[MBA] Tuck

Got dinged by Tuck today. Was kind of expecting it when I didn't get the call on Thursday. But anyway. So it's Kellogg or nothing now.

[General] To assimilate or not

Now that all the marches and strikes are over it might be a bit dated to talk about immigration. But there is a certain aspect of this immigration debate which I find especially intriguing. One charge that's often thrown against illegal immigrants is that they don't assimilate. Language is often cited as the prime example of this. I don't want to talk about the reasons why they don't pick up the English language (hint : it's not simply because they don't want to). I am more intrigued by the question. Why is it so important that people assimilate?

I do understand the practical benefits of everyone speaking the same language. Hell, I am from India. You have to grow up and live in different regions of India to really know how inconvenient it is to have people speak in a bewildering range of languages. But then is practicality a good enough reason? Can the same practicality argument not be made to push for uniformity in other fields as well? Won't the world be a better place if we just had one religion? Just as English is the predominant language of US isn't Christianity the predominant religion? Why isn't there a push for everyone to change to that predominant religion? Is it because of the degree of predominance? After all only 76.5% Americans identify themselves are Christians. While pretty much every (statistically speaking) American speaks English. In that case is it ok for countries like Saudi Arabia to outlaw the practice of any religion other than Islam because 99.5% of their population are Muslims? Or is it that religion and language are just not comparable. Religion is one of the intensely personal human right and people should have the right to practice any religion they want. But language is just a practical utility so the same rights argument cannot apply to it.

The bleeding heart liberal in me keeps urging me to take a stand against this push for uniformity. But then the pragmatist in me can clearly see the benefits of a uniform language. I just can't make up mind. Not that there's anything new about it :)

[MBA] Still hanging in there

When your own blog falls off your browser's history, you know that you haven't blogged in a while.

Well, the last several weeks have been quite hectic. I set my plan B in motion - basically get a job in a fast growing company where I could get a chance to try out new things and then decide between 1) Reapplying 2) Doing part-time 3) Going back to India

If you have 5-6 years experience and are not looking for a job which is exactly same as what you are currently doing, you have loads of studying in front of you. So back I went to my software engineering roots. At first it made me feel so miserable. Wasn't I supposed to be reading books from that cool list I had prepared at the start of the application season? You know books like 'Against the Gods' or 'Witch Doctors'. But instead, there I was dusting off old textbooks to re-learn the finer points of paging and thrashing. But then figuring out how to prevent deadlocks is way easier than writing down what you really really want to do with your life. So I slowly eased back into familiar territory. I have to admit, to be back in a market where people actually dig your skills and background was a nice break for my poor little battered ego. I could almost close my eyes and pretend that all was finally well. But my powers of rationalization are not that strong. There were reasons why I wanted to do an MBA and those reasons haven't gone away.

It required a superhuman effort, but I managed to pull myself out of the comfortable world of design patterns and effective C++ to write and send my final update letters to Kellogg and Tuck. Of course after that I spent 2 says like a lovesick teenager trying to read between the lines of each school's responses. To those who are wondering one was enthusiastic, the other was ho-hum. And interestingly it was a neat reversal of the response my 1st update letter had received from the two schools. Unless something drastic happens this should be the end of my contribution to this year's app season. But then something always happens. The day I submitted my MIT application I had proclaimed that it would be the last weekend I would spend writing essays. Look how that worked out!