Re-introduction to PGPMAX

On Friday, (the 13th) I attended the introductory session for PGPMAX in Bangalore. I went early as always and sat through the session as Sanjay explained the benefits and the differences between PGPMAX and other exec MBA programs.

While we waited for the participants to gather, the AV had pictures of my classmates from 2011, 2012 and my batch, 2013. Prabhu, your picture was up there, so was Dilip’s, Kamal’s, Arun’s, strangely Antony’s too and Rajni’s. The plan was for Venky to join me at the intro session and I called him from there …. He was hard at work and had forgotten. So dude, I have something to tease you about.

We had about 25 people, many joined midway, what with the Bangalore traffic and the entrance to the hotel being a special road :):) from a roundabout that we missed the first time around. Yes, Krishnan and I fought all the way from that point till we nearly gave up and then found the way to get to the venue, Windsor Manor. What a beautiful hotel … And we were going there after nearly 18 years. Krishnan had done his L’Oreal product launch way back in 1991 in this hotel.

Sanjay spoke about the faculty, the international immersion, the pedagogy and why someone should do an MBA. Then I got a chance to share my experience… That it was one of the best decisions I had made, that we got to learn from truly world class professors, and even better, you make some great friends. I also spoke of the humbling experience as you realise that you are up against 60 other people smarter than you … And all this while you thought you were the superstar at your workplace, which you are. :):) Arun, I spoke to them about the computational biologist bit and yes they all want to stay away from you, very impressed but scared like I was when I first heard of it.

Lots of questions on the value of the program and whether we are able to use it, on behalf of the class, Wong style, I told them that we are able to apply a lot of what we learnt and our questions change completely. The way we look at our roles and our overall understanding of our respective organization’s businesses has undergone a sea change. Activity based costing flowed through my conversation as easily as change management ! Talk of learning new concepts 🙂

As I sat through the intro session, I just wanted to make my own (bad) prediction during the gala dinner that we will repeat the course, come true. I so miss the classes, the coffee breaks, the regressive school children behavior, wrapping our heads around a concept, the class participation questions, the fights with some special people, figuring out how Feroze was able to ask the question that flummoxed the prof…. Yeah that hype cycle thing, ….. Just how much time we all managed to find to do it all along with our work schedules.

I had never attended an intro session for PGPMAX, I had always wanted to join ISB, without a GMAT score and continue working – PGPMAX was the answer. And am so glad that I got to do it with a bunch of awesome people !! 🙂