“Trust in yourself and your abilities” -

…says Yogesh Kumar, a second year student from IIM Bangalore. He likes playing cricket and guiding and teaching underprivileged students who cannot afford good education. In conversation with Reshma Majithia, he talks of his decision to do an MBA.

What led you to do an MBA and why did you choose IIM-Bangalore?
Doing MBA was a logical extension of B.Com (H).I feel that if one does an MBA straight after graduation, it saves time and it should give you a head start over other people in a professional career. Moreover, it is very difficult to get a good job after your graduation, more so if you are non-engineer. I had six IIMs calls: IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-K, IIM-I, IIM-S and IIM Rohtak. I converted all of these and finally decided to come to IIM Bangalore. It was difficult to choose between IIM-A and IIM-B. I think that IIM B has the high probability of overtaking IIM-A and becoming the best B-school in India. What I thought was that there was a gap of 13 years between the establishment dates of IIM A and IIM B, but IIM-B is considered on the same level as any other IIM in the country. Finally, I selected IIM-B to do my MBA. IIMs will have world class infrastructure, without an iota of doubt.

Why did you think of doing an MBA after doing your CA?
I have finished my first stage of CA. So I am yet to complete my CA. I will try to take the exams of last stages once I am done with my MBA. It improves one’s profile if one has some additional qualifications at the time of placements. Moreover, I am interested in the finance field and had commerce stream in 12th class, so the choice was obvious.

What were your weakest areas when you started preparing for CAT? How did you work on them?
Since I am a commerce student, I was not good at quantitative analysis. But it was not that difficult to overcome the hurdle, having taken mathematics in class 12th. So, I prepared religiously for the quantitative section of the CAT.

Tell us about your selection experience at IIM-B, highlighting the structure and the way the process is conducted.
IIM-B admission criteria are highly oriented towards selecting people who have done exceedingly well in their academic life from class 10th to graduation. IIM Bangalore did not have GD as a part of the selection process. Instead, it had a written ability test to filter the students who were very good at expressing their thought process clearly. It usually tests the understanding of a particular topic or a case study. After the written test, I had to appear for a personal interview. The interview panel asked questions related to academics, personal life, social and political understanding of the vital issues facing the country.

Describe your experience with the GD and interview. What were the most valuable lessons that you learnt from that experience?
As I mentioned earlier, there were no GDs at the time of selection for the batch of 2010-2012.The only thing I realized, is that one should be truthful in the interview. You should present without hiding your actual personality. Don’t try to fake anything in the interview. Professors are very clever and they can understand what is going through your mind. So just tell them what you are and don’t hesitate in expressing your own thoughts even though they might be a bit weird. You should have a strong reason for your opinion, no matter whether it is different from that of the interview panel or not.

What had been your greatest challenge during the first few months on campus?
I was not used to late night studies. So I had adjusted my timing so that I could fit into the environment of IIM Bangalore. Attending classes in the morning is sometimes very difficult.

How would you describe your life at IIM-Bangalore?
I truly feel privileged to be a tiny part of this great institute of learning. Life is very hectic here as is the case with any B-school in the country. You learn a lot more outside the class than inside the class. Students come from different parts of India and it helps in learning other’s perspective about the same issue.

What is your career path after having done an MBA and which are the companies you are looking forward to joining?
I am a commerce student, so it is obvious that I have a soft corner for the finance field. I want to make my career in finance. I have selected a field not a company. I have great interest in working for the small and start-up companies which are in their nascent stages of organizational life.

What would you like to tell all MBA aspirants who probably yearn to be in your shoes?
There are quite a few things which I truly believe in and I would like to tell all MBA aspirants. MBA should not be taken as the panacea of all problems in your career. People can be successful even without doing an MBA (ie.Dhiru Bhai Ambani).Brand is not that important if you want to make it very big in corporate life. People think that once you are in a top B-school, life will be easy post MBA. I think it is the biggest myth. To achieve success, you have to work hard continuously. Only then will you have an easy life. Doing an MBA from a good school will be of some advantage, say, for the first two or three job interviews only. After that, your work and your performance matter - not your college name - even if you are from IIMs. If only the brand name of the college was important, then all the graduates from IIMs would have become CEOs or CXOs of their organizations but luckily it is not the case. Sometimes people think that to become an entrepreneur you should have an MBA, but again, it is a myth. Great entrepreneurs so far in the history of the world, did not have business education and still outsmarted virtually everyone in the business domain. Finally, trust in yourself and your abilities, think big and think smart and do remember that doing an MBA does not have the least correlation with a successful and rewarding corporate career.