Bombay (or Mumbai)

I've been following the news on Bombay like crazy for the past 2 days. It's been pretty scary what's been happening in that city; a place I will always call home! Most of my family still lives there!

One of my family friends and his wife were caught in the fire at the Taj. They were celebrating his wife's birthday at a restaurant on the top floor and the attacks were on the lower floors. They finally escaped after 5 hours...!

A shout-out to the Mumbai police, firemen and all those involved in the situation! You guys seriously rock! Also the residents of Bombay have shown great resilience in these tough moments and I'm sure the city will be back to its vibrancy in no time!

GMAT 2

OK! I've started studying for the GMAT! This time for real!

Here's how:

I have about 3 hours of study time everyday (1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the evening). 

• 1 hour in the morning: I spend this time studying math formulae that I should have known but do not know. As soon as I'm done, I'll start studying verbal during this time.
  
• The rest of the two hours are spent doing problem sets (Barron's, OG, Kaplan 800). However, this time I'm doing it a bit differently. Instead of focusing on 1 section at a time, I'm mixing it up a bit. So on day 1 I'll do 25 PS + 25 CR + 1 RC. On day 2 I'll do: 25 DS + 25 SC + 1 RC and so on.
• At least 2 papers per week (Friday evening and Saturday). 1 MGMAT and 1 GMATPrep. 
• Some AWA on Sundays. 

Lastly, I also need to write the essays so have been spending some time doing that everyday as well. (30 - 60 minutes). It gets tiring, overwhelming and really frustrating at times, but I don't have a choice. 

Surviving so far. 

This post is untitled intentionally.

Hey Everyone,

No promises that I'm back for good and I'll blog more often. I've said that before and not kept up to my promise.

Been a few crazy past-few-weeks including, but not limited to, immigration/visa issues, vacation planning, GMAT studying, product releases, deciding to apply this year to career change decisions.

GMAT: So lots going on and honestly, I'm lost at what I should start with. Maybe, the best place is the GMAT since its most immediate.

I started (really) studying for the GMAT. A few hours everyday. I'm planning to give it in Feb 09. The deadline for the application is March '09, so I maybe cutting it close. But we'll see. This time, I'm spending more time ensuring that my math concepts are good and have been reading a math text book rather than going crazy trying to get 40 problems knocked out per day.

Decision to apply this year: I'm not getting any younger, really. That sort of shocked me. I also gave it a really long (and realistic thought) on what I want to do post-MBA. The truth is I want to stick to the software business and maybe just transition from being an engineer to more on the business side. Secondly, due to my visa situation, I have to do my degree part-time. We live in San Francisco and that leaves me with very few options of top ten schools, namely one school - UC Berkeley.

I've been researching their part time program and spoke to a few past and present students and also visited their info session. Haas seems right for me. They have all the classes I wanted, the class will be full of people who are in the software business (this has a down side to it that it may not be as diverse as a full time program, but I may be wrong here), I will not have to leave my current job, and what I learn in class can be applied at work and vice-versa.

Financially, it does make a huge difference. My employer will foot almost 1/3rd of the bill and we won't have to take as many loans.

I've started looking at the essays and also started forming skeletons of the essays and thinking of theme's I want to focus on for each essay.

Work: Been very busy. But that is something everyone says. Had my first product release as a team lead on Wednesday. A lot of weekends went into this release and its a relief that we got the thing shipped! This does help with my manager being very happy and will write a good recommendation (Haas needs a letter from the immediate manager).

I've also been considering transitioning from Engineering to Product Management. More on this later. In a nutshell, I'm in a limbo right now.

Vacation: Ah! This is the fun part! Before I made the decision to re-give the GMAT in Feb and apply this year, I went ahead and bought tickets. We're headed for a three week jaunt to the middle east to see (among other places) a rose-colored city and a city that has three western religions right by each other! We'll also climb up a fortress that has more than 2000 years of history. Any guesses? :)

The vacation does complicate the GMAT thing a bit. We're going in December (last week) and coming back in January (second week). A three week break might throw me off guard. My wife and I decided that we'll make sure that I spend 30 minutes doing something related to the GMAT everyday when we're there. That way, I won't completely lose touch. I think it should work out okay.

So that's life now. More later. Gotta sign off and hit the GMAT books again.

