IIM A or B or C...Part 1

Cleared CAT. Got multiple calls. Partied. Now a decision to be made, which IIM should i join. For me the answer was simple. I had to join IIMA. It was dream since my second last year of college. And today, 4 years later when i have a chance to join it, i am not gonna let any reason like back-breaking academic rigour or anything else deter me from joining A. But for many others choice is not that simple. Hence a lot of debate around which IIM to join.

Here is the first part of series involving which IIM to go. These are replies that i got from my seniors at IIMA.

Copied verbatim.....

Meant only for an adult and mature audience. Parental guidance advised.

An MBA is like a marriage. You're happy and excited when you're getting married, but it doesn't take much time to realize you were better off as a bachelor.So in that sense the institute is like your wife. You are stuck with it once you're married.In this case... your spouse is always going to be more famous than you and as much as I hate to say this "you shall be using your wife to further your career!"

Continuing this analogy a little further... since most of you have met your wives not more than once or twice, this essentially is an arranged marriage for you (the smart ones ofcourse believe in love at first sight)

So the people in this group are lucky enough to have the option of marrying A or B or C. My friend from IIMC compared these to Aishwarya Rai (A), Bipasha Basu (B) and Celina Jaitley(C). The choice is yours whom you want to marry.

However there are a couple of small little issues:
1.) You have to share your wife with 300 other people.
2.) You can't marry all three of them,
But that essentially is the choice between A, B or C. You could marry Ms. A and introduce your wife as being world famous in India. One who is undoubtedly "the most beautiful woman in the world". One whose face is recognised throughout the world. Essentially she represents the Indian woman to the world. Or... you could marry a certain Ms. Basu with whom you could have a lot of fun! But you'd often end up saying "Well.. she's beautiful in her own way." Or... you could marry Ms. Celina. No doubt she's beautiful but one for whom you would have to say "So what if she can't act. She has the potential!"

If you were hoping for a serious answer to the A Vs. B Vs. C query... please ignore what I've written before this, but do read on.

Frankly... I really do not see how anyone on this group is capable of answering this question. None of the members of the groups has had the good fortune to experience more than one of these institutes. If anyone answers it, its only based on what we "hear".In my personal opinion there is almost no difference between A or B or C. They area all good and bad in their own ways. Most people get almost the same jobs across these three campuses. You essentially put the same total effort across the two years (IIMA sends GPAs of 1st eyar to companies during pacements. C sends for 4 terms and B for 5 terms. So the others work for a longer time). So the crap that we hear that we work really hard at A and don't at B or C is just that..."crap". Yes, we do work very very hard in the 1st year. But then we don't HAVE to work hard in the second year.

Going back to my analogy: The choice is essentially "Do you like to do it fast and aggressive and heated." or "Do you like to do it simple and sober and slow... at your own pace" (pun unintended). Anyway... 2 months into marriage most people like their neighbours' wife more :)

On a serious note...An MBA is much more than just classroom studies or projects. unfortunately many of us do not realize this. Irrespective of whether you join A or B or C, you would get infinite opportunities to explore things. Most fail to pick them. An MBA gives you a different perspective to look at things. When someone said "An MBA is just common sense thrown in with a lot of jargon", she couldn't ave been more correct. Only that we generally do not use common sense. MBA teaches you how to use common sense logically and consciously.

Please think for yourself why you want to do an MBA. You answer could be "to get a high paying job" or it could be "I want to listen to some great people talk" (yeah.. Lalu Yadav is not the only one who came to our campus) or it could be "My girlfriend's dad is an MBA and I need to do it for her" or anything more weird like "personality development", etc etc. But you should know WHY you are doing an MBA. It'll help you take much more from an MBA. Do NOT enter a B-school the way we enter engineering schools or any other bachelor's degree course. You would do yourself and your batchmates a favour if you are mature enough to know why you are doing an MBA and what you want at the end of the course. A certain level of maturity is expected for the post graduate course.

Remember "Child marriage is illegal and doesn't do no good to anyone" :)

Aaah.. and incase you happen to find out which one of A, or B or C is better (mature answers only please) do mail me and I will arrange a nobel prize for you.