Tips on Surviving First 2 Months of MBA

How would you manage to survive the rigours of a full-time MBA without losing your sanity or worse still, driving those around you mad? While each one of us has to cope with such a situation in our own way, Vineet Harsh, a student in the Full-Time MBA 2017-18 class at the Imperial College Business School offers some helpful tips.  

Prior to signing up for the program, Harsh was working as a business consultant in the finance sector. Before that, he had completed an engineering degree in Computer Science from one of the top schools in India.

Writing on the student blog of the school, he says he was aware that since it’s a 1-year program, it would be hectic. Though used to working 50-60 hours a week, he had little idea of the pressure that starts building up from day 1. The 10-day induction itself was on a 9-5 schedule. Since he had taken a one-month break before joining the course, he also found it difficult to get back into the routine.

you must brush up your resume and cover letter from the very first month itself. Students could also expect a lot of help from their personal Career Consultant to cope with recruitment applications and manage the process.

Then the class was introduced to the first 3 core modules– Accounting, Economics and Organisational Behaviour. Being strong quantitatively and having worked in finance, Harsh says he thought it would be easy to deal with Accounting and Economics. However, he found that he had to work a lot to complete all the coursework such as individual assignments, group assignments, presentations, write-ups etc.

Two months down the line, the work is not over yet. He found Organisational Behaviour to be an interesting and enjoyable module, but again completing all the coursework was quite a task.

The third month has brought 3 new modules and much more academic work with it. While one of the main reasons for joining the MBA is to build a career. He found that from the first month itself, recruiters from major companies across the sectors were coming to the campus including Amazon and Microsoft.

In fact, three of the students even landed a job. So, you must brush up your resume and cover letter from the very first month itself. Students could also expect a lot of help from their personal Career Consultant to cope with recruitment applications and manage the process.

Another important aspect is extra-curricular activities. This varies from person to person on how actively you want to be involved and the activities to be involved with.  Harsh says he has become the President of Consulting Club that takes a considerable amount of time and effort. However, he feels that it is helping him build a network of people working in consulting, as well as alumni and students from other cohorts across the Business School (MSc and other MBA programs) and gain insights into the industries they are working in.

Harsh then goes on to list three points that would be helpful during the program. The first is to prioritise everything. It includes being clear on which sectors you are interested in, which companies to target and the extra-curricular activities to join.

The second is time management. You have to learn to manage the limited time available for completing the academic as well as extra-curricular activities on a tight schedule.

The third point is teamwork. Harsh says though he has worked in teams all his life, he learnt the real importance of teamwork during the MBA. All the students were assigned syndicate teams at the start of the course itself, he says.