Post Study Visa for students in Belgium

I have been doing some research on Post Study Visa for students in various countries in order to understand it better because Belgium does not have any unfortunately. US, UK, France, Netherlands, Australia etc provide 1-2 years of "Post Study Visa" to all Masters students with varying degree of flexibility.

To my surprise this thought never crossed school's mind even when the school is pushing so hard for internalization.I am trying to speak to the school management and the alumni association to highlight and push this issue further. One of the reasons I see for this issue is the relatively small number of foreign students(non-EEA) in Belgium.

Negotiations - a different perspective

This has been due for a long time. We had an amazing course on 'Negotiations Skills' by our Program Director, Dr David Venter. Dr Venter was one of the twelve negotiators in South Africa to facilitate the transfer of power from Apatheid regime to democracy.

Before this course, I never thought that 'Negotiation' is like an art that could be mastered by practice. Dr Venter is an amazing speaker and with his real life examples he made the course very interesting and engaging.

Key learnings from the course:-

- Before the negotiation, do a through home-work on the problems at hand, other party(ies) involved and your own bucket of options.

- Enter the negotiation with your 'Aspiration Base'(Where to start the negotiation), 'Real Base'( upto what point can you go in negotiation) and 'BATNA'

- Make the first move.

- Approach it with the idea 'Win-more' 'Win-more' .

We practised many simulated 'Negotiation' problems and it was really possible to apply the above learnings in practice.

Cacophony in the breaks...

Normally a lot of non-Belgian classmates including myself make VoIP calls to people back home or else where in the breaks of the classes.The other day during a break I was sitting in the class working on something and I realised there was a virtual cacophony of languages in the class auditorium,which I had never noticed before. Somebody was speaking Spanish,somebody Russian, somebody Bengali and faintly I could hear some Greek too.

It was quite a change from all in English discussion to a cacophony of langauages :) Internationalism at its best!!!!!

Language - How important role it has?

Lately we have been interacting with a lot of companies,Vlerick alumni and other recruiting partners and one thing that has come out clearly in the discussions is the necessity of fluency in Dutch/French for about half the companies. Before starting in Vlerick I was aware of the language factor but my assessment was that about one fourth of the companies are particular about local language.

Most of my classmates are taking classes for Dutch/French alongside the course including me. I must emphasise that firms that have typically European operations are more particular about local language than those that have global operations. However knowing the local language comes handy if you plan to work in Europe. The requirement of fluency in local language definitely makes it more challenging for non-Europeans to find suitable jobs.

Lets hope for the best.

Networking - the core part of doing MBA

Before coming to Vlerick I was quite cognizant of the importance of networking both during the course and after the course. I remember from an interview of Joseph Stiglitz that the three core parameters for a candidate to choose a b-school should be 'Networking,Networking and Networking'.

After starting in Vlerick I must say I have realised more closely how important networking is. I am glad Vlerick emphasises a lot on the importance of networking and provides students many opportunities to meet the alumni, industry people and entrepreneurs. Vlerick has innovated a 'Mentor-Mentee' concept in which there is a mentor for every two students. I have talked more about this on my previous post.This program seems to be working nicely. We had our second mentorship session today.

Looking forward to a promising new year with many networking opportunities.

One typical day in the MBA life

Human adaptation is an amazing thing. I am quite amazed at the adaptation that all my classmates have undergone and now we sail through a day which typically looks like:-

7 hours of class in all its intensity that requires prior preparation too.Few industry or class presentations in the lunch breaks/after class hours. 2-3 group meetings for all the assignments at hand.There could be a networking event/alumni meet late in the evenings. Normally the day ends with few beers discusssing stuff with fellow classmates/industry speakers/alumni or the InBev lounge bartender only to be followed by more reading for the next day.

Did I say I even said oh or oooph for the passed day, oh hell I enjoyed every bit of it. Guess MBA definitely helps us redefine our own boundaries....

10 weeks in the course...

We are in our 11th week of our course.Time has just flown by. It has been quite an experience till now and I thought it would be a good idea to summarize few key takes:-

- Prioritization is the indespensable part of the course. There are umpteen things to attend to, seemingly all are important and relevant. Until one can prioritize it is very difficult to cope with the 'course flow'.

