Small town girl with BIG ambitions

By Geshu Sugandh - June 30th, 2011 Category: CCMBA 2012| Introductions

I grew up in a small town called Patna, the capital city of Bihar, India. To give you an idea of where I grew up, let me give you some background. Even though Bihar enjoyed tremendous wealth and knowledge centuries ago, it is now famous as one of the most poorest, backward and lawless states of India. May be that explains why I have tendency to break rules – you will understand when you meet me ;)

I spent 16 years of my life growing up in Patna, where as a girl I was treated as a second class citizen by the society. Thankfully for me, my parents treated me as the Indian Princess I am today! They never once made me feel that I was inferior to boys or that my options were limited.  In many ways, they brought me up as their son.

The Lucky Break

When I was 16 and had completed by high school (up to Sophomore Year equivalent to US system), I had my eyes set on one of the most prestigious schools in Delhi to complete Intermediate College (Junior and Senior Year). I was itching to get out of Bihar and live in a “real” city. Delhi was as BIG as it could get for me in the year 2000. But fate had something else in store for me. “Just for fun” I had applied to United World College, started by Nelson Mandela & Queen Noor – an international boarding school with 13 locations in the world and students from over 150 countries. It has an International Baccalaureate curriculum, which is similar to AP curriculum. Turned out I had topped the selection process amongst the 2000 Indian applicants and was offered a full scholarship to United World College in Singapore! That’s where I was confronted by my pre-conceived notions and prejudices  regarding people from different countries, races, and religions. It was an eye-opening and life-altering experience for me.

Continue Reading

2 comments   Tags:   , , ,  

St. Petersburg, Day 2: White nights, Big City

By Randy Zwitch - July 5th, 2010 Category: CCMBA 2010D| Residency 5: St. Petersburg
Russia White Nights

Photo from my iPhone - 10:45 p.m.

One of the more interesting things about St. Petersburg is that during the months of June and July, the days are so long that it appears that the sun doesn’t even set!  The picture to the right was taken at 10:45 p.m. as I headed out to meet up with some classmates who were watching the World Cup match at the Tinkoff Brew Pub.

The 10:45 picture doesn’t even really do the scene justice; even though the foreground is pretty dark, I purposely left the picture as-is to give the feel of the skyline.  Around the Philadelphia area of the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., I would estimate that an 8- 8:30 p.m. sky would be equivalent.

As the game progressed around me (I couldn’t care less about soccer!), it was extremely difficult to keep track of time.  The brew pub was relatively dark  due to having the windows blocked off.  It wasn’t quite a movie theater level of darkness… when you looked at the windows, you could still see small cracks of the light filtering through.  Imagine my surprise when the crew decided to leave at 1:30 and it still wasn’t dark outside!

Continue Reading

Leave a comment   Tags:   , , , , , ,  

Respite? I wish.

By David Braverman - March 28th, 2010 Category: CCMBA 2010D| Semester 3

I’ve just finished my final exams for Duke CCMBA Term 3. Total time: 10.8 hours on statistics, 8.2 hours for marketing, 4.9 hours sobbing quietly at my desk about not having studied more.

As the program has six terms, in a sane universe this would mean I’m half-way done with my MBA. Sadly, I’m not even done with Term 3 yet. And anyway the end of Term 3, officially April 7th, isn’t really the half-way point.

First, I have the Delhi Culture Dash video to produce. My team has succeeded mightily with a divide-and-conquer approach, so for each the three projects that remain in Term 3 (two, technically, being term 4 projects due before term 4 officially starts), we have one project author and one reviewer. I volunteered for the video project when the entire team thought it was due April 6th. It’s actually due Thursday. I’m guessing this is another 10 hours of work. Good thing I have all that time to do it, otherwise I’d continue sobbing at my desk.

Second, Term 6 will really be two terms. During the residency we have four classes, then after the residency we have two 6-week distance periods, with two sets of finals.

Third, the chronological midpoint of the program is actually April 11th.[1] So, really, we’re almost there, though I suspect the psychological midpoint will be April 25th, when we leave Shanghai. Or maybe December 12th, the day before the thing ends.

Sorry about that. I may have spent too much time doing statistics this weekend. I will now retire to the pub, with The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, which I need to finish reading (for Global Markets and Institutions) before next week.

[1] The program officially started with Term 1 pre-reading on 8 August 2009; our last final exam is due 13 December 2010; that’s 492 days; so 246 days after August 8th is April 11th. QED. If you use the first day of the London residency, August 15th, as the starting point, the midpoint is April 14th.

This post is reprinted with permission from the author.  You can follow David’s journey through the Duke CCMBA program and the rest of his daily life at The Daily Parker.

 

2 comments   Tags:   , , ,  
« Older Entries