The Vlerick MBA

Social skills, In-company & GiveBack project

2010-09-10T19:14:00.002+02:00

This post has been long overdue.I am writing about three things together.

Social Skills:-
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Social Skills seminar was a four days workshop in an exurb of Antwerp, call Korsendonk.This residential workshop included a mix of classroom lectures, group activities, outdoor exercises and loads of fun. The lectures were primarily about intra-personal and inter-personal behaviourial topics. The group activities included a smorgasbord of things such as designing a village from given set of things, labour negotiations to a rescue plan from airplane wreckage. Outdoor exercises were the most fun. It included a set of group activities that required great coordination and teamwork. After each outdoor activity we had an analysis session that was quite useful. Apart from all of these there was a 360 degree feedback session. The evenings were full of partying and merry-making. All in all it was a cherishable time.

In-company Project
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In-company project was a 8 weeks project. I did my project with another colleague in Microsoft,Brussels. It was a Strategy project. It was a good learning experience. We had a mentor from school,however we were pretty much on our own. It was good to be back to work after a year. We received good support from our colleagues at Microsoft. Most of our MBA colleagues did their project in Belgium/Europe. I got my project through personal networking & my recommendation is to be pro-active in finding your ICP.Few of our colleagues got job-offers from their companies.

GiveBack project
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GiveBack project was a 5 weeks project.We were supposed to work for an NGO in this period. I did my project for Vlerick. I worked on a study about the supply chain of Unilever from sustainability perspective. We were in a group of four. A lot of my MBA colleagues went to Asia,Africa, South America and North America for GBP.It was the first time that Vlerick introduced GBP and I think few changes are required in the format of the project for next time.

Entrepreneurship - A major takeaway from the Vlerick MBA.

2010-05-17T02:46:00.003+02:00

After having finished my Business Plan course, I thought of reflecting about the specific focus on Entrepreneurship that Vlerick has. It was the longest project we had, it ran for almost 7 months although in the background.

Just to give a background on this, as part of the course we have to develop a business plan of our choice in a group of 3-6 students and finally present it in front of a jury comprising of professors, industry-experts and VCs.Vlerick has intertwined Entrepreneurship in its course, from having speed-coaching sessions for the business plan to doing a Marketing Plan to providing sessions on Entrepreneurial Finance, we got an all-round perspective on developing a business plan.

One of the plans from our MBA group has been chosen to represent Vlerick at European Business Plan of the Year Competition. I hope they do well there.

Now I feel more confident in starting a venture of my own, which I intend to do soon. Apart from whatever I mentioned, I feel Vlerick could have added more flavor to the Entrepreneurship course by inviting few international entrepreneurs/coaches to cater to the international group.

The China trip

2010-05-08T03:16:00.005+02:00

The China trip, its hangover and the barrage of work that followed kept me from posting this so far. If I could summarize the China trip in few words they will be' I came, I saw and I am coming again'. One of my major reasons of joining Vlerick was the China module and I must say to the least it met my expectations in terms of its structure,line-up of speakers,industry visits, cultural trips & overall organization.

We started with Beijing. As I mentioned in my previous post that Vlerick has a sister campus in Beijing, situated within the Peking University. Most of our lectures & speaker interactions took place at the Peking U campus. We had lectures and speakers on a broad range of topics, to name a few; Jack Perkowski on his story in China, Confuscianism, IP issues, Starting Business, Business-Government relations.

We visited companies such as Tsinghua Science Park, Capital Steel Group, Sohu.com, Mengiu Dairy. The choice of companies was a good combination of State Owned Entreprises(SOEs) to Internet ventures. What was particularly interesting to me was the openness with which even the SOEs interacted with us. We also visited the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Hutong District and other places around Beijing.

It was my first visit to China and Beijing left a lasting impression on me, the sheer magnanimity of the city overwhelmed me.Beijing has this air of 'Political Authority' around it. Although the pollution bothered me initially but it was ok later.

Our next stop was Shanghai. In Shanghai we had lectures, guest speakers and industry visits too. Here it was pre-dominantly from the financial/venture-capital industry. Shanghai visibly has a different character than Beijing.It seemed more relaxed, easy-going and business-focussed. Shanghai has a better night life than Beijing. We did visit the Shanghai business district which was no less than impressive.We took a one day trip to Zhouzhang, a historical site close to Shanghai.

However I felt China has few challenges that would be fundamental for China's future:-

Gini Index
China has had its growth focused in Eastern and Southern coastal areas, this has been by design and not by co-incidence. This phenomenon has created a big income disparity between urban and rural incomes. The Gini Index is close to 0.5 in China today. China government is pushing for development in less developed areas, however this a big challenge for China's future.

Hukou system
This 'country within a country system' was promulgated to control the migration of people to urban areas,today this is creating a huge social unrest in Chinese society.

Media openness
Personally I feel the space for free media is still restricted in China. No Facebook, Youtube, selective access to Wikipedia among other things that made me feel the need for more media freedom.

Having said all of these, I have come to believe the West is misplaced in trying to transpose its presumed best governance model - 'Democracy' on China because Chinese society is fundamentally different.China has been a feudal society for centuries and the administrators realize this. Adopting democracy immediately may crumble China and that's why China is slowly opening up to it.It is a remarkable achievement to pull out more than 300 million out of poverty in a span of few decades and China must be applauded for this !!!

The job hunt begins...

