Before reaching your B-School campus…
With the admission offer from a top management school being in place, there is a lot that is yet left to be done in terms of preparations before entering the campus ranging from...

By R Sreenivasan

Once an admission offer from a B-School lands on your lap, your friends and family are as excited as you are and you end up having to throw a party for all well wishers and then on, wait for the D-day to board your train or flight to reach the campus. Yes, a few days are dedicated to do your shopping sufficing the next two years needs. One question that should spring into your head is that – “Can I do a few things from now till the date of my journey that can have a positive impact on my first term, if not the next two years!!”

This, indeed, is an important question to address. I am very keen to ensure that you gain maximum from your two years at B-School. Having met over thirty five thousand aspirants in the last one year during my Bharat Bhraman, and form my experience of being a part of the panels for selection for B-Schools coupled with that of a facilitator to a large number of B-School aspirants over the last two decades, and also as an alumnus of an IIM myself, I have a few things to ask you to work upon –

Preparations
It is very important that you work on your ability to think, organize and articulate your thoughts. It needs a constant endeavour from each one of us every day. Kindly read a good newspaper – The Hindu / Indian Express, every day, especially the features and editorial pages.

You can also catch up latest business news from one of the business dailies. Listen to 9pm news on DD and round up by catching up with one of the business channels every evening. Read business newspapers regularly. Study the graphs and data to understand the situation depicted.

Make sure you write an article every day – create a blog to express yourself (you can check my website www.sreeni.org for any ideas). Alternatively, take a topic and speak in front of the mirror while recording it using a dictaphone or a tape recorder. Listen to the recording and introspect – where you got stuck and why? How can you overcome the shortcomings? Take action and don’t sit back.

Laying the foundation
Three subjects that would form the core for any business education and thereby, your performance during the MBA programme – quantitative ability (statistics), economics and accounting; I strongly urge you to pick a basic book on these to familiarize yourself even before you reach your campus for the pre-term / first term. The best place to start is CBSE Class XI and XII books.

Introspection
There is something even more important and that is to figure out what you really want to do in life. I suggest you spend some time to introspect about this question ‘What I would be remembered for when I leave this world?’

A few questions to help you start off –
1. What do you really enjoy doing? Which industry or company will benefit maximum from your passion.
2. Once you short list the company / industry, start reading about them through various available data and feature sources
3. Are there any personalities you admire and why? Are there any values they espouse or abilities that they have that you want to inculcate? Work on them consciously.
Once you are able to write this note for yourself, I am sure you will get to know what you need to do from now on to achieve your ultimate goals. I hope this will be a great exercise for your journey.

Out-of-the Box
You can associate with an organization or movement that espouses a cause very close to your heart for a few weeks and contribute there. This will help you understand a whole lot about yourself, the working of that organization and give you an idea about what all you could do during your two years of B-School and after..

A few movements that I am actively involved in, are – NIF and its Shodhyatras (www.sristi.org); SPICMACAY’s (www.spicmacay.com) promotion of culture and art forms among youth etc, engaging in improving learning environments in schools through mentor training (www.clef.in) etc. I am sure you too can identify a cause and contribute during your free time to gain something that can be significant for your journey of life.

Before winding up, I would like to say that develop a hunger for learning, devour magazines, journals and books; do not hesitate to interact with professors beyond your class requirements, plunge into all activities that are happening around you, take additional responsibilities on the campus that can build your personality.
I am sure that by now, you would be having enough ideas to build upon what I have stated here, that can be invaluable for your journey ahead. Wishing you the very best. Enjoy your B-school life.

— The writer is director, Indus World School of Business (IWSB)


Education through Sport
Something that the children will probably never learn inside the classroom!

By Gopal Karunakaran
Sports sessions in schools are often called recreational or extra- curricular as if it is a diversion from the main business of academic pursuits – apparently the main purpose of school education. Considering the fact that education is about preparing students for the future, this is a much-flawed position among many educators. Sport often teaches us a whole lot more about the life ahead than anything theoretical learned inside the classrooms.

Sport teaches us:
Hard work: A middle school child with huge talent in any sport soon realizes that he will have to back up that talent with hard work and many hours of toil for him to excel. “Practice makes perfect” is a maxim you learn best on the sports fields.

Teamwork: Emotional and social growth of a child is best achieved through peer group activities. Children learn to share, pass, and contribute to others success and to achieve goals together. That, about, sums up our work in any organization during one’s career.

Risk taking: On the sports field, you will achieve little without going down the wicket while batting in cricket to play the lofted shot; the move to the net to play the volley in tennis; and without the drop shot in badminton. The risk of getting stumped, being passed down the line or hitting the tape is to be taken.

Decision-making: To take good and timely decisions often means taking decisions without all the information and often relying on intuition. When Tendulkar decides to play a shot, he has a split second to decide whether to play a forward defensive shot, or pull the ball over square leg. He doesn’t always know how the pitch is playing and has to guess the bowlers intent. There is a hustle in sport that could be part of the big decisions of life!

Discipline and Concentration: Anyone who has played sport competitively knows that no sporting excellence is possible without discipline in practice and concentration while executing in match play. Wouldn’t CEOs love these qualities in their young professionals?

Building Strategies When we think and plan on the drawing boards, before getting on to the ground it ensures success. Play to the opponents backhand because it seems weak, or bowl short balls to the opposing batsman, as he seems uncomfortable with the short ball, is part of the strategy of planning to win. That is exactly what we do in corporate strategic planning.

Execution: For all the strategising, in sport we quickly learn that strategy is useless unless we execute the plan well. Doing is greater than thinking.

To accept Failures: The greatest lesson from sport is undoubtedly about learning to lose well! It is easy to handle success, but playing sport early gears us to disappointments and how to handle the highs and lows of life. In life, there is always another game to play.A classroom is too small to impart such learning.

When I thought about these things for educators and children, I realized why sport is so integral in the daily routine of a military life, the life I led for 30 years. Interestingly, life is no different for a corporate warrior or civil servant. The lack of a sporting culture in our country and our civil services academies may also explain the deficiencies that you may see in our public life!!