Over and Out!

Q2 classes ended on Thursday and Darden partied hard. TNDC, Darden Prom, Saturday night at the corner. We have until next Friday to take our exams but most of us are heading out - near and far, in all sorts of directions - like cracks radiating out of a puncture. I wanted to get done with the exams asap but more urgently I wanted to get out. For me the question has been ‘what else while I am an MBA student?’ What else can I do, where else can I go, what else can my mind absorb. So I’ve packed and left Charlottesville. I will tackle the exams sooner or later, maybe after a day cruising the crowded flea markets in Asia or after a trip into the mountains.

I don’t know too much about the logistics and how I’ll pull it off but roughly here’s my plan. I will spend the rest of the year in India splitting time between family and travelling to parts I haven’t been to before. First week of 2010 will be spent at a Danaher plant in Charlotte, NC learning about the kaizen way of life. From there I will leave for IPADE, Mexico City where I will camp until after Spring Break. I will talk about my excitement and anticipation for the current trip to India in another blog soon.

About Danaher, I just love what they do. Personally, I embrace the concept of continuous improvement. They eat, breath and live continuous improvement at Danaher and I know that I will find a lot to learn from them. I love the company enough to fit the Kaizen event by shortening my trip to India and sacrificing my orientation at IPADE. I don’t know how I will get around with the bare minimum blocks of time I’ve left for travelling in between. The kaizen training might just teach me how to reduce my steps and lead time to get to Mexico comfortably! :)

About IPADE. I’ve lived in two countries, 22 years in India and 9 years in the USA. I experienced shock and awe when I first moved here at age 22, but I didn’t think too much into the ‘why’, I am guilty of taking things as they were. It’s like loving your dinner, but not thinking about the ingredients that made it so good. I didn’t learn by internalizing, I learned by rote. Over the years, I’ve grown comfortable with the popular habits, system and logic in both these countries. And as I wrap up my business education from a great institution that fosters leaders, I feel that at this point the one thing that will prepare me most to go out there and be a leader is a fresh mind. A mind that has been stirred out of the slumber and regularity of expecting the expected. A mind that accepts changes and shocks just as well as it accepts routine and monotony.

So I’ve decided that spending a quarter in Mexico will be a great mind-stirring exercise. I’ve always been intrigued by Latin American, it’s totally different from Asia, Europe or North America, I don’t know the language (although I started working on it since uno decembre dos mil nueve), and it’s not the safest city to live in. I will have to be extra aware of my surroundings and it will be a great learning experience. The year and a half at Darden has equipped me for this more than I expected.

Well, I face other challenges as well, most notably the bad economy. My friends think I am crazy to be leaving for Mexico without securing a job. I think I will be fine. What I won’t be fine with is choosing against challenging myself when the opportunity existed. I am in the Shumeet Banerji camp. I did enjoy hearing the Booz CEO advocate the need for putting ourselves through a variety of experiences. Not that I needed approval, it’s just nice that there was someone who strongly agreed with me.

So Darden, I will be back in March. Hopefully, after having added a few deeper dimensions to my façade.

The Darden South Asian Society

One of the biggest contributions of the South Asian students from the Class of 2010 to the Darden community is the formation of The Darden South Asian Society (DSAS). South Asian students constitute the largest international contingent on campus and a representative club had been conspicuous by its absence.

That said, it is a very arduous process forming a club at Darden. Writing the constitution, mustering support, etc. takes a lot of time commitment given our busy schedules. But, finally having an official club should put an end to the stop-gap fundraising drives we conducted to organize social and educational events. The committee is also working on professional events and alumni relations with great enthusiasm. Please congratulate the elected DSAS Executive Committee for 2010.

• President – Ishank Jain
• VP, Finance – Suprajj Papireddy
• VP, Fundraising and Alumni Affairs – Aaditya Jain
• VP, Education – Ankush Kaul
• VP, Career – Avishek Nandi
• VP, Information – Sukanya Ragunath
• VP, Events – Vinit Srivastava
• VP, Social – Sania Chaudhry

Although, the committee will be in place for only 6 months before handing it over to the Class of 2011, they have a huge task ahead of them getting the ball rolling and putting things in place so the new committee can take over smoothly and carry it to the next level. Good luck!

Diwali at Darden!

Growing up in a cosmopolitan city/country, one of the values that I have always felt really proud of is tolerance and participation in others' beliefs. At Darden, I've been able to experience the same value being embraced but on an international scale.

