Visit here to share your definition.

Tickets for the event can be bought at http://babson-asia-forum.eventbrite.com. Hurry! Early bird tickets go off on Oct 15, 2011.

However, the story doesn’t end there.

I came home to find this article shared by a colleague. This is a real-life incident that happened to a Babson grad from the Class of 2006. It was related to the topic of protectionism in the name of “national security” that we had spoken about in class, earlier in the day.

Reading it, I felt a sense of deja-vu and my mind kept thinking: “Why wouldn’t this guy build a career in India, instead of waiting for an endlessly delayed process to complete? Why does he want to come back to the US when they clearly don’t want him here?”

To those candidates who think a US education is the fastest way to glitz, glamour and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, WAKE UP AND GET REAL!

Don’t bet your house without knowing what you are getting into.

I have briefly touched upon the challenges faced by International students in the US here and have also spoken about how a significant Babson scholarship contributed to my decision to come to Babson in order to have control over my career choices, instead of falling into a debt trap of an expensive MBA education.

A few things that you (as a prospective or incoming MBA candidate) should know:

1. Employment statistics

The US Unemployment Rate currently stands at 8.8%. It is falling, but is still almost twice the unemployment rate prior to the recession. The pace of recovery has slowed after a brief spurt towards late last year.

Reco: Follow websites such as Roubini Global Economics (Babson has a student subscription), Economist and WSJ to stay on top of what is happening in the job market at a Macro level. This will educate you as to what is going on in the country/markets that you are exploring to build your careers in.

2. Curricular Practical Training (CPT), Optional Practical Training (OPT) and the H1B visa

The US offers a TOTAL of 12 months of Practical Training (Curricular and Optional) to two-year program students on an F1 visa (don’t quote me on this and do your own thorough research, I’m basing this from my own experiences).

CPT is for a student to work during the summer between the two academic years at school. OPT is temporary work authorization post graduation for a period of 12 months UNLESS you have done 12 months of CPT through summer and second year of study.

Now, here’s the deal. Ready?

1. You need to have a JOB offer within a maximum of 3 months after graduation to avail of the complete OPT period. If you don’t have an offer within 3 months after graduation, you have to leave the US.
2. Assuming you get past Step 1, you will apply to the H1B program to gain work authorization for a maximum of three years (with 1 H1B renewal allowed at the end of the three year term.) The H1B visa application has to be done during your OPT period and needs company sponsorship.
3. The H1B visa process is a lottery (there is a small number of reserved visas for US educated international students) and you MAY OR MAY NOT get the H1B visa. If you don’t get the H1B visa, you have to leave the US.

Additional information for H1B sponsorship:

1. Many SMALL business and STARTUPS are hesitant to sponsor H1B visas for MBA grads due to a) the costs involved, b) a lack of thorough understanding of the visa application process and timelines, c) a fear of hiring, training and then losing a candidate 9-12 months after his/her OPT period expires and d) a more immediate need for Engineering talent over MBA talent.
2. Many BIG companies also hesitate to sponsor H1B visas.

So what? Well,

1. You need to find companies that WILL SPONSOR an H1B.
2. You will need to get hired by these companies.
3. You need to do all this before your term expires.

If you are sitting there thinking: “I’m only going to go to a top 15 school. I won’t be affected by this. This only happens to lower-ranked school grads.”

WAKE UP AND GET REAL!

It doesn’t matter which school in the US you go to, the rules are the same for everyone.

Well, all cheered up and ready to go for those million dollars?

Ready, set, GO!

(Thanks to Varun for sharing some critical updates and corrections to this note.)

I was recently nominated to the Clear Admit “Best of Blogging 2010 – 2011″ contest as a top business school student blogger. There are many great student bloggers on the list and it is a great feeling to be nominated amongst them. I feel happy that I have been able to contribute value to my readers and share the message of the unique program that is Babson.

I have a request for my readers who have received value from my blog. Please go to the Clear Admit Facebook page and vote for me in this contest.

The process of voting is simple.

1. Click this link to go to the Facebook page for Clear Admit.
2. “Like” the Clear Admit page.
3. Wait for the survey to load and scroll to the section marked “STUDENTS“.
4. In the dropdown, please select Rocky as your selection for the following questions (if you think you have received value from my blog):

• Which are your three favorite overall student blogs?
• Most Entertaining Student Blog
• Best Resource for Applicants
• Best Job/Internship Advice
• Best Representation of Academics
• Best Representation of Student Life
• Best Single Post by a Student blogger (Please post the url to your favorite post from my blog)

Each one of your votes will help me immensely. I look forward to your support and thank you for your time!

