Why MBA? Why PGSEM from IIMB...
When I told everyone that I am joining PGSEM, the first question people had is what is it? Next came what I plan to do after doing it? Some suggestions came in with respect to the course and what other have felt about it. When I announced, I am shifting to Chennai to pursue the course, came another one - why Chennai?
Well to be truthful, I was not thinking of doing MBA until sometime around Jan. Reasons were varied, I loved (and still love and enjoy) doing technical work and was expert in most of the work I do. But then there was something missing, which I had started realising. As I was moving up the ladder, the challenges which were coming up were getting reduced and I was not getting that much kick from my work. So I started thinking of venturing out into some new areas and looked for more options. Initially I zeroed on some certificate courses from IIMC etc which are conducted by Hughes and they were available in Mangalore also. The reason why I completely dropped them from my mind was that I realised those courses offered little value and there were no chances of class participation and creating some network.
My idea of doing MBA was doing it part time only. Full time was no-no :), so that's why was not thinking of full time PGP (through CAT) at all. I stumbled upon PGSEM through some of the websites and worked on getting more knowledge on the course.
Well the course is 2.5 years (min), part time, executive, general management course conducted by IIMB in Bangalore and Chennai. In Chennai it happens over distributed mode i.e. the class happeneing in Bangalore is transmitted over to Chennai classroom and vice-versa (since last two weeks profs had been in Chennai).
This course is one of the most misunderstood while being not as famous as its full time counterpart (i.e PGP). I will just explain all the facts in post below and all these are my thoughts. In my opinion, in everyone's mind the perception of an MBA graduate is a person who is working in an Investment Bank (IB's) and draws the highest salary. Well that is true in some of the cases, where the IB's take in people from IIM's with grand salaries. This may not be true for all the MBA's from IIM's. There are varied reasons, people are exceptionals or they may have prior experience because of which they are taken. Well but that is true for only x% of total grads (am not debating on what that x is). But this has set the perception in minds of everyone about what an MBA from IIM does.
My reason for chosing and deciding on PGSEM from IIMB were very clear. It is one of the best MBA school, PGSEM is a part time course thereby allowing me to continue the job and I did not want to shift into an IB (if that was my aim, full time MBA would have been better option). With these clear aim in mind I decided to go forward.
Entrance I say is tough. Admission is through CAT / GMAT or PGSEM exam (happens in March). I gave the PGSEM test which is very similar to CAT, but as usual IIM threw in a surprise for us. There was an extra essay test givem on a case. Well I would say, this move was definately in my favour. Then we had two rounds of interview - Alumni and Faculty after which only seats were offered. Don't unestimate the competition for the course, for a total of 150 seats for the course, 4-6 people were interviewed for a seat and so you can see there were lots of rejections too.
There has been some concers on the placements not available after the course, but dude, you are pursuing the course since you are already in job. Now if you want to utilize the course and get into some other area, then you should be proving that in your company and move, I don't think everything should come one a plate :). I am very clear on how I will proceed further, which area I will move into is still being thought off in my mind.
From these 4 weeks of going weekly for the course, one thing is very clear to me. It going to be tough. Daily working till evening and then leaving early from home for classes (as they happen in MCity which is outside Chennai city) and contiuing over Saturday also. It leaves just one day which I was mostly spending on sleeping, but after yesterday's test I will be studying properly on Sunday's as well as other day's of the week :). One more thing, nowdays the wishing on Saturday evening, which is when classes ends it like 'Have a nice day', no reference of weekend by anyone. In the past there has been some drop-outs from the course, people who might find it difficult to manage the time between work, studies and personal life.
So people who have come out of this course are more hardened than probably the full time (we have to earn the same credits as the full time people to get the degree) but in no way we should be comparing the courses as all are distinctively different.
Useful information about the program:
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