Let’s get straight to the point – 2020 has been a mess, and every b-school student would agree. Rather than work round the clock in their gorgeous MBA campuses (ahh IIM Kozhikode, you beauty), students are stuck at home, sitting suited up in front of their laptops and attending corporate presentations. The question is - does an offline MBA match the rigor/fun/feel of an online MBA? I was as intrigued as you, so I reached out to the students of the best b-schools of India and asked them to share their experience of online MBA.
"I Wish There Was A Way We Could All Be Called To Campus Soon" | Aditi Agarwalla – MDI Gurgaon
Aditi is a PGP student at MDI Gurgaon. She is a finance enthusiast, having passed two levels of the CFA course and 1 level of FRM. Her interests include classical dancing (Bachelor of Arts degree in Odissi dance) and vocal music (Junior Diploma in Classical Vocal Music).
Q. How has your experience been – especially vis-à-vis classes and interaction with seniors?
Before starting my MBA journey, whoever I had spoken to always told me that the learning and experience each day would be exponential, but I never seemed to believe them. Upon embarking on my journey, I see how true this is. I find myself surrounded by peers from the top institutes, coming from diverse cultures and different walks of life, and there is so much to learn from every one of them. Coming to seniors, they have been nothing short of amazing. They have helped us in adapting to the rigor despite it being new for them as well. Though it is a little difficult to connect personally, I still believe these bonds are for life.
Q. Any fun incident you would like to share with us?
There was this one lecture in the first week where we weren’t required to switch on our cameras. It was an early morning lecture, and we had had a long night due to our ongoing induction program. So I logged into class, gave my attendance and went to sleep. When only the same few students were continuously interacting in class, the teacher understood that something was fishy and started calling out random roll numbers. As luck would have it, my number was a part of the list, and my phone was on silent. Though my friends tried calling me several times, I slept peacefully, and they were the ones who had to bear the brunt of the situation!
Q. Anything you would like to change?
A year ago, when I was preparing for CAT, I never thought that I would be doing an MBA from home. It was a bittersweet day when I got my admission letter because even though I had managed to clear the rigorous admission process, I realized that I would have to spend the first few months of my MBA life, working remotely from home. This was the first opportunity that I had of leaving my hometown, Kolkata, to pursue my dreams, and after listening to all the campus stories from my seniors, I only wish that there was some way we could all be called on campus soon.
"Life Has Just Become A Series of Zoom Meetings And Calls" | Anvitha Nalli – IIM Kozhikode
Anvitha is a PGP student at IIM Kozhikode and has completed her B.Tech from BIT Mesra at Ranchi. She has worked as a Technology Consultant at PwC India for 36 months.
Q. How has your experience been – especially vis-à-vis classes and interaction with seniors?
Working from home or studying at home once sounded the most comfortable thing - with home food, adequate rest, and family time. But not anymore.
Since COVID-19 struck, the excitement of working from home has vanished. And once the online MBA classes began, the thin line between professional and personal life, which was at least there before now, has completely disappeared. Life has just become a series of Zoom meetings and calls post classes to complete the assignments.
Stuck inside these four walls, we only hear the pitter-patter of rain and thunderstorms these days while looking at the beautiful Kampus pictures shared on Tripod's IG with only one question in mind: When? When will we go? When will we be called to the Kampus?
Q. Any incident you would like to share with us?
The level of anxiety and FOMO these days is at another level, making us check our phones and WhatsApp messages frequently and hooking us to our laptops and phones. You take a nap and bam! There are hundreds of messages regarding assignments, case competitions, and corporate presentations.
A few days back, I woke up to almost no new messages or emails. I thought my internet wasn't working, but that hypothesis turned out to be wrong. I literally started panicking – what are the others busy with, which I am not doing. Talk about anxiety!
Q. Anything you would like to change?
Can we change something that's not in our control? COVID is going to stay here for a while, and our batch is not the only one affected by it. When it started, neither colleges nor corporates were ready for it. If we see today's situation, the panic associated with COVID has subdued. COVID is still the same, but we have adjusted and adapted ourselves to it.
Though online learning can never replace the offline experience, I believe our batch, PGP-24 is better-positioned in quality learnings & opportunities even amid the pandemic.
"The Entire Batch Was Impressed By How Smooth The Journey Has Been So Far " | Krish Chawla – IIM Nagpur
Krish Chawla is a Chartered Accountant and has previously worked with PwC as a Transfer Pricing Consultant. He’s pursuing his MBA from IIM Nagpur and is a part of the Class of 2022. When he isn’t watching Formula 1 and cheering for Scuderia Ferrari, you might find him planning his next road trip.
Q. How has your experience been – especially vis-à-vis classes and interaction with seniors?
Well, in all fairness, the journey began with a lot of doubt and anxiousness around how the online version of this course would pan out. Thankfully most of it has been put to rest.
The virtual onboarding was effortless, and my entire batch was mighty impressed by how smooth the journey has been. I think a lot of credit for that would go to how approachable the respective seniors/club members have been. In fact, IIM Nagpur has been very thoughtful with their buddy program by mapping us to a 2nd-year student with a similar area of interest/specialization. The buddies have also been quite receptive to our constant badgering, which has managed to iron out the early niggles.
The club inductions have also been instrumental in bringing the batch together. They have acted as a potent catalyst to our interactions with our peers.