Reading my first Indian case at Babson ~ “Infosys Technologies” by Ashish Nanda and Thomas Delong of HBS.

Proud to be an Indian.

P.S: Yours truly is in there somewhere

India wins the Cricket World Cup!!!

I am proud to be an Indian.

After the class, I walked up to Shane and spoke to him about his business and his process. The message I took away was that entrepreneurship is about lasting it out. It comes down to staying with the business through thick and thin. Shane also told me that listening to customers was critical to knowing what product to build and we spent a few minutes speaking about how to “listen” to customer voices.

I don’t think I’m articulating this very well, but there was something special about meeting Shane today. The way he carried himself, his humility despite his success and the simple way in which he described the huge challenges he faced and overcame give me hope about my own dreams.

The call will be held on Monday, 21st March between 9 AM EST (6.30 PM IST) and 10 AM EST (7.30 PM IST).

Please register yourself here and follow the instructions: LINK to Register

UPDATE:

A tram trip in San Francisco

I was in San Francisco on a personal visit for spring break this week. I met Eric Bahn, the founder of Beat the GMAT and we had a blast hanging out! I also attended the Cleantech Forum where I met Babson Provost Shahid Ansari at the venue of the event. We (Prof. Ansari and I) started talking about entrepreneurship and the announcement of Babson’s #1 ranking in the latest US News publication. I asked Prof. Ansari what Babson’s consistent #1 rankings for entrepreneurship meant (coincidentally on the same day that I put up this post) and his take on the Babson philosophy that resonates in the academics and experiential learning here.

The hour that I spent with Prof. Ansari and his wife (Prof. Jan Bell, also a Professor at Babson) was time spent very well.

Through our discussion, I realized that Babson is not just “for entrepreneurs”. We spoke about the fact that Babson is a school that aims to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset amongst students and professionals and it is this mindset that Babson students carry into their later lives and careers. This mindset is applicable, whether you go to work for a startup, a family business or in corporate life. The combination of the hard technical skills, an entrepreneurial attitude, opportunity seeking and validation and willingness to DO is the cornerstone of Babson’s excellence in training future business leaders.

I buy into this philosophy. The Babson Way.

Sure, some may say I have drunk the Babson Kool-Aid, but what Prof. Ansari said to me resonated a lot with what my thought process had been what I wrote Pt. 1 in this post last year.

There are two significant people who contributed in shaping my decision to come to Babson and whom I thought about when writing that post.

I interviewed with Jay Govindarajan (M ’10) in Bangalore in December 2009. Jay is part of the team at the Women’s Center in Coimbatore, India (the town where I was born.) Jay’s parents are doctors and Jay’s mom actually treated my mother during her pregnancy with my sister due to my mother’s diabetes complications. Jay’s mother has also treated other ladies in my family with gynecological health requirements. I was touched by the work that Jay and his team are doing with delivering affordable healthcare solutions for women in India (where healthcare delivery is unaffordable for many women who also face many complications during child birth) and the fact that he chose to come to Babson to study over other schools resonated with me as a mark of true quality beyond the veneer of branding and the shallow “prestige” of an MBA degree. It told me that Babson people do great things.

This thought was reinforced when I read the Businessweek articles (especially, this one) of Vivek Bhatnagar (M ’08), a former Commanding Officer in the Indian Army. Vivek came to Babson and had transitioned into a career in the Polymer and Plastics industry with a family business based out of Houston by the time I interviewed and was accepted to Babson. I read all articles by Vivek and browsed through his takeaways from the Babson program and I found that my dreams and hopes resonated in the journey of a military officer who had found his right fit at Babson. I told myself that this might not be such a bad place to be in after all.

I realize this post has been very personal and probably longer than people may like to read. But in that hour that I spent speaking with Prof. Ansari, I revisited my application journey all over again. Not just the Babson admit, but going back and starting with my own hopes and dreams, the GMAT exams, the countless essays, the recommendation requests, the interviews, the rejection mails, the job transitions, the visa process and finally the tough Mods at Babson.

I realized that it wasn’t Babson’s #1 entrepreneurship ranking that really brought me here, it was the quality of the people. It wasn’t the placement statistics that turned my head or influenced me, it was the people.

It was the Babson people and what they did with their education here that brought me here.

And I am here with the promise and determination that I will leave my own mark in this world of ours. In the Babson Way.