Tweets

Just a quick note to let y'all know that I've started tweeting. Some things are just too small to be a full blown post. Hence the tweets. Short and simple.

http://twitter.com/mbamonk

I'm Back!

What happened here? I was so excited about blogging and even had a few blog posts written down in my text editor. And then ... I ended up never putting them here!

Well, I'm BACK! And I'll post more regularly!

A quick recap:

After my GMAT experience, I was all geared up to restart studying and retake the GMAT and cross that 700 mark. However, a few incidences changed all that. Some were outside my control and some were within my control (and in a classic-me fashion I chose to ignore them)

Outside my control

• I was banking on 3 engineers (1 full time, 2 part time interns) joining my team. They did not join my team (of currently 2 engineers) for various reasons. Since pushing out dates was not an option so I took on extra work.
• We had project delivery delays. Extra time to catch-up.
• Family visiting: I had a few family members who decided they wanted to move back to India and they all wanted to visit San Francisco. Some needed the regular SF tour. Some were veterans. However, we did end up having dinner at Jai Yun with my brother-in-law and it was superb!
  

In my control

• I spent a lot of weekends just doing nothing. I could have at least used that time to plan further.
• Been more proactive at work to plan my time better (like I did when I studied for the GMAT).
• I did meet a few grads from my target school (Haas - more on this later) and they all mentioned that retaking the GMAT for me is really not worth it and instead I should throw my energies towards the essays. After hearing that I starting taking things easy.
  

So where do I stand now? I'm still planning on retaking the GMAT by December. Just in time for the holidays and before I go on my vacation (more on that later too!).

Overall I'm not really feeling bad that I ignored GMAT-study. I did give my wife some time that I was unable to give all these months and we took some amazing bike rides together when the weather was not foggy.

In the next few days I'll post details on how I plan to re-tackle the GMAT and also some thoughts on selecting target schools.

Feels good to be blogging again.

The GMAT Aftermath and Beyond

After my not-so-disastrous-but-not-so-glorious-either GMAT score, I spent most of Thursday, Friday and part of the weekend in a daze. There were a lot of family commitments I'd made and had to honor them. Nevertheless it was a lot of fun hanging out with friends I'd not seen in a long long time.

However, as much as I wanted to not think about the GMAT and the MBA, the fact is that the GMAT and the MBA are something that are on my mind all the time. The MBA is a strong driving factor for me today. It is just a bridge to cross in a longer journey; but a bridge that will propel me forward much faster.

I've been trying to analyze where I went wrong, what I could have done better and most importantly, how do I plan the next few weeks before I re-give the GMAT and ensure that my score jumps at least 60-80 points.

Some quick thoughts:

Quantitative:

• Clearly quantitative was bad. I hardly had any time for the last few questions and so just clicked random answers since I did not want to lose extra points. I'm sure getting those right (since they did not seem super hard) would have caused my score to go up at least 10 points. So timing myself is all the more important.
• I was over confident of my math abilities. I was good at math in school. The fact is that I've not had to do math for a long long time (10+ years) and I've surely gone rough since then.
• I ignored that type of math I was weak in: co-ordinate geometry and some parts of number properties. I had three co-ordinate geometry questions and they were moderately hard.
• I am in the habit of solving each and every DS problem until I am certain of the answer. I need to learn to gauge when enough is enough.
• Lastly, I got the feeling that my math concepts are still rusty. I'm going to have to dig deeper into refreshing them. Maybe actually get a high school level book?
  

Verbal:

While I'm able to point a few reasons on what went wrong in Math, I'm having a tough time figuring out how to improve my verbal? Things that could have gone wrong:

• I screwed up the SC - more than I think I did. I thought I was picking the right answers but could have picked the wrong ones?
• I've not come up with a "formula" for tackling SC questions. Should I spend time learning (to a point of cramming so its in my head) the grammar concepts from the Manhattan SC book? Or maybe the key is to slow down, understand each sentence (extract the meaning) and then pick an answer.
• I had one really tough RC. All the options for all the questions seemed right to me. I just picked the ones to the best of my ability. I'm sure that must have hit me bad. But then those were just 4 questions. What about the rest?
• CR/RC: Maybe do the LSAT CR and RC questions to get tougher questions. That way the GMAT may seem easier. I've read that many people have tried this strategy successfully. Even if I can get most of the CR/RC right and as many SC's as I can right, this could boost my Verbal score.
  

