Next up in our series of featured MBA bloggers is Amit, an MBA applicant who writes at My Journey to Destiny and plans on applying to top b-schools in 2013. Please enjoy reading about Amit’s application journey. Thanks Amit!
Accepted: First, can you tell us a little about yourself – where are you from, where did you go to school, when did you graduate, and what prior degrees do you hold?
Amit: I am based out of Bangalore, India and am working for the past 3 years as an Engineer in one of the largest manufacturing companies in India in the Public Sector. I graduated in Electronics & Communication Engineering in 2009 and joined this present company straight out of the college.
Accepted: Which b-schools do you plan on applying to? When?
Amit: I am interested in a General Management program and am planning to start business school in 2014 and hence will apply during 2013. I have a preference for 2 year programs. Considering this and other factors, I've decided to apply to some top MBA programs like Stanford, Kellogg, Ross, and Booth among others. This list is tentative and not the final one. I am still researching MBA programs.
Accepted: Do you have a brand-name-or-bust attitude, or will you consider attending other programs if you get rejected from your top choice program?
Amit: Now this is a difficult question to answer at this point of time but as of now, I am concentrating on some top MBA programs only. I think I can leverage my experience to get through a top MBA program. However, it is needless to say that I've a lot more research to do before I decide on the final list of business school to apply to.
I am very early in to my business school research. I decided that I want to do an MBA a couple of months back and have been doing business school research since. I have my preferences and goals in the sense that I know what I've to do and I am looking for the business school "FIT" for now.
Accepted: What courses or experiences or people have motivated you to go to business school? How?
Amit: My motivation for applying to an MBA program came from my present work experience. The nature of my present work involves mostly Operations Management. I am an Engineer by education and working in this present role both as an Engineer and a Manager handling shop operations. I realized that in a company like mine, one can remain an Engineer only up to a certain extent and as one moves higher and higher up the food chain, it all finally boils down to how efficiently things are managed. This has laid the foundation for my motivation to pursue business education formally.
Accepted: Can you tell us about your Venture Lab experience?
Amit: Venture Lab was on online program offered by Prof. Chuck Eesley of Stanford Technology Ventures Program. It was a really great experience for me.
I joined this course as I wanted to experience a mini start-up experience. It helped me to understand business from scratch. It went from how to look for a potential idea to how to look for funds and IPO for the company. It was a great experience indeed.
Moreover, it was a team exercise and my team was geographically distributed all over India and without ever meeting in-person we carried out the entire activities of a start-up exercise.
I was also the Team Leader of my 4 member team in Venture Lab. We started with a simple idea and at the end of the course we factually proved that it was a BAD idea to pursue as a start-up. This was a very important take away from the course. You may read my posts on various stages of the Venture Lab experience on my blog. Some more posts about that are due and I am planning to post them soon.
Accepted: What is your current job/industry? Do you plan on continuing in that career direction once you receive your MBA, or do you plan on switching to a new career?
Amit: My current industry is Hi-Tech manufacturing. I am presently manufacturing shop Engineer and would like to move to Strategy roles in a similar industry. A couple of years in Consulting is also what I am looking at post-MBA before joining a company in the industry.
Accepted; Why did you choose to blog about the MBA application experience?
Amit: I have benefited a lot from the online forums and websites like yours. I thought of blogging because of 2 reasons – the first being that I wanted to create a compilation of the learning that I've had from these online forums. I hope that this will help other fellow applicants now and in the near future to get to know stuff that they must know, at one place. The idea is that there are a large number of forums and huge information therein. However, some forums and posts are not as informative. So everyone should not reiterate all the forums and all the posts to get the relevant information.
The second reason of blogging was that I wanted to create a transcript of my own application journey.
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