First few days at IIMA

Finally my MBA journey started on 8th April 2010 when I boarded the Indigo airlines flight for Ahmedabad from the Bangalore airport. At the airport, I met a couple of classmates who were all excited and anxious at the same time about what lay in store for us at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). We were all well-fed with fables about the rigour of the course and this was probably the most important thing playing in our minds.

Now, that I have mentioned about the rigor of the course, let me give a brief introduction of the course itself. IIMA had launched a one year full time MBA program in 2006 called PGPX which is meant for professionals with substantial work experience. The entry criteria are a GMAT score, essays, profile and a minimum of 27 years of age. The acceptance rate is less than 10 percent - even less than Harvard or Wharton business school. The course is designed to include a very rigorous academic curriculum divided into 5 terms of about 2.5 months each. One of the terms is an international stint of academics and industry immersion.

It need not be said that coming from IIMA, this is probably one of the best one year MBA programs available in the country and hence it attracts the very best of MBA aspirants of Indian origin from all over the world. Consequently it is one of the toughest courses to get in - with average GMAT score of 714 (in the current batch), international experience of about 4 years on the average, a stringent screening process and an equally grueling interview.

We reached Ahmedabad in the afternoon and soon realized that the heat in terms of the rigour of the course would get stiff competition from the scorching heat of the city itself. Probably the temperature was around the 40 degrees centigrade mark and the cab driver who drove us to the campus informed us that it can only get worse.

On reaching the campus we soon were basking in the glory of being part of the great legacy of IIM Ahmedabad. To be a student after a gap of 10 years was a thrill in itself. We soon found ourselves in the student's canteen and immersed in the regular chat and tea session. The one great thing that we all agreed was being part of a great mix of students who have excelled in their own fields of work. I am not sure if such a mix can be expected in any business school at least in India.

Later in the afternoon, we got ourselves registered to the office and were presented with the most unwelcome gift we all had anticipated but never quite prepared ourselves for. The mountain of books that were handed over to us probably called for a mini truck to be accompanied with, as it was humanely impossible to carry those with your bare hands. Morale had taken a serious beating.

But we were made of sterner stuff and a morale maintenance committee was constituted in no time. The committee made immediate plans of organizing trips to movie theatre, cricket matches and even nightly football sessions for the next few days because it was only Thursday and classes were to start only from Monday. The next few days passed in a breeze.

Monday saw a grand opening ceremony where even spouses and small children took part. It was really an amazing experience to see some very serious topics being discussed and intermitted by cries and laughter of little ones. Lunch followed and then the dreaded entry to the actual CR 11 - classroom designated for the batch of PGPX. Thus started the journey of 86 ambitious and highly talented group of young men and women for a year of rigour and fun.