How to prepare yourself before you join B-school

By Girish Seshamani

Congrats, you have made it! You are now looking forward to the first day and at the same time also feeling proud, that you have crossed all hurdles and made it to your dream B-School.

The feelings are mixed. You mentally go through all the grueling period during the course of your preparation for the entrance exam. This was the first stage. You then had group discussion or case studies and interviews to clear. Several people may have encouraged you and many of them may have written you off (I fall in the second category). But you believed in yourself and came out a winner.

Drawing from my experience as a B-School student and a faculty, I would like to share some critical points which you need to keep in mind, once you enter the program. These points hold true immaterial of your basic educational background:

The art of mixing

You may be a B.Tech, a zoology graduate or an arts graduate. It does not matter. B-Schools understand that students come from diverse backgrounds and they make it a point to start from the basics, for any subject. The assumption is you are a fresher. Just to take an example, you need not know what is a debit or a credit, as in, accounts. Many students feel that commerce graduates have an edge over others, which is an illusion.

Students come from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Ensure that you mix with the whole class. Students often make the mistake of having their own groups and thereby isolate themselves from other class members. Never make this mistake. When you start working for an organisation, you will have the same setting. But unlike a B-School, you will not have the liberty to isolate yourself. You have to work as a team. You will come across different profiles of students, as in, arrogant, disciplined, amicable, reticent, garrulous, and so on. Take this as a challenge to mix comfortably with all these profiles. You will realise the benefit only when you start working.

Power of discipline

Be disciplined. The power of discipline is to be seen to be believed. When I talk about discipline, it is not only with regards to time, but covers all aspects of our life, including physical and mental discipline.

When you enter the program, the class hours will be long. You may have to work through the night, to make a presentation the next day. You will get last minute assignments, for which you will get no preparation time. Schedules will keep on changing. The deadlines will be demanding on you. Under such circumstances, never curse the system. The job of a B-School is to groom you. These are the same situations, which you will face during your professional career. Yes, it will be tough to get adjusted since you are not used to it. This is akin to beating an addiction. You will have withdrawal symptoms, once you stop taking a drug. This is the most critical period where you have to hang on. Once you fight out this period, you become comfortable.

Focus on Soft Skills

During the program, make it a point to focus on three critical skills: Oral communication, Listening and Writing skills. Broadly speaking, all these come under ‘Soft Skills’. Students who come from a convent background have a false sense of superiority pertaining to the English language. It is essential to understand that the learning of the English language stops the moment, we pass out of school. When students join college, they tend to speak more of slang. Ultimately, when this very crowd gets employed, they get a rude shock, when they find their vocabulary grossly inadequate and falling short of the standard required.  Vocabulary building is a long-term process. You have to put your heart and soul into it. Merely memorising the word and its meaning, will in no way help you. It is a conscious process. Make it a habit to read a newspaper or magazine daily. You will obviously come across words, whose meaning you do not know. Try to guess the meaning of the word with respect to the whole sentence. In most cases, you will get it right. You should then look up the dictionary and understand the precise meaning of the word with its usage. Once you do this, make a sentence using that word and get it corrected by a person who has an excellent command over the English language. Keep a daily target and strictly adhere to it.

Likewise, coming to accent, Indians have a strong Mother Tongue Influence (MTI) when they speak, so you can make out a person’s mother tongue by listening to his pronunciation. It should be your endeavor to get rid of your MTI and come to a neutral accent. I have seen scores of good candidates getting rejected due to their strong MTI.

Reputation matters

Honesty is the foundation on which your career is built. Never lie. Organisations, as of today, place a huge value on honesty.  At no cost, should you compromise this quality.

Strictly adhere to the decorum of the B-School. The reputation you create matters a lot. Many students take pride in beating the system. Always keep in mind that the world is a very small place. You may suddenly find yourself reporting to a guest faculty at work, whom you used to provoke or insult.

Be mentally prepared to accept all kinds of professors. Professors are also human beings. You may find professors falling into various categories, as in, friendly, arrogant, sarcastic, rude, and so on. Drawing from my experience, let me tell you that all people are good. If we are good to others, the same will be reciprocated. You also need to understand that this very professor, who is rude right now, was at one point of time very friendly. It could have happened, that his friendly nature was used by students for their personal gain or he was made a scapegoat, which made him change his approach.

If you have the habit of gossiping, work seriously on it. All relationships are built on trust. Trust is built up only once. It cannot be built again and again. Likewise, during the course of your program, never criticise any of your batch mates or professors.

Presentations & Group dynamics

During the program, you will get lots of opportunities to make presentations. Take each presentation as a challenge and keep on raising your bar. You have to set very high benchmarks and achieve it. Make it a ‘do or die’ situation.

In group presentations, you may have to work with other candidates who are not known to you. Extend your full cooperation and take the responsibility of keeping the group bonded together. Each individual will have his idea. Genuinely congratulate your group member if he has come up with excellent points. It is natural to get discouraged if your points are not included in the presentation. Try to find out why the point is not relevant. Always remember that learning is a life-long process. Moreover, when you start your career you will inevitably be part of a team. You cannot afford to create disharmony within the group.

At any point of time, ensure that you are well dressed and maintain good hygiene. Groom yourself to become a person, who can be trusted. A person’s dressing sense and his behaviour speaks a lot about him. Never be tempted to wear casual clothes even if it is allowed.

Keep on honing your listening skills. There is a huge difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is done with the ears. Listening is done with the mind and the heart. Powerful listeners can create miracles.

Learn to make your own decisions. Do not depend on anyone or take the route your classmates choose. Be determined to be independent.

Ensure that your fundamentals for all subjects are strong.  Ultimately the objective of the program is to make you a generalist. When you grow in your career and come to a stage where you have to make critical decisions, no one should take you for a ride.

I wish all future managers the very best. Have a ball and keep on learning throughout your life.

About the author:

About the author:

Girish Sheshamani is an MBA from K.J.Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai. His focus areas are Soft Skills , Personality Development, Leadership Skills and Voice & Accent. He also trains aspirants for CAT , MAT , GMAT , GRE , IELTS, TOEFL and Communicative English.