MBA

Introduction

In my personal experience I have found that an MBA can be a powerful learning and growth experience. However it isn't by default going to bestow enlightenment upon the student. Much like any masters programme, it requires some thought, planning and personal effort towards one's goals.
To this end, I believe that it is important for each MBA student to set aside some time prior to the start of their programme to answer the following questions:
1. What are the outcomes which matter most to you? These include immediate and long term outcomes. For example, do you want to land a certain kind of job, start up, or eventually become a CXO? This frame of reference will prove to be useful in guiding many of your decisions during your MBA.
2. What are the experiences that you hope to pick up over the course of your MBA? Do you intend to go on an exchange programme, want to hold a position of responsibility, form a club or write papers? Creating this sort of a bucket list can help make your MBA more holistic, and ensure that you do some thorough research and make the most of your limited time in B school.
3. What do you want to learn? We all go into B school with some strengths, some gaps in knowledge and some ideas of things that we wish we knew as well as others do. Mapping this out ahead of time can help stay focused on their interests, as opposed to getting overly swayed by only buzzwords, and thus losing out of deeper learning and expertise.
4. Across all the outcomes, experiences and learnings mapped out above, what are your priorities? My rule of thumb is that 2-3 priorities can really be chased. And everything else competes for some 'tick-in-the-box' time. More importantly one must identify for themselves which of the above are non-negotiable and how they will prioritise, as well as how to adapt when circumstances change (eg. not getting the job of your choice).
5. What actions will you take towards your goals? Attending classes, applying for jobs and meeting new people is a goven. Aside from this what do you intend to do to ensure that you achieve the goals that you have outlined and have the most enjoyable experience that you can. It's particularly important to go through this step. Any college experience can often feel like you have paid for a service, and then you sit back and go with the flow. This step helps one take deliberate control over the outcome and ensure that you make everything you want out of the MBA.

MBA Handbook

On completeion of my MBA, I have tried to deconstruct and map out what my major takeaways are. In doing so, I have tried to create a sort of summary of what I learned from B school. I would recommend this set of notes as a frequent revision. As such, one could breeze through these notes prior to starting their MBA. Every now and then, during the programme, this may also serve as a useful guide to ensure that you are forming your own set of mental maps of how business works. And post the completion of your MBA this may prove to be particularly useful as a reminder of the key concepts learned.
To this end, I have organised these notes in the format of a book, which can be purchased from Amazon. Freshly Minted

The appendices for the book are available for free here: mba handbook

IIM Ahmedabad Detailed Notes

Over the course of my MBA at IIM-A I attemted to make comprehensive notes for most courses. I was in the awkward position of attending all my classes online, as a part of the batch that was most affected by covid-19. The plus side of the scenario was that the online mode was particularly conducive for note taking. I have cleaned up and compiled most of my notes in a series of OneNote notebooks. Since this material is confidential, it can only be accessed via an IIMA email ID. Unfortunately, I am not at privilege to provide access to anyone other that students or alumni of the institute.

iima notes