Due to personal reasons I am not planning to apply to business school this year, but will apply next year. Hence, I still have some time to buckle up and try the GMAT once more. However, I've not been able to come up with a decent strategy to study for the next few weeks. Obviously, there is no point boiling oceans and doing the whole OG/Kaplan set all over again. This time I need to focus a bit more and tackle those areas where I truly suck.

From the top of my head I'm thinking:

• OG (just the last 50-75 questions for each section that were tough)
• Kaplan 800 (I never finished this book)
• Redo Manhattan GMAT. But slowdown. Its not a race.
• GMAT Hacks (www.gmathacks.com): I've read on a few forums (beatthegmat.com) that the gmat math bible has great explanations. Has anyone used this? Would you recommend this?
• MGMAT tests. Their quant is surely tougher and more wordier. Might be a good exercise for the brain.
  

What do you recommend?

The GMAT debacle?

Thank you to every one who wished me luck yesterday. It made my day yesterday!
---
Wrote the GMAT earlier today. Not as horrific as I had imagined in my nightmares but tad disappointing.

I ended up with a 680 - Q47, V 37.

Surprisingly, I thought I totally bombed the Quant (I had only 1.5 minutes left with 4 questions to go) and simply guessed answers. There were a lot of DS questions. Most of the PS questions seemed easy, however I completely stumbled on the co-ordinate geometry ones (there were 3-4 of these and I did not get any on the practice tests). Given my engineering background, its a shame I did not do well on the co-ordinate geomentry, or in general on the Quant.

The verbal was not that bad - or so I thought!. For most of the SC's I could pinpoint the mistakes. But still I expected a bit more on the verbal section.

Overall I'm happy it's done. It's a relief. However, a 680 is not going to get me into any of my target schools, which means I probably need to start hitting the books again. I probably will take it easy for a day or two and figure out a decent strategy in the meanwhile to redo the GMAT - and ACE it this time.

Here's to ROUND 2!

D - 1

So the GMAT is tomorrow. I was going to treat today as any other day and go to work and just be normal. However, something came over me on Monday and I took today and tomorrow off. I thought I'd hang out at home and just go through the explanations for the tough problems for GMAT, read some math formulas and the SC notes one last time.

However, as I sit here (for the past three hours) I seriously feel like doing almost nothing. I've just spent the past 2 hours reading random blog posts and forum posts on how people aced the GMAT. Some of it was inspiring. I'm also getting the feeling I did not prepare enough. I could have done more papers, more practice, more everything! Ugh!

For better or worse, I've kept the feeling of rescheduling the GMAT at bay. Mostly because, I just dread having to study for the GMAT all over again.

For today, I just need to keep my cool and trust that the dots will all just connect tomorrow!

GMATPrep Test 1

Just gave the first GMATPrep Test 1 and got a 710. I am quite happy but looking at my mistakes, there was only 1 question that I did not get conceptually. All the others were silly mistakes. When I re-solved them, I got the right answer.

I got 12 each wrong for Quant and Verbal. However, I feel I could have done tad better in Quant, had I not done the following idiotic things: a) Answer the phone while taking a test. Ya, smart move. But it was the wife :) and b) Take a break... I was feeling cold (SF summer) so went and put on a sweater. This left me with < 10 seconds to solve the last Quant question which I could have easily gotten right. But this is a mock test so I wont have my phone during the real one and will make sure I wear a sweater to the test.

Most of my mistakes in verbal were distributed between SC and CR and 2 RC ones (surprisingly since the RC passages were soooooooooo boring I answered some of them with no interest at all).

With 10 days to go, I still have a chance to give a few more exams and practice some more. Doing the Kaplan 800 at this stage also helps a bit.

GMAT Day coming soon

So I've not posted on the blog for a while. Mainly because there was not much to post on the MBA front. A lot of stuff going on at work which is exciting and I'll update y'all on that soon.

GMAT: I am giving the exam at the end of this month. Although I feel I've studied enough, I am not feeling confident. I am averaging between 600-700 on most tests that I've taken so far (Kaplan and MGMAT). I know their scores are sort of scaled down so I'm not so worried about the score anymore. As long as I make it around the 750 mark on the real deal I'll be happy.

However, for the past 2 weeks I've really slacked on studying. Just do not feel like it. If x = y+2 is x divisible by 4? I really don't give a rats ass anymore :(

I've also started having thoughts that I'm not ready for the exam yet and I need to study more. Which makes me feel I need to reschedule the GMAT. I know, bad idea. But I've not written an exam in so many years...