Last month India celebrated Diwali, the biggest Hindu festival of the country. The Asian Business Club at Darden, which represents students from all Asian countries, decided to celebrate Diwali on campus. The Pepsico forum was decorated, people showed up in plenty, and traditional indian food was served at First Coffee. The Indians wore their traditional dresses but so did quite a few non-Indians. Associate Deans Robert Carraway and Peter Rodriguez wore kurtas and lit up the Diwali lamps/diyas. 95% of the Indians on campus are Hindus and yet I, a non-Hindu, was asked to give the Diwali address. How else could diversity and inclusion be exemplified better?

It was a great event that showcased a culture, educated people and fostered acceptance. This is why I have totally enjoyed my time at Darden, it is a true community.

The best event at Darden!

The International Food Festival is, for me, the best event of the year at Darden. I missed writing about it last year and had to give it a quick mention this time around.

A visitor to the IFF can look forward to an evening of all you can eat food from all you can imagine countries with great ‘talent performances' to finish the day. Last year, the Indian contingent beat over 30 countries to win the ‘Best Food’ and ‘Best Performance’ categories. It was a great experience being part of a totally different team challenge.

This year the event was even bigger with more prizes. The judges were select faculty and partners who lurked amongst the over 400 visitors. The official winners for the event were:
Best Food – Brazil & Texas
Best Decoration – India & Pakistan
Best Costume - Japan
Best Performance – Korea & Team Africa

Frankly, the judges must have had a very hard time deciding the winners amongst the great food and performances. I still can’t point out for certain which country was the best in any of the categories. The Passion Fruit Mousse was for me the pick of the day as I kept returning to the Brazil stall for more. I am anxiously awaiting the recipe book being put together from the event, this book’s going to be so much better than the casebooks.

Kudos to the International Business Society for organizing the IFF, such a great time!

Beginning of the MBA World Cricket??

By now I’ve explained what cricket is way too many times to start doing it again here … refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket for more on that. You probably know what MBA and World mean. So let’s talk about the beginning …

In early May, Fuqua (I will credit them to be the founders to MBA World Cricket) reached out to us to start the first ever inter-MBA cricket tournament. We had just concluded the Darden first year vs second year cricket game, with the first years emerging victorious in a close game. I was excited at the idea but since we were nearing the end of first year and heading out to internships we promised to co-ordinate over the summer and making it happen early fall.

Over the summer we scheduled a triangular tournament for Sept 5th in Durham between Darden, Fuqua and Kenan-Flagler. However, Kenan-Flagler cited difficulty in forming a team due to smaller size of cricket-playing community and pulled out soon. Back at Darden, we were planning to redraft the team to include fresh first year students. At the very first TNDC (Thursday Night Drinking Club), Laura Pearson (our President) told me that it’s possible for us to get funding from school if organize trials open to everyone at Darden. I was excited at the opportunity to raise awareness for the game on campus. The trials were well attended by experienced cricketers as well as people who wanted to learn the game. Given the high degree of interest, I corresponded with Fuqua to see if each of us could field two teams. The purpose of B team was to give interested people an opportunity to experience a game setting. We shortened the format of the games to have enough time for driving down and playing the two games, Darden A vs Fuqua A and Darden B vs Fuqua B.

On game day, 22 players and 5 supporters carpooled for a 3 hour drive down to Durham. Darden sported whites, while Fuqua wore blue. The A teams squared-off first, followed by the B teams. Darden A beat Fuqua A convincingly, while Darden B showed considerable grit while going down against Fuqua B. Personally, the results were really secondary to the fact that we were using cricket as a platform to interact across schools. However, we had some really passionate kids on the teams and we always had it at the back of our minds that we’re representing Darden.

The Darden Huddle

Below are highlights from the games: Fuqua A 115 all out in 15 overs (Navin 46, Shweth 27, Nishant 3/30) lost to Darden A 116/5 in 10.2 overs (Sameer Sayed 51 not out, Ankush Kaul 22, Divye Rawat 2/19)

The Victorious Darden A Team

Darden B 110 all out in 13.3 overs (Suprajj Papireddy 46, Puvi 3/20) lost to Fuqua B 111/6 in 13.4 overs (Prashant 35 not out, Naresh Kanyal 3/18)

The Darden B Team

(Pictures Courtesy Sania Chaudhry)

At this point, I would like to mention my appreciation towards Jeff Peo and Elvis Rodriguez for taking up the challenge and performing well for the A and B teams respectively. And a special thanks to our supporters who followed us to Durham to cheer the team.

It was a great experience interacting with the Fuqua community. In the Spring of 2010, we plan to invite Fuqua and a few other east coast schools for a bigger event at Darden. We’re all excited about it. This could very well be beginning of the MBA World Cricket!

