After getting an admit in R1, I was keen on visiting ISB to see the place and feel the atmosphere for myself. As I am on leave till 31st December, I decided to make a little sojourn to the city of Nawabs!
After an overnight train journey from Bangalore, I reached Hyderabad at 6 A.M on friday morning. After a quick bath and some refreshments at my friends place, i took an auto to ISB. The 'auto-wallahs' in Hyderabad definitely test the negotiating capabilities of all prospectives MBAs as none of them run on meters and you have to fix the rate before getting in!!
I had spoken with the adcom and arranged to attend a class on "Branding" at 10:15 and had to report to ISB at 9:15 to be able to sit for the class. The auto dropped me off at the ISB main gate at 8:45. But, when I tried to get in, the security at the gate stopped me and informed that there were no classes that day due to some other festivities!! All my arguments failed to convince him. Luckily, I knew a current student and she came to my rescue. After a little reluctance the security guard finally let me through. :-) The walk from the main gate to the reception takes about 5 min along a winding road. There were a couple of "Peacock crossing. Drive slowly" signs which I found quite amusing.
The main building was buzzing with activity. There were two events scheduled for the day. The first: a symposium on Product management and the second: an annual get together of alumnus. My friend was a volunteer for the first event and I got my first glimpse of many industry bigwigs by just standing at the registeration desk for an hour! At 10:15 we went to attend the class on Branding. It was conducted by a Professor Sridhar Moorthy from Rotman and included a couple of case studies: the first one was about the apparel major Diesel and its sub-brand StyleLab and the second one was about "Cacheral" a big perfume brand reinventing itself. The lecture was also interspersed with some really amorous advertisements for the Cacheral brand! The class itself was quite interesting with a lot of interaction and excahnge of ideas.
After the class I had a little one-on-one with my friend to get a firsthand description of life @ ISB. Then after a quick lunch, I met up with some of my seniors from Engineering college. One of them took me around the campus, the student villages and also introduced me to other students and I had many discussions with them and also a few alums. Also met a turkish exhange student who has seen more of India in the 2 months of her stay than I had in my 25 years!!
After a really memorable day, I bid adieu to my new friends and took an auto to my buddy's room at 9 in the night. There was a party after 11 that night but I had other commitments so could not attend the same. (After April, I hope to be in all the parties! ) All in all the trip gave me a good insight into the life on campus and from what I saw, I can't wait for our term to start!
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