The 2nd quarter begins

Done with the first quarter, and it was tough, especially stats.

School hasn't started yet and I already have one 20 page homework, 4 chapters to read, and a mid-term to prepare for. Why do they call it mid-term if they have an exam in the first week of class!

Glad to school mixes a hard subject and a moderate one. This quarter is Financial Accounting and Marketing.
Dread the thought of having 2 tough courses in one quarter - Accounting and Statistics, anyone?

Oh its busy

More than half way through my first quarter and man is it busy. Quizzes every time we meet and midterms every other meet.

Economics is great, commonsense though that is not very common

Stats is brutal, would have been better if it was taught with real experiences; become more of a math class - not complaining though, I like maths.

Nine days and counting

Okay, almost there now. Had a great weekend networking with my future classmates at the Orientation at Davis and San Ramon. The Davis campus is good and gives a more campus feel as compared to our San Ramon campus.

The administrators for the program are really helpful and overall was a good experience.

Can't wait to get started now with the program, nine days more to go..

Hope the course gives me time to write more.

Okay, its starting

School starts on Sept 23rd and received the first set of todo's yesterday.

Time to complete the pre-qualitative assessment (18 hour job). Haven't started yet, but plan to get to it this weeken.  I hope it isn't too hard, else I will have to attend a pre-qualitative class, though it might not be so bad after-all. Its _has_ been over 10 years since I took math classes.

Also received the dates for class enrollment and fees. It's getting there .. totally looking forward to all of this...

The application process

If you thought giving the GMAT was tough, the application process is tougher. Everyone I spoke to including alumni, told me that your application is more important than the GMAT score. UC Davis GSM requires you to write three essays and two more optional ones. The essays take time, though the good part of essays is there is no right or wrong answer. I relate it to putting out a pamphlet to market yourself. You should pat yourself on the back if you do a good job at your essays.

The next part of the application is getting two or more recommendations, one of which has to be your immediate supervisor. I was lucky to have a great friend and mentor as my supervisor who gave me a dream recommendation.The choice of who gives you the second recommendation is critical. My suggestions:

1. Take a recommendation from someone who has an MBA
2. It is great to have a recommendation from someone high up in your company, but then it won't be a personal recommendation, so avoid this.
3. I wouldn't suggest taking a recommendation from your peers.
4. Taking a recommendation from someone who isn't directly in your food chain can be very helpful.

That's it, you are now ready to apply -- oh don't forget your resume.

I was recommended by many to apply to the early rounds, which unfortunately I missed and ended up applying in the second round. In hindsight, I think apply in early rounds is a good idea and significantly improves your chances of getting in.


Once you submit your application starts the nervous period of waiting. UC Davis took about a month to get back to me and called me for an in person meeting.

The meeting included an interview followed by a 5 minute presentation on any topic of interest. The interview is pretty standard, with questions you'd expect like what is your career aspirations, why an MBA, why now, why UC Davis, etc. For many people planning on MBA, answers to these questions are pretty clear. If you aren't sure, it is certainly time for introspection before you go to the interview.

For the presentation, think through your topic. You can talk about something related to your work, but  I wanted to talk about something different and my wife suggested a topic which she saw on the NatGeo channel. I picked up that topic and spoke about how you can use the marketing machinery of a consumer company like PepsiCo or Coca-Cola to distribute condoms in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS. After my presentation which lasted about 4 minutes, I was happy when someone in the audience wondered what my background was.

Now you resume your waiting, and boy, it was a nervous time for me especially since I applied only to UC Davis. Heard the positive news from the school in 3 weeks and am thrilled to get into this prestigious program.

MBA options in Silicon Valley

Contrary to popular belief, I think the choice of MBA schools in the Silicon Valley are limited. Here was my list that I had in mind:

1. Stanford GSB
2. Haas School of Business, Berkeley
3. Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
4. Graduate School of Management, UC Davis (Bay Area Program)
5. School of Management, USF
6. Wharton Program in San Francisco

There are others, but this was my list. I have some friends who did their MBA from Anderson, UCLA, but traveling every weekend to LA was a non-starter for me.

A full time MBA wasn't an option for me, ruling out Stanford. My desire to study with people of diverse backgrounds ruled out Leavey. I couldn't go to Wharton without burning a deep hole in my pocket, which left me with Berkeley and UC Davis.

I would have been thrilled to get into Berkeley, but my GMAT score wasn't ideal.

I am thrilled with UC Davis GSM admitting me into their program and had my first interaction with my potential classmates at dinner last week in San Francisco.

There is so much diversity in the students and I can't wait for the Fall quarter to kick-off.

Overcoming the GMAT hump

Step one for wannabe MBA's is the GMAT. For those who've taken competitive exams like the GRE, the GMAT experience would be smooth. For others, there is no alternative to practice, practice and more practice. For me the biggest challenge was concentrating for4 hours at a stretch. The Barron's guide and practice exams is everything you need for a GMAT. Clock your self with every question, read up on how GMAT does its scoring, it isn't rocket science.

And remember, your GMAT score is important, but not the only criteria for getting into a good school.

The star war cousins

Gayatri and her cousin Diya had a great time together during our trip to India.
It is amazing how children get so comfortable with each other right at the outset. Gayatri is always hesitant to go near any grown up person, but she and Diya were totally at ease together.

Kids of different ages make a good set together, probably the older ones are more patient and probably the younger ones look up to them. It was fun watching these two run behind each other all the time and always wanting to be together.

In this picture, they found a ball of wrapping strings and decided they want bandanas made out for them -- not really the Star Wars kind, but well almost :) ...

Never miss a note in a meeting

Recently I've been spending a fair amount of time talking to customers either in person or via a webcast and one of the biggest challenges has been to take notes while talking or marking questions that you need to get back on. A colleague of mine introduced me to LiveScribe which addresses these problems. LiveScribe is a pretty cool technology -- it has been around for a while now, I am just late to the party.

You can record the complete conversations but that is not to say it is just a dictaphone. LiveScribe has a built in camera which takes upto 70 photos per second, so you just write into the notebook and it knows where you are writing -- later on just click on any text in your notes and you can hear what was spoken at that time -- pretty cool huh?

The price is high for a pen but it is definitely my next trinket :)

You can read/view more about this at www.livescribe.com.