Maybe the right thing to do for the next 2-3 weeks is focus on studying from the Kaplan 800, take (and retake) the GMATPrep tests and in general just go over the problems I found hard during my studying.

I'm not sure what I just rambled, but this is my braindump. Feeling sorta scared and low...

Updates

It's been a while since I've posted, but I really feel like I must post more often. So here's a few updates:

GMAT Status: It's been slow. I really hate this. I hate my own lack of serious commitment. Just because work got busy is no excuse to be slow. I've completed RC and am more than half-way through the Manhattan SC book. It IS really quite good, but at times I feel it lacks explanations, for which I use a book called "Painless Grammar". The combination of these two seems to work out quite well. I've also re-paced myself and instead of setting super aggressive goals on how much I can finish off in a day (and then constantly failing to meet them), I've begun to set smaller goals that are actually achievable on a daily basis.

Work: Ah, this is really ramping up. I had a feeling life would just go on at this end and I could happily bask in GMAT-land. But it's all for the better. I have started working on a brand new project which is going to be a public facing site and so has all sorts of different requirements than I'm mostly used to. Even more fun is, I get to have my own summer intern this year! Am I excited or what! Finally, someone to get me my regular fix of green tea! Now we talkin' business! Jokes apart, I'm really excited about this. I still remember when I was an intern for the first time, almost eight years ago. Time flies...

My manager also let it slip, that if all goes well, he will recommend me to be promoted to a manager! I'm wary of such promises. I've also been considering a few changes career-wise, but maybe that's a post for another day.

Anyway, so the past two weeks have mostly been interviewing candidates, work on the new project, kicking myself for not keeping up with the GMAT.

I really hope this new plan of keeping things simple with the GMAT works out and I'll be able to give the exam before June ends.

That's it at my end for now. Its almost 3 AM. Time to shut up and sleep.

Oh San Francisco!

There was a much publicized war protest around the city today. Initially, I was reluctant to go even watch since there was a company wide email sent out warning against shootings.

I usually get off at New Montgomery and Market and walk to my office, and saw protesters in white flowing garbs and black masks on their head at around 10 AM. By 12 NOON, I was ready to grab some lunch and a colleague and I decided to check out the protest as well.

The protesters had worn orange suits and had black masks on their head. There were LOTS of cops all over - like battalions of them. I did see a couple of people get arrested (not sure for what). There were a lot of people who showed up, like me, just curious.

This is not the first time I've seen this (I mean... this IS SF), but most other times, I've been in a rush to catch the bus or in a car, and thus never really up close.

Here are some photos that I took with my (not so nice) camera phone:


Protesters on Market St. dressed in orange.

Another shot. See the amount of cops.


Just because they do not protest, does not mean they cannot enjoy the sun!



SFPD does deserve some thanks...

GMAT Update: RC

So in my last post, I was lamenting about how tough RC is and also having thoughts that I'll never improve! How wrong was I!

Thanks to suggestions by folks who left comments here and a bit of googling for more strategies, in the past week, I've noticed a marked improvement in my RC timing (I average ~ <12 minutes with 5-7 questions per passage and have a decent hit-rate (80% ish).

I also felt that I was getting a bit too intimidated by the passage. Even before starting to read, I'd be so stressed and in the back of my mind have thoughts about it being tough and how much it matters to me to get into business school. Needless to say, I'd never really read the passage, which means I fumbled with the questions.

Last week something inside of me clicked. Since then, I've been treating RC with confidence. To be honest, I actually find these passages quite interesting (OK, fine. The biology ones are soooo damn boring - no offense to bio-majors and any of my pre-med cousins who may read this, but everything else is interesting). Also, I just do not thing of it as tough anymore. Complex, yes. But that's fun. Tough - no. This attitude has made a HUGE difference.

Now, when I solve a passage, I just read it as if I'm lapping up information, and have simply learned to note the authors tone and structure as he goes through the passage. I'm also picking up some new words to add to my vocabulary and am going to try it out on everyone I encounter.


Ah, finally I get the feeling that I am going to be able to conquer RC!

GMAT Prep Update and RC frustrations

Its been a while since I posted here, but really feel the need to vent my frustrations a bit - and what better place than my blog!

