays. Since I was writing all the Kellogg essays from scratch, they had a fresh feel about them. Now all my essays sound jaded. I don't know whether it's because I have read them a zillion times or if they are really stale. I know the eventual reader will be reading them for the 1st time. But I just can't shake off that uneasy feeling.

Gosh! I am looking forward to January already.