- Learning and unlearning is happening simultaneously,although the former dominates the latter by occurence ;) Imagine one is put in a room with 42 other bright people to brainstorm on a subject/issue. One is constantly challenged to grasp new ideas and suddenly recalibrate his thought process . I must accept sometimes it leads to futility also.

- The group seems pretty intermigled now compared to initial days.We now know reasonably well about each other, which is quite a remarkable thing,however each day is a new discovery for me.

- Anxiety about the recovery of economy is palpable. Although we are more than 9 months away from graduation I could sense the anxiety in the group. Seemingly the Belgian market is not quite internationalized and that is making a lot of non-EEA folks to explore other markets.

If I would want to put a score to my satisfaction level with the course until now I would say 8/10.

Kobus Neethling 's creativity workshop

Yesterday we had a workshop on 'Creativity' by Dr Kobus Neethling He is the president of South Africa Creativity Foundation and a very known name in the world of creativity. I would say the presentation was not spectacular but worth the time. He introduced few new paradigms to look at creativity,which I found convincing.

Dr Kobus has written 88 books as yet, and has written one book of 110 pages in four and half minutes. Quite a feat, ain't it...

Hoping to have a creative weekend...

Open Innovation Forum kicks off in Vlerick

On the 4th Nov, Vlerick Innovation Forum was kicked off. Open Innovation is quite an interesting area and there is a buzzing interest in the students to explore it. Few students got together to form the forum in the school. We got a person from academia Prof.Wim Vanhaverbeke and one person from industry Mr.Phillipe Cardinael to address us. It was a good beginning.

We are hoping more students to come onboard and make the learning better for everybody interested.

The pressure in the cooker just got abnormal

In one of my previous posts I had hoped that the work pressure would subside in coming days,but I got it totally wrong. I did a counting today and figured I have ten subjects to take care at the moment, phew even I am surprised how am I managing this.On top of this, there are umpteen other equally important things such as career services,networking,social life etc etc. I am already sleep deprived and caffeine addict.

I have at least 5 groups to do assignments for various subjects. I have to use 'Congestion Control Algorithms' learned during my engineering days to manage all the group activities ;) I think this term and coming term is going to be heavy on work load... C'est la vie...

Vlerick - 10th on ranking and best on salary gain(Economist)

Got these news few days ago through a tweet of Matt Symonds. Together both the news brought a lot of cheers for the current class. Colleagues were ecstatically tweeting and updating their Facebook status messages with the links to these reports.

The current class would graduate under the fading shadow of 'Financial Crisis', although we all are very optimistic and these rankings definitely give us more confidence in positioning ourselves.

The superb international diversity of class(40 nations in class of 2010), focus on general management and entrepreneurship make Vlerick so attractive,however I feel Vlerick needs a strong brand building in regions outside Western Europe,more international faculty members and a much global outlook in case study formations.

Its party time and we are hoping to have a rocking party from the school management soon !!!

Unending affair with Belgian Foreigners Registration Authorities

I am in love or rather forced by circumstances to have an affair with the Belgian Foreigners Registration Authorities ;)) It has been more than a month and fourth trip to their office, I am still clueless about when would I get my 'Residence Permit'. I have been told it might take 3-6 more weeks and I have met all my appointments as given by them.

My frustration is legally I can't go out of Belgium until I have my RP, although people have gone to Netherlands, Morocco, Spain and where not.I thought bureaucracy is a gift of Britain to its colonies but Belgium proved me wrong. I have started liking the receptionist of Belgian FRA and their building feels like second home in Belgium ;))

I hope I get my RP soon. Be prepared to be patient with your RP when you come to Belgium or better apply for a type 'C&D' visa instead of type 'D',so that you can go out of Belgium even without your RP..

Mentorship Programme - Speed Dating way

Vlerick has a 'Mentorship' programme for the FT MBA students. Until last year every student was assigned a mentor based on her profile.Somehow that idea didn't work very well, with few students complaining about the organization of the programme.This year Vlerick decided to do it in a 'Speed Dating' way. Every student got to choose ten to be mentors from the list of given alumni,then every student got to meet six alumni for 10 minutes each.The idea was to interact with many alums and develop better relationship with more alums than just one.