Where's the summer at?

We’re back at Darden, as Second Years this time around. Getting used to coming to school at our own sweet time, being senior members of the Darden community, and always finding the café and learning team rooms occupied. I am loving it except that the summer seems to have been curtailed by school, the stretch of recent cold days hasn’t helped either.

I loved the flexibility I enjoyed this summer, spending most of my time working remotely as a strategy consulting associate. I would have loved to be somewhere other than Charlottesville for the summer, but overall the last few months turned out pretty well for me.

My first non-engineering experience happened to be the development of an international market-entry strategy for a consumer products company. It was great to get an insight into how consulting works, particularly the softer, psychological aspect that we encounter once we go past the hypotheses and the analyses.

I got to meet and experience the Charlottesville locals that come out in droves during the summer, the only time when UVA students retreat, to enjoy this beautiful town. It’s sunny, there’s great food, great music and sports. Talking of sports, I finally got around to learning golf at the Meadowcreek. I was happy that I was hitting pretty well, 300+ yard drives on the very first day, till a buddy pointed out 'drive for show, putt for dough'. Putting is indeed harder than it looks!

My weekends were relatively free and I used them to play cricket. I love this sport – the sound of leather on willow tingles my bones – and I thought I had retired when I came to b-school. But I was back, I travelled all over, enjoyed every bit of it. I am grateful but I don’t think I am done with the sport yet. The very few weekends I was around in Charlottesville were occupied by hikes, the water hole at Sugar Hollow is my favorite. Again this is beautiful country and I had spent too much time in the learning team rooms!

And I did have a resolution for the summer. Towards the end of the school year a bunch of us were looking at the pictures from the International Food Festival last October and each of us had a common observation. We had all gained serious weight while at Darden but I wanted to look and feel like I did before I got to Darden. My summer schedule allowed me to eat well and work myself into leanness.

While I was at it, I also unleashed the reader in me who has been pretty dormant of late. Read a book a week, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga was the pick of the season. At the end of it all, I felt refreshed and recharged.

The first year has flown by and the new year beckons. All I know is soon I will be out of school for good. The next mission is to get a job and enjoy every minute of what’s left of my Darden-career.

Time for some goodness in C’ville!

One fine day in late September last year, I suddenly realized that for the past two months I had been completely lost in the madness of getting an MBA education. I hadn’t taken the time out to give a second look at my surroundings. My world was getting crowded with cases, case competitions, recruiting events, and some more recruiting events ….

The first two questions I asked myself were – What do I know about C’ville outside of school and what am I doing for the community that I live in? I, sure, had waxed eloquent about giving back to the community in my b-school application essays! A quick run through the clubs at Darden helped me decide on Building Goodness in April (BGiA) because it is the organization that in the larger scheme of things, arguably, creates the greatest impact. The three overarching goals for BGiA are:
1) To rehabilitate the houses of low-income residents, particularly the elderly and disabled, so that they can continue to live in warmth, safety, and independence;
2) To foster the spirit of volunteerism among individuals; and
3) To promote a sense of community within the Charlottesville-Albemarle County area.

Having designed buildings for a career, I felt I could definitely provide a lot of value to the effort. We started by requesting referrals for prospective houses from local non-profits like Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity, and the City Government. With a solid list of prospective houses, we split into four teams of two each to cover different parts of the City. Here began the fun part! Calling homeowners and explaining what BGiA meant, that if selected they do not have to actually pay to get their houses fixed, setting up a time to inspect the houses and finally getting the inspection done. Meeting and interacting with these people was for me the highlight of this effort. They all needed help and they all had a great attitude and warm smile to greet us. The needs of houses vary greatly – from leaking roofs, cracked decks, peeled paint, broken plumbing to a handicap ramp. We devoted a few weekends to inspection and by January we had finalized ten houses based on their needs and our capabilities.

Talking of capabilities, we will work with a group of local contractors who will provide construction expertise. Construction equipment and materials are bought through funds raised via donations and the BGiA in-class and online auctions held in Quarter 2.

Currently, we are working with the students who have volunteered to be house captains, providing them logistics and operations support. Each house has three house captains who will work with contractors and collectively lead almost 200 volunteers to repair the 10 houses on Build Day, 4th of April this year. The amount of enthusiasm and support for the cause within the student community has been alarming and beyond expectations so far. House captains have diligently started independent house visits and volunteer recruiting activities. We, as the managing committee of BGiA, are devoted to give enough independence and support to make build day a satisfying experience for the volunteers.

I will give you an update as Build Day draws closer.