I am not Crazy

Diary Entry – 41

If you know me personally you can read this. If you don’t anything about me, I don’t know why you will want to read this, please move on to the next post. If you are stalker then you can read this but be warned I am writing this because I am just tired of explaining everything to each person who talks to me.

 

I applied to six universities in the United States and one University in the United Kingdom. I applied for Industrial Engineering, specialising in Operations Research in the US and Business Analytics and Consulting in Warwick Business School UK. Ever since I got that offer letter from Warwick Business School, people who dont know shit have been giving me their advice. Some have concluded that I am stupid. I know I really shouldn’t be listening to you people, but it fills me with a small sense of doubt every time I hear something in the lines of “You are making the biggest mistake of your life”. So let me answer the whys whats and hows.

There is an industry called consulting which most people in India have not heard of. The people who work there are called consultants or they may have other fancy names like Business Analysts etc. It is what companies like Mckinsey do for a living. Good consulting companies are hard to get into. That is because they invest a lot of money in training the new consultants and if the newly hired people leave after a few years saying that consulting is not meant for them, then it will mean loss for the company. So they are very picky when choosing people and they hire people who have demonstrated an interest in consulting or people who have already been in consulting.

 I have always wanted to do MBA. Years ago, I spoke to someone who did his MBA from Boston Business School. He told me the smartest and the top bunch of students in the MBA class will usually prefer consulting. The middle set of students will go into finance and the bottom of the class will go into marketing. He asked me to get a job in consulting before I do my MBA. If the work experience I had was from a consulting company, it will be a lot easier for me to get an admission to the top business schools in the world. My consulting background will give a higher value to my profile. He told me this years ago and I had no idea what consulting was then and you can even say I forgot about consulting up until the time I studied Operations Research in college. I decided that Operations Research is the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I remembered what my senior told me years ago, when I was researching the job prospects of Operations Research. Consulting was a job where you will use Operations Research ever day, to help solve problems. I had no idea. Naturally, the statement of purpose I sent in was very strong. Also I had done work in the field which made it even more strong. No the course in Warwick is not MBA. It is still called masters.

If you are from India, you will probably here people tell you that if you do an MBA you have to get into finance. That is because consulting companies don’t come to most Indian MBA colleges except maybe the IIMs. That brings us to the next question. Why did you not write CAT? I am not smart enough for that exam. It is easier to get admission into Harvard Business School when compared to getting admission into any of the IIMs. CAT is that hard. So the next thing people ask is why I don’t do my MBA directly. MBA programs abroad require two years of relevant work experience. They wont give you admission otherwise. Even if by some fluke you get admission without work experience, you will struggle to complete the program.

Also the tution fee for the MBA is not cheap. If you study in good universities, it will cost you $80,000.If I worked for a few years in consulting, I will not only have the relevant experience but since consulting is one of the highest paying jobs in the US and in the world, I will also have the money to pay for my MBA.

 I applied for Industrial Engineering specialising in OR because it is more or less the same thing. Operations Research is what you will use for consulting. If I did Industrial Engineering specialising in OR, I can still get into consulting. However you can do a lot of other things with OR. The program in Warwick Business School is tailor made for consulting which makes it better for my interests when compared to the courses in US. It like a mechanical engineer can work in aerodynamics apart from other things like manufacturing and automobile, but if you are bent on doing aerodynamics to begin with, is it not a lot better if you did a course on aerodynamics instead of something generic like mechanical engineering. You will save yourself the trouble of not learning a lot of things you will never use in your life.

Also when compared to the masters program in the US, I will finish the course in Warwick in half the time and I will have to spend 30% less if I studied in Warwick. I have not received any admit letter from the universities in the US till now anyway. No, it does not mean they rejected me. If they rejected me, they will send an email saying I am not competent enough. I have got no email so far and I am not going to wait for it.

After explaining all this to the people who test my sanity, they usually say “But dude, I have never heard of Warwick Business School”. What can I say man. Just because you haven’t heard it doesn’t mean it is bad. If you don’t believe me, you have to at least believe the Financial Times. They made a ranking of top business schools in the world for 2012 and Warwick is ranked 27^th. Financial Times. How I got admission, on the next blog post...

I know UK has a reputation of kicking students out of their country as soon as they finish their course, but I still think this is the best option I have right now.

My blogging friend BluBluBling, who is doing her CA told me that I should not go when I have TCS :D :D. There is nothing more awesome then working for the Tatas rite? Well she probably told me that because she is doing CA and has no idea what TCS is. Also she did not want brilliant minds like mine to leave the country. But if you are an engineer and if you ask me to join TCS, then you must really hate me.  

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