2010-03-24T13:51:00.001+01:00

I am more than half way through my course, its just about time to start looking for a job. I am targeting Management Consulting or Business Development role in ICT(Internet,Communication,Technology)sector.To crack Management Consulting in Continental Europe appears a yeoman's task, contrary to my expectations all MC firms require knowledge of a European language. I am concentrating my efforts in the UK,Singapore & Dubai for MC. For ICT sector there are possibilities in Continental Europe without a European language, however the economy is still on crutches and things should get better in coming months.

Recently we had a workshop on 'Working in Belgium & Europe', I must say the taxes in Europe are quite high(close to 50%),however the social benefits are equally good.I don't mind staying in Europe if something like-able works out.

Vlerick has a good alumni network, but it is concentrated mostly in Western Europe. The school keeps organizing alumni get-together, company presentation & few career fairs, however I think Vlerick should put more efforts in attracting international recruiters.

The last day of classes and ensuing days...

2010-03-21T19:49:00.004+01:00

We finished our classroom lectures last week for good,however we have other engagements till April end to keep us busy namely; exams,China Trip,module on 'Doing Business In Europe,Business Plan and few other things.

The last day of the classroom lecture left a bitter-sweet taste, on one side the joy of not attending long lectures anymore whereas on the other side the sadness of not seeing my friends in the classroom anymore. I know, it's not exactly the way I am making it sound that but still I had a feeling of partial 'Graduation' on that day.

We start for China one week from today, everyone is excited about the trip. Most of us are staying for few days in or around China after the study-tour ends.Our Chinese classmates have been quite helpful in letting people plan their respective trips,they are also conducting an orientation session for us. The schedule of two weeks of China study-tour is a mixture of classroom lectures, industry visits, networking events, historical tours and lot of PARTYING(unofficial).

After the China trip we have other engagements till end of April. In May,we start with our 'In-company projects'(internships) for two months. I have managed to get my project with Microsoft, Belgium office. In July, we have to do a six week long 'Give-Back' project, a CSR initiative from Vlerick. Have not finalized anything as yet on that.

Sayonara till the next post.....

Crazy days of MBA

2010-03-02T21:33:00.003+01:00

I have been inactive on this blog for last few weeks because of an insanely crazy schedule at the school. I have been spending all days of the week at the school with a maximum sleep of five hours a day.My puffy eyes could vouch for that.I am contemplating to keep my belongings in the school locker and be there 24/7. The amount of work has gone up through the roof, on top of that the pressure to look for in-company project, job-search(would write an article on this later) & give-back project has exacerbated the whole schedule.

At the end of March, the whole class would go on a two weeks study tour to China. Vlerick has a sister campus in Beijing, it's a tie up with Peking University. Peking University has a Full Time MBA course in collaboration with Vlerick called BiMBA.I am looking forward to the China trip, it would be a new experience and a good break as well.

The seniors warned me about the Spring term saying that I would be inundated with work in that term, but I shouldn't lose focus and try to priortize what is more important for me. I am trying to do exactly that, it's not easy but not impossible either. MBA definitely forces you to learn priortization of work.

Sandi Cesko visited Vlerick.

2010-01-11T23:24:00.002+01:00

Mr Sandi Cesko visited Vlerick last week.He is one of the most successful business entrepreneurs in Central and Eastern Europe.His best known venture is Studio Moderna,which is a leading direct marketing company and consulting service in CEE region.There is a case study written on Studio Moderna by Harvard Business School,which was interesting to read.

Mr Sandi shared his journey,challenges alongside and the anticipated future for Studio Moderna.He seemed like a very modest man with excellent understanding of the market in its context.Studio Moderna intends to expand globally now and it is the next big challege for Mr Sandi and his team.

Group on International Relations in Vlerick

2010-01-04T12:14:00.003+01:00

Few of us in the IMBA class felt that we not only need our management knowhow but also good understanding of developments around us particularly geo-political to give us a all round perspective.We got together for the first time in the residential Social Skills Workshop and had our first meeting. We discussed about Afghanistan, Middle East and other issues.It was an enriching discussion.

We had our second meeting recently and seeing the enthusiasm we decided to make the meeting a weekly one.The group has members from many backgrounds such as politics, journalism, sales and marketing and technology and many countries that makes the discussions quite engaging.

We also intend to invite few political commentrators during the remaining part of the course to get more insights into current geo-political developments.

Post Study Visa for students in Belgium

2009-12-22T11:39:00.005+01:00

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

2009-12-04T19:01:00.004+01:00

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...

2009-12-04T19:00:00.006+01:00

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?

2009-11-30T00:39:00.002+01:00

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

2009-11-29T21:46:00.003+01:00

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

2009-11-24T20:54:00.003+01:00

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...

2009-11-14T15:22:00.002+01:00

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

2009-11-04T20:29:00.003+01:00

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

2009-11-04T20:28:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-20T12:35:00.005+02:00

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)

2009-10-16T23:30:00.005+02:00

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

2009-10-12T18:42:00.003+02:00

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

2009-10-09T02:07:00.002+02:00

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...

2009-09-26T09:34:00.009+02:00

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

2009-09-26T09:34:00.004+02:00

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....

2009-09-19T22:18:00.004+02:00

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

2009-09-03T01:21:00.002+02:00

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

2009-08-27T17:12:00.004+02:00

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

2009-08-22T06:14:00.002+02:00

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

2009-08-20T09:49:00.003+02:00

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

2009-08-07T18:06:00.000+02:00

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

2009-06-27T07:33:00.004+02:00

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

2009-06-27T07:27:00.003+02:00

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...

2009-06-19T00:09:00.002+02:00

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