I would definitely say the experience was good. I could connect to few alumns in the speed dating way. There would be 2-3 more such sessions. InBev always makes Vlerick get-together pretty fun, the beverage & food were rocking as always:))

Inter Culture Communication as a subject and its implications...

I particularly wanted to write about my experience of one of my first papers in MBA curriculum,'Inter Culture Communication'. This paper was taught was by Dr Bruce Stening, Dean of our Beijing Campus and a phenomenal person.Dr Bruce took us through an experience that I feel is one of the most important takes of an International MBA.We were put in a group of five people, deliberately made as diverse as it could get and asked to work on a project together.I had an Indonesian girl, an Argentinian, a Hungarian and a French-Belgian in my group.

We were made to do a lot of class assignments in the group along with the group project. Working for the group project was initially difficult as people had their own set of ideas about how to go for the project etc etc. My group became a cohesive one pretty soon and we had a ball working together.However in many groups, there were a lot of disagreement and adjustment issues.We did a role-play as part of our presentation for the project.Many groups presented videos as part of their presentations, which were so funny that we actually had a get together watching these videos over beer.There was a lot to learn and share in this project and I feel quite enriched with this experience.

In essence this paper provided a real time experience of working in a cross-cultural scenario with almost unknown people. The bottomline is one has to be open-minded and ready to learn and unlearn to be successful in a cross-cultural setup.

First Corporate Get Together

We had our first corporate interaction on the 23rd Sep. Although I didn't find the discussion session worthwhile, the networking cocktail session was definitely good. Met people from Deloitte, E&Y and other consulting companies and spoke to them about the industry in general and sought their advice on how do make my way towards a career in Biz Consulting. The Consulting recruitment time is normally in Oct-Nov, in the beginningof next month we have a career fair on Consulting and Finance Jobs in Ghent(our another campus).

Another thing which I think could be changed is mixing MBA and Master students together in the corporate events. The need for Masters and MBA are different and few companies are only keen on recruiting Masters,which is frustrating for MBA students and vice versa.

Pressure cooker days....

I would refer to my first three weeks in Vlerick as 'Pressure Cooker Days'. It suddenly felt that I was bulldozed with information from all directions. I thought I was good at multi-tasking but boy I have to get much better.Most of the time is spent in classroom and doing the readings for the next classes.

On top of it there is no dearth of assignments. Most of the assignments are group based and I feel it is the most wonderful part of the MBA experience. The school makes sure that one is not with same people in all the groups, this way you get to interact with almost everybody in the class. Initially there were few difficulties in working with people from other cultures and background,things are fine now.Did I tell you, reportedly there were heated discussions in few groups ;))

Seems like the steam of the pressure cooker would ease a bit in coming days. I already have a Corporate Interaction Session in few days from now, the clock is ticking real fast :))

First days of school

The first day in the school started with a sumptuous breakfast followed by formal introduction of Dean,Program Director and other staff members.Our class consists of 89 participants from 41 countries, isn't that a pretty international group? We were divided in groups of five to know the members of the group and then introduce the group members to the rest of the participants. It was a very useful exercise.The profile of the students seemed quite impressive.

We were given a lecture on 'What is MBA' by the PD on the second day and it turned out to be a very informative session. Then we went to Ghent,for official opening of Vlerick's academic session. The school's effort to make our experience enriching is appreciable. I am hoping to have a great year in Vlerick.

First days in Leuven

I could manage to get almost all the stuff I wanted from India courtesy Jet Airways.Coming to Leuven was pretty comfortable from Brussels Airport through the Metro.When I reached Leuven it was raining and the weather was chilly, I thought welcome to Belgium in its best form ;)

On the first day,started with pre-registering at KU Registration and taking a cell phone connection.Visited the school and met few batchmates. Started with studio hunting on the second day.Rajesh(another batchmate from India) and me had decided to stay together and we could finalize a studio by third day.Pre-MBA reading is pending on my side, have to push for those courses now.BTW Leuven is a nice small city with nice people, I think I am going to love it here :))

An immigrant goes to become immigrant in another continent

I was recently at my parents' place in Jamshedpur,one moment, I am calling it 'parents place' and not home,I asked the same question to myself. I realised I felt like an immigrant at what used to be home for me.I have lived outside home for so long and at many different places that there is no one place that I could call home.

