About Me
Hey there! My name is Naveen Venkataraman and I am a candidate in the Babson (F.W.Olin Graduate School of Business) MBA Class of 2012.
I was born in Coimbatore in India but moved around and lived in many Indian cities (5 at last count). For the better part of the last twenty years, I have called Mumbai home.
Prior to entering Babson, I worked in the software industry with startups and a mid-size company in operations and pre sales. For more details, please visit my LinkedIn page. I have spent time living in Japan and the Middle East and these experiences have given me some of my most cherished memories.
I started this blog to keep track of my school research, essays, deadlines and applications. It has evolved over time to become a mix of application experiences, opinions, advice and Babson-specific material.
It takes a lot of effort to keep up the writing, but the thought of helping aspirants keeps me going through each post. I remember the days when I was a star-struck MBA aspirant and through this small endeavor, I hope my readers will benefit. Comments are most welcome and so are queries.
About Babson
Babson is a world leader in entrepreneurship education, with the graduate MBA program ranked #1 in Entrepreneurship by US News for seventeen years running. It offers a Two year MBA, a Fast Track MBA, a One year MBA and an Evening MBA. More information on these programs can be found here. You can also contact the school by writing to them and you will be guided towards selecting a program which is the best fit for your needs and future goals.
I will be very happy to take questions on the program and about the application process in general. Please feel free to drop me a line at: nvenkataraman1 AT babson DOT edu. Please include Babson MBA Blog in the subject line.
Full Disclosure: I work as a paid assistant in the grad school marketing team. I took up this position after I reached Babson, even though I was already running this blog before coming to school.
All materials on this blog are independent of the Babson’s position or message. I am in no way influenced by either the money or my position to deliver a message inconsistent with my thoughts and opinions.
Hi,
I came across your website as I was preparing for the GMAT…I have a friend, after his bachelors made to Rotman..I think he had a year or so of experience at Infy before he decided to take the management plunge…Let me know if you have any queries that you cannot find answers, I am certain I can get him to help..Good site BTW!
Kannan
Thanks Kannan! Appreciate your help.
If you can put me in touch with him, that will be great!
Hey,
Would be very interested in talking to you. I’m US student looking at similar schools (rotman, duke, unc). Drop me a line.
Hi Rocky,
I have around 4 years of IT workex with about 1.5 yrs as lead. My goal is to work in consulting area but I don’t seem to have much knowledge about how a company is run etc.
So prior to joining MBA(Sometime in next 2-3 yrs), I would love to work in a start up and get a feel of the business but I have absolutely no idea as to how to search for a start up and what position to apply for so that i gain some valuable experience. Can you please help me out?
Also can you suggest what should I do to gain knowledge about various career paths in consulting?
Hi Sumit,
Your questions are a bit out of the ambit for this blog.
What I would suggest is to speak to a number people in your target industry (consulting) and ask them how they made their transitions. Comparing notes with people from a background similar to you will give you a fair idea of what transferable skills you can bring to the table. You should also leverage your network to find out about start-ups and positions available which tie into your current work experience.
For career paths, you can pull up a website of some top consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG et al. They give a clear idea of the career progression for their consultants.
Hope this helps!
RB
Hi Rocky,
I will be interviewing with Babson next week! (very nervous! :$) I am wondering if you could share your recent interview experience with me. i.e. what type of interview questions, what are babson adcom looking, etc.
I am having difficulty answering the following question:
Tell me a time when you wish you could have something different than what you had done.
I will highly appreciate if you can give me some guidance.
Thanks,
Salina
Hi Salina,
Congratulations for your interview invite and wish you all the best!
You can find my interview experience here: http://yoadrian.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/it-is-not-who-i-am-underneath-its-what-i-do-that-defines-me/
A very good resource for Babson interview questions is the accepted.com website. You should definitely have a look through and prepare for some of the questions there.
For your question, you might want to consider one of the following in reply:
- a work situation where you first tried something that backfired.
- a personal situation where you made a choice which you might consider changing now.
- an interest area which you opted not to pursue for some reason.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but you might want to consider situations which you learnt from and it is the learning process and your take aways that should come across in your response.
Hope this helps and wish you all the best for your interview!
RB
Good luck to you too at Babson. Do you have a rss/atom feed? Didn’t see it on the homepage. Let me know, looking forward to following you.
Thanks for pointing that out Henry! I want to test the RSS feed before putting it up.
In the interim, if you use Google Reader, please copy the URL: http://babsonmba2012.com and add it to your subscription list. Google automatically generates a feed. I will let you know once I put up the RSS feed.
Hey Rocky,
First of all congratulations on getting into Babson, it must be a great feeling. Now that its winter, I am sure you must be enjoying the north east very much
.
I recently submitted my application and got a call for an interview (22nd dec, 2010). I currently reside in the Boston area and was wondering if I can give you a call and get a few tips on how to handle the interview process.
Please let me know.
Thanks
Hi Rocky,
Let me first thank you for all the info you are sharing, it really helps lot of guys like me.
