"To Make New Friends!"

These are exciting times!

Exciting, especially, for those of us who have decided to quit our well paying, comfortable jobs to pursue an MBA now.

There are many reasons to do an MBA. I have many, but one of the more important reasons I decided I wanted to do an MBA is because I wanted to make new friends. New friends from backgrounds other that my own and get to know them, their work, their passions, aspirations and ambitions. I kid you not - This is what I said at the ISB interview when they asked me why I wanted to to go to ISB: "To Make New Friends!"

It was a few years ago that I noticed that my friends circle was very homogeneous. At the school I went to, all the kids came from modest middle class homes, aspiring to be engineers and doctors. Then I joined an engineering college to study computer science, and everyone was just as smart as me, interested in the exact same things as me and wanted to work in the exact same fields as me. After college, at work, everyone seemed to have the same plan for life - Work in software for a few years, then do a startup and become rich. I started to venture out of my circle a little bit and tried to make some new friends, but most people I met were again like me - Engineers interested in either photography, wildlife or both.

In the meantime, I heard of ISB and its huge focus on diversity. They claimed that they admitted students from all walks of life, and that the students could learn so much from each other. I thought how great it'd be to meet all these folks - People who've worked on offshore oil rigs and investment bankers, scientists and army men, lawyers and RJs. I got all excited! It would be so much fun to work and learn with such a diverse set of people and get to know them better. I was game!

A few months later, I was ecstatic when I learned ISB had admitted me to the class of 2010. This was going to be so much fun! Right after the R2 results were announced, the admits from Bangalore got together for dinner to get to know each other before the course actually started. As I was driving to the dinner, I was skeptical of who I'd meet. This is Bangalore after all - The land full of software engineers interested in either photography, wildlife or both.

But I was not disappointed. I met a race track owner, a corporate lawyer, a scientist who models hair shampoo and another guy that makes chewing gums. In fact, I met this person at the dinner who said he did something, and I couldn't understand what that meant, so I asked him "What does that mean?". He explained it in detail, and I still couldn't understand! This has never happened to me before. At that point, I decided I was definitely going to go to ISB. I was going to meet many many more people doing many many interesting things.

I'm all excited and pumped up for April 11th! Imagine the kind of folks I'll met at ISB and get to know them and their unique perspective on life. What fun!

- Aditya Kulkarni