Happy 2016 everyone! Today in Fridays from the Frontline, we’re featuring a post submitted to us by Prashant Khorana about his HEC Paris MBA experience. On Twitter, Khorana (@prashantkhorana) describes himself as a data scientist/mathematician who is passionate about analytics, economics, finance, leadership and investing and who hates unproductive activities.
Titled “Brief Notes on the HEC Paris MBA Experience,” the post is nonetheless longer than we generally publish here—especially with the footnotes, which Khorana doesn’t want you to miss. So we’ve offered you a taste to whet your appetite and encourage you to follow the link below to read the post in its entirety. He covers everything you’ve ever wondered about HEC Paris, from getting in to settling in, from learning French to surviving St. Cyr and triumphing at MBAT. Many thanks to Khorana for sharing his experience with the Clear Admit audience.
The following post has been republished from its original source, Open Strategist.
Consider the MBA: Brief Notes on the HEC Paris MBA Experience
Here’s a didactic little parable you’ve probably heard before –
There was once a powerful king who ruled many parts of the world. One day, shocked to discover that his wife had been unfaithful to him, he has her executed. In his bitterness and grief he decides that all women are the same. Thus, he begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before they have a chance to dishonor him. Eventually the servant, whose duty is to provide the women gets down on his knees and says – “my king…we’ve run out of virgins”. To which the king replies – “well…that’s not true, I believe that you have two daughters.”
The servant begs the king for his mercy and says – “my king, please don’t do this to me; have you forgotten all the years of service I’ve done for you…” But to no avail, the king forces the servant to offer him the daughters.
One of the servant’s daughters was very brave. So in a very Game of Thrones – Khaleesi type of fashion, she says – “don’t worry father, I can handle this…” On the night of their marriage, she begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones her execution once again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights[1].
Now neither I’m not here to tell you that I’m very clever like the daughter, nor am I here to give you tips on how to escape death. I’m here to remind you of this moralistic parable, because it communicates a very powerful message, that a story can save a life thousands of times. The MBA program was my chance to tell stories with the same niftiness as the girl did. Some day, if I find myself at a low point of life, and feel that all the things in my life are frustrating and my luck is absolutely the worst amongst everyone – I can look back and remember my ~500 nights in the program. Here are some notes I took along the way.
On admissions: It was April 2014, and when I opened my inbox that morning, I could feel my forehead wrinkle with psychological pain. The top message in my color-coded mailbox was another rejection from my first choice of b-schools[2]. The message was long, and like most generic responses, was designed to deceive me into believing that the person on the other side actually empathized about my personal defeats. After reading it, I asked myself the question – “I’ll have to do this all over again next year?”
Like most b-school applicants, I had spent an incalculable number of hours crafting essays, convincing recommendation providers, taking atrocious tests[3], so on and so forth. And in that moment, the last thing I desired to do was to reiterate the process.
With the same thought in mind, I spent the next weekend searching for schools that still had an application round open – which finally led me to the HEC application page. Atypical to other schools, HEC featured a candidate profile page – which quintessentially worked as a pre-assessment tool[4]. Considering there wasn’t much time left, I decided to proceed directly with the full application instead[5].
The essays were for the most part similar to other applications I had already completed, so I proceeded in the same fashion most MBA applicants do – I copied a draft of my previous essays for other B-schools, and rearranged them to fit the HEC essay boxes. It took less than the weekend to do my research[6] and to push that button which displayed – “Submit”[7]. The action mostly left me with a false sense of satisfaction[8] and fatigue liberation that many desire everyday. And of course, in the back of my head, I could hear a voice spit out banal platitudes such as – “if you never apply, you never know”…etc.
As I write this essay[9] sixteen months later, I’ve come to realize that sometimes, banal platitudes can have a life changing impact on what you become, and that it was merely a banal platitude that brought me a step closer to obtaining the second most expensive piece of paper of my life[10].
On arrivals: I arrived at the front doors of campus like everyone else, with just two bags full of personal belongings from Canada[11]. I proceeded with the check-in process[12] and subsequently moved my belongings to the on-campus residence located on the august grounds. It took just under an hour to get to campus from the Paris airport, following which I rushed to get a few things[13] from the closest store that was conveniently[14] located a few steps away from the front doors[15].
The first two weeks were engaging and analogous to a game of tennis. The only difference was that first you watched the pros play the sport (players being the faculty), and then the pros watched you play and enjoy the same sports in a mildly sadistic fashion.
The opening ceremonies, or in B-school parlance, kickoff presentations were educational and led me to infer that faculty members have somewhat of sense of humor[16].
The induction period also established grounds for one of the many axiomatic principles of life as a b-school student – that ‘your schedule controls you; you don’t control it’, which turns out to be one of the clichés with some truth to it[17]. I showed up everyday, at nine on the dot, for a schedule of puzzling but impressive activities. The agenda varied from coaching on professional speaking, MBTI personality-type identification[18], negotiation games[19], introductory math workshops, improv comedy[20] sessions, and meetings with career advisors to things that simulated team building[21]. Tagged along with all this – I got a plethora of b-school jargon thrown at me. The phrases were so oxygen depriving that they only reminded me of the greetings that flight staff members usually give before a plan takes off[22].
The phrases included catchphrases such as – end-to-end GTM strategy frameworks, paradigm changes, global strategic transversal initiatives, cross platform synergies (or Unicorns as I prefer to call them), batch mates[23] etc.
At the end of the two weeks, I found myself tried on levels of extroversion and basic math, subsequent to which I got permission to take on the actual coursework[24], which mostly reminded of the statement Bain made to Batman – ‘ahh yes, now you have permission to die…”
The upside of having a defined schedule is that you don’t have to do a lot of thinking, or prep for that matter, which leaves room for socializing and exploration of the inner self. Some fellow Blues[25] decided to set up a tradition of dressing up well on Tuesdays – sort of an anti casual-Friday movement[26].
