Joining B-school soon? Here's all that you should know.
Rigorous Orientation Program: The first one to two weeks at your B-School are reserved for the orientation program. These two weeks are the most action-packed weeks you may have had. The college as well as your seniors will put you through the most rigorous program and test your limits. Two to three things will happen simultaneously at this time. First of all, the non-interesting part. You will have classes which will touch upon the basics of a few subjects like accounts, mathematics, statistics, etc. These will help you prepare a base for the subjects to come. Second, your institution may have arranged for some group bonding exercise like outdoor activities for the first two days. Third comes the thrilling, fun-filled and exhausting part. As you may have guessed, your seniors are the ones responsible for it. On the first day at your B-School, after you are done with the registration and the official work, you will get a mail to inform you that a batch meet will be held at night. No excuses will be entertained, everyone must attend. In the meet, seniors from various clubs and committees will give a pitching. The one for the Placement Committee will be the most interesting! By the end of it, you will receive the form to nominate yourself for the clubs and committees. The following day you will attend your lectures and will be given some assignments, followed by which you are again called for a batch meet. It lasts for a tiring 2-3 hours. Few more student bodies will be pitching. By the time you return to your hostel hoping to do your assignment and get some rest, some clubs and committees will start their selection process. Your group will be given a task at 11 p.m. at night with the strict deadline of 5 in the morning! Chaos begins. You rush to your group and then comes the selection process for the next committee. Again, a strict deadline of 8 am is allotted. You manage to complete these barely within the deadline and manage to sleep for two hours. Time for lectures! You somehow manage to complete the assignments while in class and submit before the deadline. The same cycle begins and continues for the next few days and keeps you longing for a good night sleep. By these two weeks you will join a club or committee and will be associated with its work. The pressure then reduces and it becomes a business as usual for you. Now that we know how the experience will begin and continue, let us look at a few skills which you should have to make it a smooth journey. MS PowerPoint & MS Excel: Its a good to be handy with these tools as you will be using these extensively right from the beginning at your B-School. Every week you will be submitting many assignments and giving a few presentations. This will give you an edge over others. Finance and Accounts: If you are an engineer then this is more important for you. You will be taught many subjects in the first term out of which accounts is one. If you are an engineer most likely you will not have a working knowledge of accounts. Go through it once as it takes time to learn and while at B-School you will be juggling with a lot more things than just one subject. Communication Skills and Impressive CV: Being a good communicator will enhance your personality. You will be interacting with a hell lot of new people from various backgrounds. It's good to leave a splendid first impression. Also, you will be giving a lot of presentations and sit for interviews for the club and committee selection process right from the first week. Good communication skills and a well-constructed CV will come in handy. Networking: Start building a strong network with your peers, seniors and professors right from the beginning. This will come in handy in the long term. Career Launcher Gr.Noida wishes you all the best for your management career!