Welcome back to our interview of Sahil Sharma. To read Part 1, click here.
Funding Education
How does one go about funding an MBA at ISB? (INR 25,00,000 when Sahil enrolled.)
Through loans, Pat comes the reply.
Securing loans of up to INR 20,00,000 is straightforward Sahil tells us. Since he was joining the Hyderabad campus, Sahil secured his loan from the local branch of SBI at 9.9% interest rate. He was able to complete the paperwork based out of Delhi. The moratorium period extends a year post your graduation.
A small fraction of the class is awarded scholarships of INR 5,00,000.
Ground Zero
Come mid-April, Sahil arrived at the state-of-art Rajiv Gandhi International Airport located 30 kilometers south of the ISB campus. Soon as he exited the terminal, Sahil was struck by a heat wave. Mercury had already climbed the late 30s mark. Without further ado, Sahil hopped into a cab and directed the cab driver towards ISB’s sprawling campus spread over 260 acres in Gachibowli.
As he approached the campus, Sahil’s gaze rested on four towers that stood guard along the periphery of the campus. These towers represented the four student villages that could accommodate a maximum of 210 students each.
Orientation
Orientation week or “O” week as it’s known to the community had a packed schedule starting with breakfast and continuing with an overview of clubs, classes, curriculum in locations ranging from the Atrium, Khemka Auditorium to the ’08 Lounge. If you thought the night ended with activities at midnight, you had another thing coming. Sahil confides, partying starts in “O” week and does not end until the end of the year.
Student Diversity
A major source of excitement for new entrants is meeting classmates. While Sahil knew there would be stellar profiles, his expectations were exceeded in the first week itself. His first encounter was with a statistician from ESPNCricinfo – a sports news website dedicated to the game of cricket.
The 500+ student class is split up into eight sections of 70 students each. You get to know your section mates extremely well in the four terms spread over the following six months. The sections are further sub-divided into groups of four to five individuals each. There is a concerted effort to ensure variety within these groups as well. For instance, Sahil’s group contained individuals with Private Equity, Consulting, Media & Marketing and Engineering experience.
There were about 10 students from Sahil’s undergraduate institution, Thapar University, at ISB. By the end, Sahil knew half the class fairly well.
Professors
A discussion on professors has Sahil animated shooting names of his favorite professors at us. Prashant Kale (Voted Professor of the Year for Core Courses), visiting professor of Strategy from Rice University, tops his list. Next comes Milind Sohoni from Operations. For statistics, Sahil recommends Dr. Sarang Deo.
The above-mentioned professors cost Sahil nothing in points spent as they were teaching Sahil’s core section. We cannot help but smile at the management graduate’s focus on return-on-investment. Clearly, ISB has trained him well a future business leader.
In strategy, another highly rated professor is Professor Louis A. Thomas from The Wharton School.
Overall, Sahil commends the system saying, “It takes care of people. As long as you have reasonable expectations, you cannot run out of points.”
Next time, we are going to explore activities outside the campus Sahil engaged in during his time at ISB.