Over the past month, I've been studying for the GMAT off n' on (more on than off) and mostly gotten all the Math fundas down. I also did enough problems of each section to know where my largest weakness is: as expected it is Reading Comprehension.

While I felt that most of the mistakes I make in most of the sections were careless errors, the Reading Comprehension mistakes were simply due to stress and not "getting it". It takes me about 8 minutes to completely read a passage and another 3-4 minutes to answer 4-5 questions on that passage.

Most books/sites suggest making notes (1-2 sentences) of each paragraph and then referring to those notes. My problem is, I end up spending almost 7-8 minutes reading and making these notes (which I do not even bother to refer back to!). Whenever I try to speed up my reading, I end up not getting the questions right.

I spent a good part of today getting extremely frustrated since I could not figure out a way to tackle the RC. I think what I'm going to try to follow is to only write the main topic in the first paragraph and unless there is a new topic / idea introduced stop making notes and just read through the whole thing. Also, I'll try to read the first question so I know what to look for while going through the paragraph and it may force and entice me to read more actively.

My goal is to bring my average time for reading a passage to 4-4.5 minutes, and being able to read it comfortably so as to not make mistakes.

GMAT Math Study Strategy

Although I have a Engineering/Science background, over the past 6 years, my math is rusty. As I look at most problems, I feel that I "almost know the answer" but cannot quite "get it". For now, I've decided I'm going to get all my math concepts right, first, and then proceed with problem solving.

Here is the strategy that I'm following:

• I use the Green Quantitative OG book as my guide for sections to study. This book has basic information on each topic.
• For each topic, I go through the following books for lists of formula's and understanding of concepts:
• Green Quantitative OG book)
• Barrons GRE (yes, you read correct: I use a GRE book for the math concepts since they have more details and formula's compared to any other GMAT book I was able to find)
• Barrons GMAT
• Kaplans Premier GMAT

• For each topic, write the formula's on a sheet of paper. Make separate sheets for different topics, so you can add to the topic later.
  
• Do not just write formula's. Understand the concept as well.
• Lastly, spend a few minutes everyday revising the formula's you have written. By the time you're ready for the GMAT they must be a part of your bloodstream!
  

My GMAT Study Strategy

After reviewing a lot of success stories and based on what I feel like I will need to work on, I've formulated the following strategy to ace the GMAT:

Books

I plan to use the following books for preparation:

• Kaplan Premier
• Official Guide (Orange book)
• Quantitative and Verbal Official guides
• Kaplan 800
  
• Barrons
  
• Manhattan Sentence Correction
  

Study plan

1) Diagnostic and Strategy

• For each section, make notes on the strategy outlined in the books.
  
• Then complete the relevant section in the Kaplan book.
  
• Complete all sections this way.
  

2) At this stage, I should have a clear idea of which section I need more work on and also have a good idea of strategies to solve problems from each section. This should remove the stress of having to tackle unknown sections later.

3) OG and Kaplan 800: Starting from the toughest section, do all the problems in these books.

When working on any section, each day, do at least 5-10 problems of a previously completed section as well. For example, if I'm done Problem Solving and then am working on Critical reasoning, do 5-10 problems of problem solving everyday along with the Critical Reasoning questions.

4) After OG and Kaplan 800, if required do more problems from Manhattan books.

5) Redo all incorrect/hard/unsure questions again - until I get 100% right. Do this every 2 weeks.

6) Notes and other info:

• While solving problems, make elaborate recordings of answers in the excel sheet to ensure that the hard, tricky, incorrect and confusing questions can be redone.
• Each problem solving session is to have ~40 questions, timed. Use excel to record answers.
• Once the above books are done, redo only the questions that were hard, tricky, got wrong or took a lot of time to finish.
• Get familiar with AWA on weekends.
• Study for 2 hours on weekdays and 5 ours on each weekend day.
  

Excel sheet format

Columns:

• Question #
• Time
• Answer (Actual)
• Attempt 1
• Answer (Selected)
• Right/Wrong
• Slow
• Unsure
• Careless Error
• Conceptual Error
• Note

• Attempt 2
• Answer (Selected)
• Right/Wrong
• Slow
• Unsure
• Careless Error
• Conceptual Error
• Notes

Here we go...

I just started studying for the GMAT - the first step towards applying to business school. This blog will capture my journey and the things I learn along the process of getting into a top B-school!