Idiot’s guide to understanding B-Schoolers

Disclaimer – Though I am going to write derogatory things about them mostly but don’t think I have something against them; some of my best friends are B-Schoolers. And please take it as joke and not canon.

Stereotyping is fool’s way to understand the world better.

As a B-Schooler for more than a year now and having the pleasure of seeing two B–Schools and having close friends in ten different B-Schools at this time I saw patterns emerging in students everywhere (real or imagined). So being a true blue B-Schooler myself I thought of stereotyping them or as they say in Management Jargon, segmenting them. I will begin now –

The Bongs & Maadus – These are mostly fresh B.Com graduates who have a flair for accounting and finance and quantifying everything as profit and loss. They understand the world in black & red, profit and loss, risk and return etc. They excel in all finance and accounting related subjects and talk passionately about the Stock Market, Mutual funds, M&As, Valuations and secretly or not so secretly nurse the ambition of becoming Investment Bankers. Most had good marks in graduation and not so good marks in school, are out of their home for the first time and are from business families. They are in a habit of bargaining and haggling over prices, half an hour spent in getting 5 Rs discount is pretty fruitful to them. While the Bongs love their smoke, drink, fish and porn the Maadus are teetotalers and have a poorly concealed porn obsession. Understandably they take finance as a specialization and consider all other subjects as ‘Global Gyaan’. They push the grades up in finance subjects and lower in other subjects. Most will either take plum finance jobs or return to their family business.

The IT Engineers – Bored and benched for the most part of their career they look towards MBA as a welcome break from the moribund life they were having. Without any real reason of doing MBA they often come with high hopes and are soon disillusioned when they find that there ‘third eye’ didn’t open. Soon they get in a habit of either criticizing the students or the professors or the entire system itself. Torn between the expectation of professors who look at their work-ex as knowledge mine and the reality that the most part of their work-ex was spent in either training, googling, looking for either on-site opportunities or applying for other jobs. Or perhaps sitting on the bench, drinking coffee or playing pool. They have good understanding of IT and IT systems but seldom show it due to their perpetual boredom. They are somewhere around the median both in the grades and salary.

The Lafanders or Lukhas – These are Junta from either from Delhi or Punjab/Haryana who are boisterous, loud and pretty vocal about their opinions and have no regards for other’s. Half of them have d in some DPS and swear by DU. To them Delhi/NCR is the whole world and never think beyond it. Considered arrogant, conceited and ‘not worthy of being in a B-School’ by the intellectuals and the pseudo-intellectuals in the class they upset them in GDs and Interviews with sheer confidence, verbiage and the ability to bluff and bluff convincingly. They love booze, women and a good party and girls surprisingly love them in return! They either stack up at the top of the pyramid or the bottom of it and mostly take off-campus jobs through their (dad’s) contacts.

The Uncles – People having more than 4 year’s work-ex. They find it tough to come to terms with getting back to college after so long and crib about relative grading, the immaturity of their classmates and policy of companies not to shortlist people having more than a certain months work-ex. Extremely hard-working but sometimes bit slow they either garner instantaneous respect or mocking. Most have a habit of explaining things like a teacher and preach a lot. Most of them exercise caution with booze but don’t be fooled, most of them were ‘Party Animals’ once.

The Marketing Mavens – The would be (atleast in their dreams) brand managers of 'Nike' or 'Piyush Pandeys' have a habit of going through STP (Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning) for everything. They swear by 'Kotler' and have by-hearted all of marketing jargon. They use terms like POD, value added, innovation, brand positioning, skimming in every other statement and come up with INCREDIBLE plans like rural marketing of Italian hand bags, giving more money to marketing for a better brand positioning of a bankrupt company and online advertising of a literacy campaign. They believe the root to all problems lie in a company not innovating timely and not strategizing enough. Loved by some professors for ‘thinking out of the box’ and hated by others for their total disconnect from reality they baffle some of their classmates (mostly the IT Engineers) and win the admiration of others (Maadus and Page 3s). They take the plum marketing jobs and shine through the presentations, reports preparations, GDs and most interviews.

The Humanists – HR is in their blood and they believe that people are the key to any company’s success or failure. Loved by the HR Professors and laughed at by their non HR inclined classmates they have carved out a niche for themselves. This group is mostly populated by Girls or Pansy errr…. ‘Sensitive' guys and they bond very well among themselves and frequent go out on trips, coffees and other group activities. They hate the numerical and financial subjects are single mindedly focused on HR subjects and have ambitions for working for NGOs. They are perceived by many as having the most comfortable life both in college and after it. They sail through the interviews and often take placements in big brand names and have fancy titles.

The Mavericks – Well nothing much to say about them. Nobody knows and understands why they ever came to a B-School; lacking in academics, the so called ‘Leadership Skills’, the desire to work hard and a worthwhile CV. People only sometimes see sparks of brilliance and stellar job which is soon forgotten. They have come here for personal reasons and have no desire for fat pay packages, big brand names or fancy titles. In this group lie the future entrepreneurs, though totally ignored by all now some of them turn into ‘Star Alumni’. They are like wild card entry in this game who occasionally upset the favorites.

The Womenfolk – The most difficult to decipher group among these all. They are above and beyond these simplistic attempts to classify B-Schoolers. Women are way above the mere mortals of a B-School and with women to men ratio ranging from 1-10 to 1-4 at the best, the obsession with women is, but natural. But here I am compelled to make one further classification among girls. Not committing the sacrilege of naming them I’ll just call them the Type A and the Type B. While the Type A is studious, sincere and always finishes at the top of the class the Type B is opposite who never have to worry about making presentations, working on reports and projects and still people step over each other to take them into their groups. While Type A has people rushing to them in exams to get tutored the Type B just have to smile at somebody to get everything home or atleast desk delivered. The Type A is here to make an identity in a man’s world and wish one day to break through the glass ceiling the Type B was born with everything, they are the Page 3s of college, everything from what they are wearing and hair style to their nail color is news in campus.

P.S- If you like this blog, post '1' in the comment section. If you want to give a suggestion, post '2' followed by your suggestion. If you don't agree with the views in this post and think the author is a moron, put your fingers in an electrical socket and switch it 'on' !

P.P.S - Original Idea taken from 'Joker in the Pack'