Its been some time since I decided to take a plunge and pursue an MBA to fulfill my dreams. After some research I have zeroed in on some schools and Babson is on top of the list. I have a long list of q (some of them have been answered by going through all the archives) and was hoping if we could chat sometime.
To begin with, I wanted to know if the degree (B Com) is considered as equivalent to a four-year U.S. bachelor’s degree. If not, is there a possibility of getting an waiver on that.
Would really appreciate if you can guide me on these q.
Regards
Rocky
P.S – Thats the name I use to interact with my customers and am known by the same name to my peers.
Hi Rocky,
It ‘s so good to see the kind of work you are doing to help the MBA aspirants. I just finished with Babson’s interview on 12th Jan’11. Actually a lot of questions they asked were put up on accepted.com. So, I was really confident about the answer I gave. Though I felt little uneasy to answer few questions of which I was unaware of like what would I do to become a part of Babson’s community etc. To my luck I was knowing the name of various social events Babson conduct I said I’ll involve myself in those clubs to build personal relationship with my peers (I really don’t know how good is that answer)
I am in dilemma actually how the interview went. I feel I had a lot of stuff to share but the interviewer , Ms. Kelly Murphy, had few more interview to conduct so she was in hurry. I am glad that she was really very helpful and was really patient while hearing my answers. But, I was not able to figure out how the interview actually went by looking at her expression. I asked her a lot of questions about Babson like hoe MBA CCD work, how does Babson promote thoughts of young entrepreneur like me etc. On the departing note, she said hope to see you at Babson (I hope that was positive sign !!)
I want to know what are my chances to get in. I have a decent GMAT Score ( very close to the Babson avg score ) and a work experience of 3 years ( 1.5 years at MAN , Germany and 1.5 years in my family business)
I really want to do MBA at Babson (my first choice for doing MBA) since I want to focus on entrepreneurship to expand my business in future.Moreover, till what time I can hear about their decision after giving interview ( I applied before the 1st deadline!)
I hope to hear from you pretty soon.
Thanks and Regards,
Sumit
Sumit,
Sounds like you have covered your bases and demonstrated your candidacy. Relax and hope for the best.
I cannot really comment on your chances or when you will get the decision. You should touch base with the admissions team for that. I hope you understand the distinction between my independent blog and an admissions forum.
RB
Hey thanks for such an immediate response. I would definitely mail my query to the Admission team. Anyways, I wish you all the luck for your future endeavors.
Keep up the good work. Please let me know if I can help you in any possible manner.
Thanks once again.
Regards,
Sumit
hey rocky
it is a helpful blog i must and thank you for all the information. i have been reading a lot of mba blogs lately and it has helped me in my MBA decision making process. i still
have my doubts but being stuck in a almost dead end monotonous job, MBA sounds like a good idea. more importantly i wanna go back to asia probably nepal open up my own business, better hospital and nursing home. i have a medical science degree.
however i didnt do so well in my bachelors and am just so scared that i might not get into the top universities that i have always wanted to go. i am atm preparing for my GMAT which at times seems impossible and i constantly doubt myself .
anyways i was just wondering what made u wanna do ur MBA and the people in ur class are they all smart school A grade student and were u one of them..
what do MBA school’s look for in a student . spec a international student.
Hi Rocky,
I’m glad to inform you that I got an admission from Babson. Thanks for your co-operation .
Hope to see you at Babson.
Regards,
Sumit
Congratulations! Let me know if I can help.
Hello Naveen,
While doing internet research about Babson, I came across this beautiful and very meaningful blog of yours.
I am keen to start a business, so looking for an MBA with specialization in Entrepreneurship. I found that Babson is among the best for an Entrepreneurship specialty MBA and glad to know that you are the current student. I would like you to guide me a bit if I have any chance of getting admitted in this program.
I am a senior electronics engineer for almost 5.5 years including 1 year of experience working in US. I have a GMAT score of 660. I don’t have any management experience, nor do I have any business start-up experience, but my long term goal is to start a business. To gain the functional management skills such as accounts, finance and marketing required for a successful start-up, I am looking forward to pursue MBA.
Thanks,
Nisha Jain
Nisha,
I won’t do profile evaluations. If you want to play chances, the only chance you have to be admitted is to apply. I recommend finding if Babson is the right fit for your goals. If so, do apply. If not, please don’t. I know this may come across as harsh, but asking such lazy questions serves no purpose.
Hi,
Do we options of doing a job post a babson MBA ? or everyone lands into a startup or back to family business ?
What do you think?
Hi Rocky, I was wondering if you could comment on the differences between the old and new MBA cirriculum that was implemented last fall, from you perspective. Do you have any pros/cons for each? How has your experience, classroom or otherwise, changed?
Thanks!
Hi Stephen,
The MBA curriculum changed for the first year students, so I do not have direct experience working with it.
A couple of key changes that I know of include the change in duration of the BCAP (was a year long assignment during my time and is now a half-semester engagement). The modules are also rejigged and the courses are taught in a different order with different professors. For better information, I’d suggest reaching out to a current first year.