I can't help but share this stuff with you!! Your life is incomplete (as of now) if you haven't seet it yet.
A sweet narrative of a successful person in making. Past, present, future, and everything quintessential in my life.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Stanford… Rail Commute… World MBA Fair…
Yesterday I was in Boston to attend a lecture by Stanford's assistant dean of admission, Mr. Derrick Bolton. The two-hour informal event took place at the American Express auditorium in downtown Boston. During the lecture Mr Bolton informed that Stanford is the only university in the world with so many (read 6 or 7) faculties in one campus. I didn't believe that he made such an overt statement and that most people believed him!
I wanted to object him at that time but felt awkward to start an argument when, in fact, everyone was there to hear what Mr Bolton had to say about Stanford rather than some jerk lecturing on some supposedly better university in a developing country.
For the uninitiated, I am referring to the great AMU. This university has more faculties than Stanford can ever think of. It has a more prominent and diverse alum list than the total number of Stan Alumni. Even then, unfortunately, Stanford is STANFORD whereas people hardly know AMU! We all know the reasons for this but one reason that came to my mind yesterday is that unlike most educational institutes of the world (including Stanford) that are commercial institutes seeking the best students (and their money), AMU's ideology is/was simply.... different. It’s no big deal to make the best out of best; making the best out of the rest is a challenge. I won't go into further detail but I wonder if Stanford can churn an electronics engineer out of a run-of-the-mill nerd who shelled perhaps no more than 1200 dollars to cover all the cost incurred in those four years... Yes, ALL the cost. It’s not an out of the world example of a super intelligent dude receiving all types of financial aid, but rather my own most amazing four years at AMU.
Anyway, after a very enriching experience with Mr. Bolton and some Stanford alumni, I was in for a big surprise. As soon as I inserted my parking stub into the machine I was dumbstruck to see the number flashing on the screen - $36 - for a little over two hours. I thought about the lessons about being frugal even before entering the school and here I am flunking the test before it started. But I guess I had no choice. I paid the fee (and a two dollar tip for that special valet parking) and thought of forgoing today’s 'World MBA Fair.' But then my colleague came to the rescue and advised to try the train service to Boston. I thought about that and now here I am, writing this blog using my PDA in this $14.5 round-trip train journey.
World MBA Fair.
I was surprised to see several universities from Cairo to Malaysia at the fair but none from India. I remembered Mr. Bolton alluding to IIM(B) at least thrice during his lecture and yet I see no campaign for IIM. Hmm… probably the dudes back home seem to be overwhelmed by the humungous number of applications from every Tom, Dick, and Harry of Indian engineering colleges and don’t want to entertain anyone else.
Anyway, coming to the point, I attended, albeit for a short period of time, a short class by one of the finance professors of Tuck, Prof. Kent L. Womack. And what a class it was – mind-boggling!! I must say I was a little intimidated when one guy gave the complete gist of the happenings in the financial market including their implications in response to Prof’s question. He must have been one of those oddballs cramming WSJ every single day. Thankfully he doesn’t reflect the image of a typical business student – or at least that’s what I think. Meanwhile though, I am happy I didn’t get a ticket for parking at a tow-away zone. Smile.
I wanted to object him at that time but felt awkward to start an argument when, in fact, everyone was there to hear what Mr Bolton had to say about Stanford rather than some jerk lecturing on some supposedly better university in a developing country.
For the uninitiated, I am referring to the great AMU. This university has more faculties than Stanford can ever think of. It has a more prominent and diverse alum list than the total number of Stan Alumni. Even then, unfortunately, Stanford is STANFORD whereas people hardly know AMU! We all know the reasons for this but one reason that came to my mind yesterday is that unlike most educational institutes of the world (including Stanford) that are commercial institutes seeking the best students (and their money), AMU's ideology is/was simply.... different. It’s no big deal to make the best out of best; making the best out of the rest is a challenge. I won't go into further detail but I wonder if Stanford can churn an electronics engineer out of a run-of-the-mill nerd who shelled perhaps no more than 1200 dollars to cover all the cost incurred in those four years... Yes, ALL the cost. It’s not an out of the world example of a super intelligent dude receiving all types of financial aid, but rather my own most amazing four years at AMU.
Anyway, after a very enriching experience with Mr. Bolton and some Stanford alumni, I was in for a big surprise. As soon as I inserted my parking stub into the machine I was dumbstruck to see the number flashing on the screen - $36 - for a little over two hours. I thought about the lessons about being frugal even before entering the school and here I am flunking the test before it started. But I guess I had no choice. I paid the fee (and a two dollar tip for that special valet parking) and thought of forgoing today’s 'World MBA Fair.' But then my colleague came to the rescue and advised to try the train service to Boston. I thought about that and now here I am, writing this blog using my PDA in this $14.5 round-trip train journey.
World MBA Fair.
I was surprised to see several universities from Cairo to Malaysia at the fair but none from India. I remembered Mr. Bolton alluding to IIM(B) at least thrice during his lecture and yet I see no campaign for IIM. Hmm… probably the dudes back home seem to be overwhelmed by the humungous number of applications from every Tom, Dick, and Harry of Indian engineering colleges and don’t want to entertain anyone else.
Anyway, coming to the point, I attended, albeit for a short period of time, a short class by one of the finance professors of Tuck, Prof. Kent L. Womack. And what a class it was – mind-boggling!! I must say I was a little intimidated when one guy gave the complete gist of the happenings in the financial market including their implications in response to Prof’s question. He must have been one of those oddballs cramming WSJ every single day. Thankfully he doesn’t reflect the image of a typical business student – or at least that’s what I think. Meanwhile though, I am happy I didn’t get a ticket for parking at a tow-away zone. Smile.
