As a memorable year comes to a close, I look back at my journey spanning 15 thousand kilometers from Atlanta to Bangalore. Deciding to pursue MBA from IIM Bangalore meant more than just going back to school to me. It meant leaving the United States; a country which had been my home for a decade, and has some of the top business schools worldwide. I chose IIM Bangalore because of its rich legacy, eminent faculty and leading-edge curriculum in a very exciting business scenario of India. IIMB, as an educational institution, also plays an important role in a country in the midst of a transformation.
After taking the leap, I realized the enormity of the challenges in the tightly packed one-year MBA programme at IIMB. Days blended into each other and weekends disappeared in the initial months until students got accustomed to the pace of the curriculum. In my experience, a marked difference of EPGP from graduate studies in the West was the dynamic nature of the programme and the sheer volume of work – both curricular and extra-curricular. Another difference was the emphasis on ethics in business and consideration about the betterment of environment and society ingrained in business goals. Students and professors alike are empowered to walk the talk and create an impact on various social issues. I learned a lot from working with people with experiences, backgrounds and opinions completely different from mine. A professor working actively with the government on live projects, a CEO himself conducting class on his company’s strategy and operations or a philanthropist engaging students in his social enterprise, are things that happen frequently at IIMB. Experiences like these make the grind worthwhile.
One is spoilt for choice in terms of academics at IIMB as the institute offers a wide variety of electives ranging from Advanced Business Analytics to Management Paradigms from Bhagavad Gita; each course intriguing and offering a different perspective on management and decision-making. The institute’s lush green, stone-walled campus is always throbbing with activity as students juggle studies, projects, various events and competitions. For a keen observer like me, there is so much you can learn, have an opinion on, share it in class or even keep it to yourself!
In the last one year, I have experienced moments of pressure, success, difficulty, confusion, amazement and joy – all of which have contributed to make me better equipped professionally and personally. For me, IIMB turned out to be a microcosm of India – diverse yet united, chaotic yet harmonized, rooted in a glorious past yet poised for a great future. What more could I have sought from an amazing management school!
Kushal graduated from the one-year MBA programme (EPGP) at IIM Bangalore in March 2020. He spent a decade in the United States – initially as a Masters student in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology and then as a software engineer. A desire to widen his horizons in the new global economy and an ardent optimism about his homeland brought him back to one of India’s most highly coveted MBA programmes.