Speaking of classes, I would like to mention about how engaging our courses have been and in particular, Managerial Marketing, where we almost always have a 100% attendance with an equivalent probability of the class happily overshooting because of the infinite perspectives and questions the students bring in. The “raise hand” feature has successfully managed to keep classes interactive without making them chaotic.
All in all, I would say that while the experience isn’t quite comparable to what it would have been on campus, my perspective of the virtual version of the MBA has definitely changed for the better thanks to the top-notch effort undertaken by the institute and our seniors.
Q. Any fun incident you would like to share with us?
Off late, 15-20 members of our batch do a lot of these late-night zoom sessions where we discuss diverse topics ranging from haunted stories to Geopolitics and everything else under the sun. It’s been particularly intriguing getting to interact with different personalities and knowing their stories, which has somehow managed to connect us despite the physical distance.
We have started enjoying these sessions so much so that by the end of it, we find ourselves getting only 3 hours of sleep before the morning lectures, and yet we happily continue the same routine the very next day.
Also, the cultural events have been really entertaining; like for example, we saw significant participation for a recent Onam event with the students dressed in traditional wear shouting the famous regional slogans of “Arpo iro iro iro” in a chorus, while witnessing some spectacular talent within the batch.
Q. Anything you would like to change?
While the online mode has been well adapted by most of us, a few continue to find it challenging to interact over the online platform highlighting the limitations of online sessions when compared to on-campus experience. Probably, organizing a few more ice-breaking sessions would help align the comfort levels for everyone in the batch.
"It Has Indeed Been A Rollercoaster Ride" | Oorja Agrawal – IIM Bodh Gaya
Oorja is currently pursuing an MBA from IIM Bodh Gaya, and is a part of the Class of 2022. She has served with UNDP as a content writer and disseminator of SDGs campaign for about six months. She has a sheer interest in making documentaries and storytelling, which allowed her to present herself at a Global stage like the United Nations General Assembly.
Q. How has your experience been – especially vis-à-vis classes and interaction with seniors?
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable" - Helen Keller.
A virtual MBA took a little getting used to at first, but the MBA away from campus has made its mark and declared that it is here to stay. It has indeed been a rollercoaster ride. Of course, your parents have to bear your tantrums all the time, one of the perils of doing “off-campus Online MBA.” But I make it a point to have dinner with my family and take a day out on weekends. Sometimes that means staying up late or waking up early to finish assignments. But it has been a fun ride.
Q. Any fun incident you would like to share with us?
It gets weird sometimes to think that we’ve never met the people whom we are interacting with daily. It all started with fun club assignments. We were divided into groups of 16, and “Unnayan”(Music and drama club of IIM BG) asked us to make a short-film including all 16 members with a deadline of just a week. During the lockdown, it was a Herculean task to shoot the film, write a script, make posters, edit the movie without having any prior experience. It felt like we moved mountains to get that one video ready. Our theme was “Transition of times,” and we chose the 1980s to give those retro vibes. I extensively searched for that one home, which looked like the ‘1980s home’, shooting with my mobile, and dressing up like a 1980s girl was a little challenging part too. But it happened with a screening in front of an entire batch, and the results were terrific. Within a week, we have become close friends, to the extent that it feels like a life-time friendship now.
It gives me chills in thinking that it just started 2 and 1/2 months back, and we are done with mid-terms too. “Am I audible?”, “Am I visible?” are the new introduction phrase for a presentation. Class Discussion in the chatbox is so normal. It has been a good learning experience for me.
Amid all the crises, IIM Bodh Gaya has truly redefined its pedagogy to make mindful leaders. I’m thrilled to be part of the IIM family.
Q. Anything you would like to change?
I have enjoyed every part of my journey and would not like to change any bit of it!
"I Did Not Expect To Do My Summer Internship Online, Let Alone My 2nd Year" | Ashi Jain – MICA
Ashi is currently pursuing MBA from MICA, Ahmedabad. She is a member of Digital Content and Strategy team of MICA Leadership Series that aims to bring guest lectures at MICA. She is an ex-member of the InsideIIM Student Team.
When I moved over to Ahmedabad to study for my full-time MBA at MICA, I certainly did not expect to do my Summer Internship online, let alone my 2nd year.
I was enjoying my time at MICA, but when in late March, the COVID-19 pandemic escalated, then of-course, we returned to our homes, and we had our term exams scheduled in a week. The entire country went into the lockdown, and our exams were conducted online. This is the time we realized that the lockdown is here to stay.
I was excited about my summer internship. However, amidst the unprecedented times with the outbreak of the pandemic, there were several inhibitions in my mind on how the internship will pan out. It was the time when everyone was trying to adapt themselves to the new ecology, which was Microsoft Teams. The biggest thing that I learned during this time was agility and how to adapt myself to a unique situation.
As soon as my Summer Internship got over, the college began in the first week of July. The entire term was full of credits, which translated into around 5-6 hours of classes every day. At MICA, we received the lecture in a pre-recorded format shared with us in advance, followed by 45 minutes of live classroom learning. The transition felt a bit uneasy, particularly at the beginning, as I was unsure of whether online teaching would be comparable to the classroom experience.
However, I decided to make the most of it. Besides classroom learning, I immersed myself in live projects, which allowed me to learn new tools. I also took up short term courses on various platforms to expand my learning curve. With this approach, I have managed to stay efficient and keep my spirits high.