Networking

The most abused term in B-schools. It may had some positive connotation in the ancient past but nowadays it's an euphemistic word for "boot-licking". Networking is done mostly with seniors, not to gain some real insights into the industry or profession, but for getting hold of the ppts of those case studies which have been done in previous batches, getting sample questions for end term exams, getting insights into electives which don't add much learning value but are great for getting good grades, etc. In my humble opinion, none of these activities add anything of value rather than a couple of extra marks/grades here and there, which comes at a cost of unoriginal thinking and constant dependence on others. On a different note, it's funny how people crave for marks in a post-graduate programme in management. I will try to write a separate article on this topic.

Another thing that is lacking ohh-so-much in B-schools is individuality. People don't take a single step inside the campus without consulting seniors and batchmates; the latter again consult with the seniors, who give advice based on their consultations with their super seniors, etc etc. Hope you get the drift. Be it the case of choosing electives or choosing the industry, the final result is blindly following other's advices without heeding a call of one's own heart. Not many have the confidence of treading their own path even before walking into the campus. And the remaining few lose it midway due to extreme peer pressure. I myself almost fell into this trap during the summers process. Thankfully better senses prevailed in the end.

The mystery of confidentiality in B-schools

Almost 90% of the things in B-schools are "confidential". Starting from placement reports to as innocuous things like hostel room allocation, the entire processes are shrouded in mystery. A few at the helm of power control all the things that go on in the campus. And people who have networks with these high and almighty usually get all the advantages in the world.

Networking-- that's one word I am starting to hate after 10 months in B-schools. People don't form friendships here, they network. Network with the placecom guys, and they will push your CV during the summers process. Network with the acadcom guys and they will save your butt during hostel rooms allocation, in spite of you missing the required criteria. And some poor souls, who still haven't understood the importance of such "exchange relationships" will bear the brunt. In fact, the level of politics that goes on in B-schools is mind-boggling. It's more than office politics.

Every B-school tries to incorporate ethics among their students and most of them have full-credit courses on them. But what's the point? Sorry to say, but some of the most unethical guys and girls end up in these hallowed campuses and they start their game of politics from the first day on campus. Random fudging of achievements to make those CVs look better, logging in with others' ids in the acads portal to gain advantage at the cost of others are so common that people don't care about these things. Now this is more alarming than the "crimes" themselves. Most of the students have an attitude of "as long as it doesn't hurt me, I don't care". And all hail the peer pressure. Normal people can go crazy and lose the ethics and moral values that they have learnt in the last 20-25 years of their lives and commit something crazy which they wouldn't have dared to think of before joining the campus.

Just hope that I pass out of this place with my integrity intact.

Summers!

1 month into your MBA course and you'll start hearing pretty much everyone talking about the summer internship process, or in short, the summers. You will be amused at first, wondering how a process which occurs in the next year can be so important to you right now, but after a few days, its highly probable that you will also consider summers as the second most important thing in your life (the first is obviously final placements, duh!).

Lets have a look at the 5 most important factors that can hinder your summers placements, cause heartaches and heartburn during the slot 0 and slot 1, and ultimately make you so desparate that you will be craving for some companies whose names you have never even heard of, or probably skipped the same companies during your undergrad days. Let's start, shall we ?

1> Work experience of anything over 40 months

You are a goner, plain and simple. Unless you held at least 3-4 "Positions of Responsibilities"( a 3-word-term which is the most important thing to your "CV Points") in the past, you can forget about getting any decent shortlist. You may be extremely lucky if you manage 1 or 2, but rest assured you will be axed during the GDs or PIs. Don't have any hope of getting good companies during summers, because they absolutely despise work-ex.

2> Unknown undergraduate college

Pretty much disaster in the making. May be your college is one of the best in your region, maybe it has pretty strict academic regime, but it counts for zilch. IITs will dominate and the NITs will follow, alongside the DU colleges and BITS. I will go as far as to say that college brand pretty much makes or breaks your candidature.

3> Unknown college + bad marks (read anything less than 8.0 cgpa)

Now this is the worst scenerio. Your college was good, and strict, so you got less marks than some of the people who went to some other lower rung colleges under the same university.You were happy and proud during your undergrad days about the reputation that your college enjoyed locally. But once you are thrown into the pool with the big fishes (IITs, NITs etc.), all these regional colleges become unknown to the recruiters, and the only way to differentiate is the marks on your CV. Now you will be the biggest loser with a college name that is not known nationally, compounded with a relatively low score. A perfect recipe for disaster.

4> Acads

Acads are important, plain and simple. You may have argued millions of times about the unfair shortlisting criteria of the IIMs for giving weightage on past acads. You have reasoned that managers don't need marks obtained in school to excel in future. You may be right, you may be wrong. But you won't get shortlists with all the logic in the world. Your past will keep on haunting you, and just when you thought that you have finally shed this monkey off your back, it will come back again during the summers.

5> Male engineers working in IT firms (plus point number 1)

The summers process will pass peacefully for you, for the very simple reason that you won't be called for any interview for the first 2 days. You will roam around here and there, ask others how it went for them, and come back to your room again and start blogging about it. The companies look for diversity, which means non-engineers and the fairer sex. You will curse the day when you cracked the engineering entrance test and wish you failed that and went to do some course in psychology. From there you will start cursing the day when you first joined the IT company with dreams of onsite. IT has become a taboo and anything apart from that is a plus point, anything non-IT is diversity.

So that's it folks! I am sure you have heard it all before joining a b-school, and yet harbor a small glimmer of hope that maybe these stories are over hyped, maybe the scenario is not this bad, because after all you will be joining one of the top 10 colleges in the country. I sincerely hope that you will prove this theory wrong, but until that, don't expect anything grand and keep in mind, a 2-month internship process cannot and should not shape your life.Sour grapes? Maybe, but one needs some consolation, right ?