First Impressions of RSM

Hoi! Ik ben Bhushan. I am an Indian and will be part of MBA class of 2011, starting in January next year. Thanks to Maryke, who allowed me to write for RSM MBA Blog, in spite of the fact that there are still three more months to go before I can boast of myself as an RSM MBA Student! I hope my posts will be helpful to prospective RSM Applicants as well as fellow RSMers.

It has been almost six months since I received my offer for MBA programme. Looking back, I realise it has been really a long time since I took my GMAT in October 2007 and actually started applying only after a year i.e. in 2008. Juice proved to be worth the squeeze! During this time, I got an opportunity to travel to the Netherlands and work at ABN AMRO Bank headquarters in Amsterdam. Not only I was exposed to the diverse cultures but it also made me realise how important it was to have an international outlook in order to succeed in today’s ‘Flat World’. I had the privilege to work with a diverse set of people – a Scottish financial modeller who is studying psychology to base the mathematical models on human behaviours, a British-Israeli banker who is passionate about running Marathons, German consultants who are not tired of describing how much they love the beer gardens back home and a South African who thinks her specialty lies in making brownies than negotiating vendor contracts! List is endless. After witnessing this diversity at work, it was not too tough a task to choose RSM over other European B-Schools, from where I had received offers.

Compared to applicants from other part of the world, I had the advantage of being in the Netherlands, since I could physically visit the campus and talk to the students, staff and professors before making the decision. My three visits to the campus reconfirmed my belief that RSM was the right place for me to pursue my MBA studies. In April 2008, I happened to come here on a first campus visit. I was quite impressed by the friendly atmosphere at RSM. Maria Rosa Parra from Marketing Department walked me through the RSM corridors and also introduced me to the staff who themselves were from different parts of the world. Since MBA09 students were busy with their Living Management Projects, I could not get hold of any of them. Since it was a Friday, Executive MBA (EMBA) students were on campus and Maria had arranged for me to attend a class with EMBAs – topic was Change Management. After the class, I had the opportunity to talk with EMBA students over dinner and get to know their views on management education at RSM. After dinner, Ms. Angela Dickerson, who is Director of part-time EMBA programme, answered queries from me and fellow visitors. Although, she was looking after EMBA activities of RSM, she shared a lot of useful information about MBA from her own experience at UNC, which is RSM’s partner school in OneMBA programme.

My next visit to RSM took place on MBA Open Day event in June 2008, when I had a chance to attend mini-MBA class from none other than Prof George Yip, Dean of RSM. Being a Global Strategy guru himself, his presentation on the topic – How Traditional companies can learn from the ‘Innovative Approaches’ of online companies – was quite insightful and lively. Following Prof Yip’s presentation, we also had a talk delivered by Ms. Dianne Bevelander, who is Associate Dean of Post-experience programmemes, on learning philosophies at RSM and how the diversity at RSM adds value to its students. Impressive thing was the Networking and Cocktail event arranged after the lectures. I was surprised at the turnout of prospective MBA, EMBA and OneMBA applicants who were belonging to various nationalities, some of them having travelled as far from as Peru and Spain.

In March 2009, I visited RSM the third time, again for an MBA Open Day event. This was exactly a week after I had my admission interview conducted by Alexandre Areias (Alumnus, RSM MBA 04). This time I could meet MBA10 students, and also attend mini-MBA class conducted by Steef van de Velde on Supply Chain Management (SCM). His case study on the SCM problems faced by Bacardi Martini was well received by the participants. Later on, I was pleasantly surprised when Tinka and Maryke themselves told me that I have been offered the admission for MBA 2011! Results were out within a week. In fact, Maryke had called me to inform about the results on Friday itself (the day before my visit), but since my cell phone was out of power, she could not reach me. Nonetheless, I love such surprises. Long after the event was over, I still lingered there, talking with the staff and fellow visitors. Journey back to Amsterdam was just too peaceful!