I am shifting to Europe in couple of days. Having lived in and around Bangalore for almost eight years that too in my most formative years I definitely have a very heavy heart in leaving Bangalore. I am sure I would come back to Bangalore soon.

Eventually it is the color of my passport that says where I belong to, but at my heart I think I would always be an immigrant or may be a world citizen :))

Impact of social networking on pre-classes phase

The impact of social networking websites on the pre-classes phase has been no less than phemomenal.Facebook and LinkedIn has been two social n/w sites where the class got together months before we would actually meet. There was exchange of info starting from loan processing(Prodigy),details of visa application, flight, insurance and what not. It eased life for everybody.Folks are so hooked to Facebook group that the official discussion forum provided by Vlerick didn't really click.

Almost everyone in the class already knows each other and folks who are already in Leuven are having a good time together courtesy FB.

Looking to meet the class soon.

Visa Process

The visa process for Belgium(Schengen Visa) is an elaborate one. I started my visa process one and half months in advance to the date by when I intended to submit the application. The required documents were:-

- Police verification certificate
- Medical certificate
- Financial support document
- Letter of registration from the institute

Out of these docs the ones I expected to be most painful were Police Verification and Financial support document. I obtained the medical certificate from the designated doctor of St John's Hospital,Bangalore. It took a good 3 days time.The classical confusion was in obtaining the Police Verification Cerficate, I am even tempted to write a separate post about it. After my research I applied for the PVC in the Regional Passport Office,Bangalore,since my passport was issued from Bangalore so it took me just two days to get the PVC. Then I went to the Branch Secretariat MEA,Govt of India,in Chennai for Apostille of PVC.Meanwhile I was arranging my final fin docs and once my loan papers were in place I was ready to submit my visa application.I could manage to submit my application as planned.I was told by few alumni that visa could take a good 2-2.5 months and that prompted me to finish the process asap.

My only advice is to research well and apply for visa in advance(2 months should be good enough).My to be batchmates on Facebook were pretty helpful in this process.I got my visa in 2 weeks time. I arrive in Leuven on 25th of Aug.

Admission -II

In early Feb I received a mailer from Vlerick about increasing the class intake to 65 for class of 2010 and Vlerick coming to Bangalore again in TheMBA fair.I wrote to Vlerick admission dept with my CV and score details and sought an appointment to meet Vlerick's representative. Peter Rafferty,the MBA program director was visiting Bangalore.

The interview was pretty free wheeling. It ranged from my work-experience to political situation in South Asia to Obama's foreign policy to India's rise as new world power. I was pretty satisfied with the interview. Peter offered me an admit on the condition that the number of Indians has to be within a fixed no. I submitted my application in next 48 hours as suggested by Peter.

I got a mail about me being waitlisted in 3 weeks time. Also I got a communication from Peter stating that I have a pretty good chance of being confirmed.Almost after 4weeks my admit was confirmed. I had admits from other schools in the UK & Netherlands but I decided to go with VLERICK finally!!!

Admission - I

With a 670/4.5 on GMAT and 109 on TOEFL IBT I started my MBA applications. Vlerick was always one of my top choices,however I was more inclined to finish my ISB,Hyderabad's application first because the deadline was for it approaching fastly. I learnt that Vlerick's representative would be attending the TopMBA fair in Bangalore and decided to meet him or rather have a quasi-formal interview arranged.

I wrote to the admission dept of Vlerick with my CV and score details. I was sent an invite for the interview.I was pretty enthusiatic and met the Vlerick representative for my interview. The interview was pretty free wheeling and encouraging but at the end of it I was told that for an Indian candidate 700 on GMAT is a must for a confirmed admit.I would be at the most waitlisted with my profile. I was disapponted but thought c'est la vie.

A new journey...

I am joining Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management this Sep for MBA course.The journey until now has been of great self discovery and I looking forward to a very stimulating experience in Vlerick.

I would be writing about my experiences of Vlerick on this blog. I would start with admissions and continue with further activities.

-Sandeep