Indrajit Sen, MBA '09

FutureSIP/LoveSloan

I've always wondered: what exactly is Justin Timberlake doing on that album cover of his? Perhaps we can discuss this in the comment field below, or I could bring it up at the next town hall meeting. This much is certain, whatever it is he's doing, it looks important. It's a statement. It requires focus and is most certainly busy work. The same can be said about SIP, or Sloan Innovation Period.

SIP is a one-week slot in a Sloan student's calendar reserved for taking classes outside of your regular schedule. It's a chance to take a break from the semester grind and challenge yourself with new ideas and experiences. SIP is offered once a semester and is a requirement for graduation for Sloanies: you must earn 8 SIP credits to graduate. Classes are offered in 0.5, 1, and 1.5 unit increments.

What do you learn during SIP? That's the best part... pretty much anything you can imagine. As much as SIP is a break from the ordinary for students, it's a chance for Sloan's faculty to showcase their most recent research and ideas... from "Developing Ideas for Breakthrough Products and Services" with Prof. Eric Von Hippel, to "Strategy & Sustainability: Using Public Narrative to Build a Strategy for Sustainability at Sloan" with Prof. Rebecca Henderson. It's also an opportunity to focus on the matters at hand, and get perspectives from some of the world's thought leaders as per Prof. Simon Johnson's "The Global Crisis: Is it Over Yet?" session this week. Yes, that Prof. Johnson who recently held his own against Stephen Colbert last week on The Colbert Report.

What did I get out of SIP? Some of the most memorable moments of my time here at Sloan. The teachings from Prof. Von Hippel's innovation class mentioned above were instrumental in landing our first case competition victory as Team Delta. The day-long "Executive Challenge Simulation" class taught by Prof. Bentley cemented the notion that situations can change with the slightest gust of wind in the business world, and you have better laid the groundwork for it.

There's no question we'll all be graduating into a very different world than the one we came from upon entering school. One of the most widely emailed articles from The New York Times this week has been a piece questioning the fundamentals of modern management education, citing "an overemphasis on the rigor and an underemphasis on relevance", or that certain institutions graduate students with "a focus on maximizing shareholder value and a limited understanding of ethical and social considerations essential to business leadership".

As much as business leaders have been part of recent problems, I take comfort that places like Sloan  have been addressing those shortcomings in their curriculum well before any of us set foot here.

Perspectives, Part I

Perhaps it’s only fitting that as I write this new post, I’m once again in the air, headed to the West Coast just as I was months ago during IAP, when I wrote my last blog entry. Perhaps even more fitting is that this post comes a whopping 3 months after my last!! I know. With only a few weeks until the end of second semester, I guess you could say I kept busy:  winter recruiting, H1, midterms, SIP, Spring Break… it’s all really a blur now--but one thing is clear: we, the first years, were lied to by the dastardly second years... second semester is not easier than the core. It's just as bad (possibly worse for some)!

But at least it's on your own terms, as you get to pick your classes. When I think about my time at Sloan that has elapsed since my last post, I could sum it up in one word: perspectives. As much as the Core and Sloan was about learning through doing, this past semester has for a great part been about learning through listening and asking… this in more ways than one:

Pick a course, any course

As I said, the best part about this semester has been the ability to pick courses. Sloan has three full semesters of electives, which really lets you take a deep dive in your fields of interest (note that I would have said "which really lets you make the bed you sleep in" but who has time for sleep?). As always, there’s always way too many courses to pick from, so I tried to bid strategically to maximize variety, and save all those hard-to-get-into classes for second year... when I will have more bidding clout, and when I too will get to lie to first years about the core :)

As someone keen on marketing and strategy, I took up “Branding”, “Consumer Behavior”, “Strategic Management” and rounded it all up with “Finance I”, “Innovation in the Internet Age”, “Advanced Communications”, and the legendary “Corporations at the Crossroads: The CEO Perspective” where, each week, our class gets to spend an evening chatting it up with a big-time CEO. These courses are all as reading and case heavy as they sound, so that’s probably where my theme of “perspectives” came from.

Sitting in the CEO Crossroads class for example, it has truly been edifying to hear the personal stories from some of business' most seasoned and respected leaders. From Jeffrey Immelt to Brad Anderson, from Lee Cooperman to Gary Kelley, we got the unique opportunity to draw in from their career-long insights and life lessons, as well as ask them the tough questions (which they all welcomed). The experience was really been eye-opening in that it served as a constant reminder of why I came to business school.

I’m a strong believer that you learn as much from your successes as you do from your failures, and this seemed to be the leitmotiv that emerged from many of our discussions with the  leaders mentioned above. In particular, they all exhorted us to take risks--reinforcing the fact that Sloan gives you the freedom to take your career virtually wherever you want. As I sat there listening to them reflect on their past experiences, I couldn’t help but think that, when done right, this is what a management education gives you: the perspectives to draw upon, the willingness to act and see things through. Prepare, act, and reflect.

New Year

    Well folks, I guess it’s officially been a long time.  First off, happy new year.  I hope you’re all having a relaxing holiday season.  Let me tell you, the perks of having an actual “winter break” after seven years in the working world have not been lost on me at all.  As I write this, I am flying above the Rockies, on my way to our Mediatech Club’s annual Silicon Valley Trek—a week-long odyssey in which a group of starry-eyed Sloanies (myself included) will be visiting a roster of some of the world’s most admired and innovative companies: Google, Apple, Bain, nVidia, Salesforce.com, eBay, just to name a few. 

