Written by Sameer Kamat

IIM Calcutta offers a 1 year MBA Post Graduate Program for Executives (PGPex) that is meant for those with many years of work-experience. It competes with IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad that have similar programs.
Just like in the case of 2-year MBA programs offered by IIMA, IIMB and IIC, the shorter MBA programs (accepting GMAT as opposed to CAT scores) compete with each other for the best students from India. Ashish Rastogi explains why IIM Calcutta (IIMC PGPex) got his vote and scored over IIM Bangalore (IIM EPGP).

Written by Sameer Kamat

Pagalguy.com published an FAQ series written by yours truly for pagal guys (or puys, as the forum readers are known). It covered many basic questions that come up in the minds of applicants who have just begun their research on the best international MBA programs across the world. Titled ‘The Mother of all International MBA FAQs’ each Pagalguy MBA abroad post covered common questions related to a specific topic – GMAT preparation, MBA financing, MBA essays, MBA interviews, MBA recommendations and many more.

Written by Sameer Kamat

PaGaLGuY.com has been the undisputed heavyweight champion among Indian MBA portals. In fact, the number of (close to 600,000) registered users on the site could give many of the leading international MBA forums and portals a run for their money. It’s probably the only MBA portal that can proudly talk about a dedicated case study by an IIM (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore). According to some estimates it attracts the lion’s share of all MBA related queries in India. It’s achieved all this in 10 years.

But despite the traffic volumes and the humongous amount of content it offers (roughly 3.5 million posts for local and international test prep like CAT / GMAT, business schools, careers and everything else under the sun that might be related), it has retained the desi flavour that attracts a fiercely loyal community of MBA aspirants, alumni and experts.

More than enough for anyone to rest on their laurels and take a breather after having completed a dream run in less than a decade, right? The pagal (crazy) guys at PaGaLGuY didn’t think so.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Entrepreneurship ranks high on the careers list of ambitious folks who want the flexibility and the freedom of managing their own business ventures. Managing a startup is the best way to pool in all the knowledge picked up in a top Bschool. In this guest post for MBA Crystal Ball, Nupur Gupta covers the best MBA programs for entrepreneurs and the excellent resources they offer. There’s a lot of information in there (including useful links for further reading), so bookmark the page and digest the data slowly.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Teach for India jobs through various NGO partners on the ground can provide an excellent exposure to the education sector for high-potential professionals.

Saloni Gupta might remind you of the naughtiest girl in your school who always got away scot-free because of her innocent looks. Several years after completing her undergrad, she was planning to become a full-time student once again. But destiny had other plans for her. Rather than being an MBA student at one of the top bschools, she transitioned to the other side to become a teacher. Her life changed when she got the following email from Teach for India:

Written by Sameer Kamat

This wasn’t meant to be a promotional post for the MBA book. In fact, many of the events in this story happened many years back, before the book was published. I had almost forgotten about the interactions with our friend, Amit (name changed).
But he got in touch again after reading the book and mentioned that the content and advice in the book resonated with the discussions we had many moons back.
I asked Amit if he’d be willing to share his story with others who might be thinking that a lot of what’s mentioned in the book is pure fiction. And he agreed.
Several names (including the narrator, bschools and his employers) have not been revealed, for reasons that will become apparent once you read his story. And trust us, this post isn’t made up.

Written by Sameer Kamat

You could pass her off as a young, aspiring entrepreneur trying to learn the ropes at a top business school. Young, she definitely is. But she’s gone way past the ‘aspiring’ stage.

Sila Toksoz already had a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Materials Science & Nanotechnology and a Bachelors degree in Molecular Biology & Genetics when she launched her Biotech startup (Biyonesil Biological Products) in Turkey.

Her entrepreneurial journey started after winning a business plan competition while she was still studying. Now she’s planning to take it all to the next level.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Greatness wasn’t thrust upon him. He earned it, or rather paid for it, depending on how you look at it. All his alleged super-powers were hardly the result of an experiment gone horribly wrong (some might dispute that theory).

At the risk of causing serious damage to his financial well-being, he went through a rigorous 2-year process of conditioning and training that converted him into the super-being that he thinks he is.

Now with his super-powers he selflessly strives hard to save the corporate world and make it a better place for all innocent, hard-working and ignorant souls around him.

But it wasn’t always like that. Aditya Chamba (Adi to his friends) grew up as a regular kid with all the normal fears that plague the untrained brain. Maths, exams and data overload jitters were the popular plots that his nightmares were based on.

After close to 2 decades of basic education, he thought he had learnt everything he needed to help him lead an enjoyable life and sail towards retirement. He was so mistaken.

Written by Sameer Kamat

When you start your MBA program, you’ll probably have to create (or review or study) a business plan. It might be a mandatory exercise because it’s part of a graded assignment. Or it might be part of a MBA business plan competition sponsored by your friendly neighbourhood consulting firm. If you think you’ll never have to create one for yourself, it may still be a good idea to get your hands dirty right now, even before you step into a b-school.

Why should you start working on a business plan now?

When you are in B-school, everything will happen at such a breakneck speed that you will not have time to digest many of the important lessons. So start the learning process right now, when you’ve got more time

Written by Sameer Kamat

After you’ve taken care of the compulsory MBA essays, there’s the open canvas of the optional MBA essay looking at you enticingly…all white and pure…waiting for you to colour it with the palette that you hold. Will you jump at the opportunity or will you let it go?

The enthusiastic ones would look at it as the last open window to squeeze in all the brilliant things that they think the Adcoms need to know about them. Stuff that they were not able to cover in the mandatory MBA essays. Others may treat it like the psychologist’s couch where you can explain all the things that went wrong in your life and why you were not the one to blame.

The lazy ones (‘overworked’, sounds better?) would think