MBA first semester, which gave me many firsts in my life: Divya Gubba

Divya Gubba

I am a girl who would get sad if I was not among the top 5 in class. I am a girl who would finish the entire syllabus of next day's exam by 8:30 PM and watch a movie after that. I am a girl who never preferred combined studies. I am a girl who thought twice before eating out with friends for the fear of that extra pound I might put on. But after I joined MBA, everything turned upside down. Being among the bottom five and even scoring a zero, starting to study at 8:30 PM for the exam next morning and eating out daily without bothering about weight gain (I had no option, though), this is how my MBA first semester transformed me.

Being a first-time hosteller, I was scared if I will be able to adjust to the new environment but thanks to the hectic schedule, I didn’t get the time to think about it. Exams right from day 1, loads of pre-reads, random allocation of groups, group assignments, surveys with hundreds of questions to know yourself better (yes it was a part of the course), all these things didn't give me the time to even breathe let alone think of anything else.

Some lectures were very fascinating where the lecturers would mesmerize me with their ocean of knowledge, while some lectures were scary because of complicated terms and surprise quizzes. The fear of scoring a zero would give me nightmares every day. Group assignments before some lectures would make us burn the midnight oil. Barely touching the median score or landing among the last few made me realise that before joining S P Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) I was like a frog in the well, topper among only a few. In MBA, getting a single digit rank was like winning a Noble Prize for me.

But this was only one side of the coin. On the other side were friends that I made, that too in a very short span of time. My first academic group gave me friends for life. We studied together, brainstormed together, argued with each other and even fought with each other. We struggled together but we also partied together after doing a decent job in a group project and getting an A grade for it. Our biggest learning from MBA was not from Economics or Statistics lectures but from 'free rider management'.

So from my first academic group to the classroom lectures, my first semester in the MBA programme gave me many firsts of my life. It was one hell of a roller coaster ride and I will cherish it throughout my life.

About the Author:

I am Divya Gubba and I am currently pursuing PGDM in Information Management from SPJIMR, Mumbai. After spending 25 years in Hyderabad I finally got a chance to get out of the city and explore new places which include Mumbai, Pittsburgh, New York and Noida. I am an enthusiastic learner and always ready to take up challenging tasks to learn something new.