by Satyajit Sinha, Executive MBA 2019
Yes – we are back at school again! We are the EMBA class of 2019. Orientation week is almost a month old now – 7 days of pure exhilaration, positivity and completely new perspectives. And the next 20 months are going to be a fun, exciting, learning, enthusing and transformational journey. A journey we would remember and cherish for the rest of our life.
The journey started with that first decision – applying for London Business School. Your learning begins in the application process itself; finding your strengths, projecting yourself the best way you can, making you stand out and of course spend a few hours preparing for a GMAT or an EA test. And yes – you very well know and understand what you are signing up for. The application rounds, interviews and the thrill and excitement on receiving that admission email brings on that extremely positive spin to your life. Yes – you are joining London Business School! You already feel special.
Then comes the excitement of finding out who else is on the journey with you. Some of the earliest entrants in our batch spent quite a bit of time refreshing that EMBA LinkedIn group page, wondering where the others are.J Slowly, but surely they arrived. Your LinkedIn feed goes into a frenzy eventually and before you know you have a bunch of disparate, talented individuals who become your connections. For our batch, we were just so excited to meet everyone, we could not wait for orientation week. A WhatsApp group was already active and probably the most active social feed for quite a few of us – and this was in July! Someone came up with this brilliant idea of meeting up on a weekend and getting to know each other. About 20 of us turned up with food/drink from their
respective culture/country – it was a brilliant way to meet-up!
But there was still a huge number of people which you just did not know yet. Eventually the WhatsApp group began to bulge – and the blinker was always on on your phone. And before we realized, Orientation week was upon us. Some people travelled half-way around the world, some took just a few steps to the hotel, and some missed special occasions. At 3pm on the 3rd of September, we were all at London Business School. The facilities @ the newly opened Sammy Ofer centre are simply brilliant. The best you can find anywhere in the world. And absolutely everyone was overawed by it. An absolutely fantastic way to begin our journey.
The first week was all about settling down. Most of us had probably never met a 120+ individuals who are so diverse, talented and motivated in the span of a week – a fantastic experience – finding that free diver, that ex professional rugby player, that martial art master, that capoeira enthusiast, that ex-infantry sergeant or that social jester and party animal. There was also the usual school formalities – Get that picture taken, get your ID card, figure out where the next lecture is, put faces to names who honestly look a lot different to their LinkedIn profile picture. And also figuring out what NOT to do in your EMBA by no less than one of your professors. The first few days of light socializing quickly turned into active class discussions about leadership and management. You quickly understand what you had been missing out all this while. There is just that little bit of an aside of finishing your assignments too. You also figure out your all-important Study
group, get to know them, debate with them and socialize with them. The week just whizzed past and it was the Friday-night party! A great way to know and meet some of our EMBA seniors and get to know exactly what you have got yourselves into! By the time the party finished, everyone was letting their hair loose and what happens during/after the ‘after-party’ stays there.
One lecture weekend has already gone by. A tonne of readings and assignments await us all in the next few weeks of first term. It is definitely going to be hard work, it’s going to challenging and it’s going to take a toll at times. But we all know one thing for sure – it’s gonna be one helluva ride to enjoy!
EMBA-2019 have arrived!