5 Sure-Shot Things To Do When You Step Into Your B-School

Do you feel it?

The excitement, the buzz, the anticipation, the nervousness, the barely suppressed adrenaline?

Your wait finally ended and you converted a B-school, thereby successfully completing the first step on your corporate journey.

Now, with all the aforementioned excitement and buzz, you’re all set to pack your bags and fly off to begin one of the most transformative adventures of your life.

Speaking of adventures, remember those ‘must-dos’ and ‘must-have’ lists that make the rounds of the Internet? Those exist for B-schools as well, and in the same vein, we share the 5 sure-shot you must do when you finally step through those golden doors.

1. Begin networking

Your class is going to be a diverse group. There are going to be engineers, lawyers, fashion designers, and people from many different niches. with varied work experience and cultural backgrounds. In a way, you have in front of you the opportunity to connect with professionals in different fields and from different parts of the country.



Take full advantage of this and begin networking. Do not hesitate to be the first one to introduce yourself. Do not hesitate to let yourself be seen. The people you meet here and the bonds you foster with them will very likely support you on your business journey at different points in your life. Do not hesitate to rope in as much support as possible.

2. Willingly give up on sleep

For those who tout sleep as the love of their lives, B-school will definitely break up this love story. Assignments, which you’ll be informed about in the evening, will have to be submitted in the morning- sometimes containing 30 or so questions. Placement days will stretch out and you’ll be sleepless the night before. Especially during your 1st summer placements.

Hence, be prepared and bid farewell to long hours of sleep. Learn how to optimally function with 5-6 hours of sleep. You might have to operate on less if circumstances demand.

3. Join student-driven clubs and committees

If you join the Marketing Society, Consulting Society, Finance Committee, or any such committee for that matter, and manage to climb up, titles like ‘President’ and ‘Secretary’ will stand out on your CV and attract recruiters. They make your CV shine.

As a part of these clubs, you’ll learn how to be a time-management ninja and a top-notch jugadu. You get to organize events, interact with companies and have the upper hand in competitions point collections. These interactions, when appropriately used, can become the starting point for valuable networking opportunities.

Thus, from a personal and professional POV, clubs and societies will help enormously in taking you forward and giving you a leg-up.

4. Gather CV Points

As soon as the CV making process starts, placement committees will begin asking for proofs and certificates. You cannot put CV points without proof.

Hence, get prepared to make plenty of calls and write plenty of emails to your professors, bosses, and school teachers. Tell them you’ll be needing their help to verify all your extra-curricular points. Maintain talking terms with them all and if you aren’t, rekindle the contact by the time you enter B-school.

5. Participate in case competitions and live projects

You’ll be encountering both of these further down the line, but it’s worth mentioning them so you’ll be ready when they arrive.

In case competitions, participants exercise skills and knowledge on a real-world case for an organization, usually in small teams that are pitted against each other. You analyze the problem, assess the available information, use is to craft a solution and then defend it through a powerpoint presentation in front of the judges. There is a time limit as well as other rules that you have to follow.

In a live project, students work real-time with a company for a specific time. They get to see what their imagined job is actually like. Significant learnings include: how to be a team player, how to rub shoulders with the bosses, how to productively engage with colleagues, how to manage and defuse stressful situations, and more

In short, you actually practice and develop your leadership, creativity, time-management, disaster-management, budgeting, organizational efforts, and a slew of other skills that you’ll be using in your entrepreneurial future. This is as hands-on as things get. Make the most of it.

Final Note

To wrap it up, the two years of MBA is all you get to set the foundation for a career of a lifetime. Make them count and then make them count over and over again.