My MBA Journey

Project #5: Your Body Speaks
Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)
Jun 12, 2009

[I repeated this project at TGIF Toastmasters]

Fellow Toastmasters (and welcomed guests) … It’s December 2004; my friend and I were planning to enroll into MBA program at University of Phoenix. I was very excited as doing masters in U.S. has been my long-time dream. I informed my parents about this and they were fine with it. However, few days later my mom called me and asked not to join. I was shocked to hear this from my mom, because she has taught me the significance of education and always encouraged me to study well. I typically heed to “signs” in important activities and decided not to join. My dreams shattered and I was very upset.

Six months later, after my wedding, my mom asked to pursue my MBA. Although the passion still lingered in the back of my mind, I was little reluctant. Few months later when my wife and I were on family way, I thought that I should either complete MBA before my kid goes to school or postpone the dream for another 15 years or so. Given the plans to return back to India in long term, I decided to do it sooner than later and my wife supported that decision as well. This time, I preferred to do the masters in an AACSB accredited university such as SCU or UC Berkeley. Both the schools required GMAT, so I switched gears and started preparing for the same. In the meantime, I attended UC Berkeley’s open house session. As soon as I heard the total cost required, I was out of the session; I didn’t even wait for the session to end. During preparation I realized that I should have listened to my high school English teacher as it was difficult to cram all the intricacies of grammar in 2 months. As a result, I didn’t score well in the verbal part and I had to take TOEFL. Time was running out for the application deadline, I prepared even harder and in 2 weeks I took the TOEFL, scored more than adequate for SCU cut-off, finished up the essays in a day, rushed my application and, finally, I was accepted. I began my first quarter at SCU in spring 2006.

Well, 2 weeks later my wife and I had a pleasant surprise. Yes, our daughter decided to say “Hello, World!” 6 weeks earlier than expected. This is the time my wife’s support reached its pinnacle. She took care of baby and herself such that I don’t have to miss even a class. My parents came a month later to support us and the life was little easier for my wife. My journey progressed smoothly.

Mid way through the program, I had an opportunity to take study abroad course. I visited S Korea, HKG and Shanghai, China, met executives from several multi-national firms, gained business insights and learned about cultures in those places. The 2 week trip was lot of fun, but the bad part was that I got B+ for first time, which made a dent in my overall GPA (due to the overall team performance). This taught me the importance of having a right team and managing expectations.

Moving on, the tail end courses were heavy in work load. I took capstone, the final course of the program, in this spring. Boy! That was really hectic. During that quarter I spent more time with my team members than I saw my family. Many days I didn’t even get a chance to talk to my daughter. The good part is that even after the long absences, my daughter remembered me J
In retrospect, I learned quite a lot in this journey that was fueled by countless hours of work, good chunk of money and unequaled family sacrifices. Well, finally, I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, fellow toastmasters, I am graduating from SCU today and getting off this train. But, with my first speech at TGIF I am beginning a new one …

Mr. Toastmaster …