    To say that I’m excited would be an understatement.  A year ago, these were all companies I avidly read about in BusinessWeek or Fast Company--companies I wished I could get exposure to if only for their game-changing practices.  A year ago, these were the companies I could only wish to have access to as someone with limited exposure to the Valley... and yet here I am today, finally at their doorstep.  The only thing better than a six week “winter break”, are the perpetual opportunities Sloan offers and creates. 

Stay tuned.

One month later...

A whole month has passed.  Officially.  Yes, just like that.  I have to keep on checking the date on top of my screen to convince myself that it's October.  I missed you too.

Where does time fly?  I guess I’ve been too busy with school to notice… with over a dozen problem sets, a group economics project, impromptu presentations and several case discussions already under our collective belt, I have to believe that the semester is in full swing.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  This past week marked the arrival of recruiters.  Which means that on top of our ordinary workload and events, we now just saw our free time on campus effectively be cut in half. Some of my colleagues have already dubbed this past week “hell week”.  They would not be mistaken.  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Core.

I was trying to relate my impressions of the past month to an old colleague of mine who is a Sloanie.  I was writing him an email but didn’t have much time to go into depth.  Before I knew it though, the words “intense, stimulating and terrifying” just typed themselves up on my screen.  I guess that’s how I was feeling about the core right then.  Apparently, I was dead on.

Intense.  Our weekly schedule is *packed*.  Too often than not, you find yourself with more things to do than you have time for.  The last few weeks, for example, saw student clubs host their annual kick-off meetings.  These usually took place over lunch and often simultaneously.  I remember finding myself quite conflicted as to which particular presentations to attend.  It all ended up working out though… as long as you pay your membership dues, you will be put on the appropriate distribution lists.  Company presentations, on the other hand, are not so fungible.  It behooves you to show up if you’re even remotely interested in a company as they have sign-up lists.  That forces you to prioritize, and to make choices.

Stimulating.  Well this is Sloan after all.  Even though we don’t get much choice in the matters of the Core, I have to say that these past few weeks have been some of the most academically rich of my life.  When looking at the patchwork of time blocks that is my weekly/daily schedule on iCal, it’s not immediately apparent that all the classes have much to do with each other.  Statistics and Organizational Behavior?  Communications and Economics??  Let’s just say I wouldn’t have associated the latter two with each other.  My undergrad micro-economics professor insisted on using the same vivid example of bundled goods in all his lectures: peanuts and peanut butter.  At 8:30am there was only so much lack of stimulation one could take.

So I was thrilled when I realized that the core classes at Sloan do actually build on each other instead of just occupying their separate silos.  It’s not obvious at first, but you will gradually find yourself applying the “three lenses” framework you learned in OP when analyzing an accounting case.  Or you will find yourself scanning documents at both the macro and micro level and quickly determine their purpose, applicability and/or usefulness… Better.  Stronger. Faster.

Terrifying.  With so much choice, so little time, and so many things competing for your interest you need to pick your battles.  Or you could do what I tried to do at first.  Everything... and then promptly reconsider.  How hectic is it?  I guess the daily flow of emails in our inboxes would serve as a nice proxy for how busy things are.  If you haven’t heard, the sheer volume of emails is “ginormous”.  You have to carve out at least a half an hour a day to get to them.  And from there it’s file/act/delete, or maybe just act/delete.  I don’t think I’ve ever created so many filters and smart mailboxes before.  At the end of the day though, it’s all about what you decide to pursue.  And at a place like this, you can’t go wrong.

And so it begins...

Welcome to my blog. My name is Indy and I am a first year student here at MIT Sloan.

Orientation week is in full swing after last week's pre-term. The excitement on this very first day has been palpable, and although the coming days are sure to be equally exhilarating, today was historic for our class. For the very first time, the 390 something of us were divided into our learning cohorts and core teams. There was no sorting-hat involved, but I am a proud to say that, as of roughly 11am this morning, I became a member of the 2009 "Pacific Ocean" (Sloanspeak: Oceans = Cohorts). Go Pacific-ans!

Very Nice.

I look forward to keeping you posted on the week's highlights as they occur. In the meantime, I figured this post was as good a place as any to get to know each other. The following are a few things about me that may/may not put some of my posts in context.

• I live off-campus in Allston. That's actually just across the river from Cambridge, but really not that optimal in terms of commuting to Sloan. But we love our apartment. And it's right on the T. Good day: 30-35 minutes. Bad day: Bad day. I'll let you know how it all works out.

• I love food (and wine... I am French after all). Seriously though, I recently got into cooking... yes as in actually casting away all those take-out menus, and doing recipes by myself including all the prep work: chopping/dicing/mincing. I love it. My wife tells me what I make is edible. I'll let you know how it all works out.

• The next item of interest is a little complex. So let me lay it out as a consultant would.
  
  Situation: Over the last year, I became an avid Mac user. I now have one for b-school.
  
  Complication 1.) Sloan officially supports PCs (but there's a fair share of us who have taken the plunge and we refuse to look back).
  
  Complication 2.) I tend to use Excel for *everything*, and my computer's keyboard for everything Excel. There's not much support for keyboard shortcuts in Excel on a Mac. Ouch.
  
  Question: What should/will I do?
  
  I'll let you know how it all works out.