Smart Dust

The applications of Round 1 turned in and my little project simmering down, I took the day today to browse the web to look at the some of the innovations being spawned in the labs around the world. The next phase of innovation will be driven by the ubiquitous nature and integration of sensors networks and our ability to discern useful information from the data. One such concept is the "smart dust" concept - a distributed sensor network that can sense and trasmit data.. More information can be found here.

Picture being able to scatter hundreds of tiny sensors around a building to monitor temperature or humidity. Or deploying, like pixie dust, a network of minuscule, remote sensor chips to track enemy movements in a military operation. "Smart dust" devices are tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) that can detect everything from light to vibrations. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in silicon and fabrication techniques, these "motes" could eventually be the size of a grain of sand, though each would contain sensors, computing circuits, bidirectional wireless communications technology and a power supply. Motes would gather scads of data, run computations and communicate that information using two-way band radio between motes at distances approaching 1,000 feet. Potential commercial applications are varied, ranging from catching manufacturing defects by sensing out-of-range vibrations in industrial equipment to tracking patient movements in a hospital room.

EXCERPT from a COMPUTERWORLD 2003 article

Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles

%$$@@$..

I just broke the first rule of Application process.. Read my application after submission. Worse yet, I found an error. It is a big one!

Wharton has a cut and paste system. So I cut and pasted from my essays in Word. I was going through my online essays and saw that one word was missing in a sentence. It is word in the middle of the sentence in the first line of the last paragraph; So I just dont understand how it could have happened. The word "appeals" got cut somewhere... and so my first sentence sounds incomplete. My stomach is getting into knots by this one!! It is very weird...I just dont understand it.. I looked at my original WORD document, and the word was there, so why didnt it paste properly in the online app?

This is a killer.. I mean how can the adcoms look past an incomplete sentence? I had looked very carefully before submitting, but I thought that cut and paste was foolproof..

I think I like the apps where you can upload document files.. it is much cleaner and safer. I know, I am just trying to pacify myself..but I just dont know what else to do! Oh well, I am not going to read my apps after submitting again....

Blogging

A shout out to Chanakya whose blog has some cool photos of Wharton and his (or her?) visit to some schools on east coast and west coast. On another note, Blogging has really made me some very cool friends (Aregon, Riter, Dave, DM, ...) and has given me a way to find solace in our application efforts and life in general. The folks in B-schools (Mark, FMG, Hella, Stanford MBA and others) have also made this work..with tidbits from the actual world of B-schools.

Just clicked "SUBMIT" on Kellogg PART 2... my supervisor is working on the recommendation.. Life is good!!

in order to win, you have to participate

so read my fortune cookie today. It rings true as far as my application efforts go...

My lucky numbers: 3, 9, 20, 23, 44

hmm.. lets see:

Dec 23rd: Wharton decision maybe ... :) -

STOP DREAMING, GET BACK TO WORK!

The art of wallowing

GE's ex-chief Jack Welch writes in "Straight from the Gut", that he used to wallow, in order to sort out a complex situation. Wallowing simply means that you get people together, break down the heirarchies, and let the creative juices flow...

I kind of did the wallowing bit today. Not with a team, but by myself. You know essay writing is a strange thing. You sit on an essay for days, weeks even and you dont like it. You turn it upside down, print it, make it red and yellow with marker pens, and you still dont like it.

And then you wallow....

and BAM...you get the juices flowing. Words start getting structured. Your sentences start resembling the concept you are trying to put across: in a succint way. You are close... close to that perfect essay.

I am happy to report that I finally got my kellogg essay 3 done. It was an essay that had me troubled. "Imagine you are an adcom and write about your file". Maybe, i dont like to brag about my own accomplishments or maybe because I think this essay is kind of redundant..I just could not put a closure to this essay for so long.

Now that its done..I am happy. I saw a bunch of movies... "Day after tomorrow" and "True romance"... and that was the extent of my sunday.

SLOAN...

MIT Sloan: the "other" business school in Boston. Well, first off... the information session was the best I have attended so far - in terms of location (Pacific hotel SFO), food (hot appetizers..mmm), information packages (about 15 handouts), and number of alumni who showed up (about 15-20 people). This was the most well thought of, and well organized sessions... totally made up for my friday night visit to this session.

Sloan session was VERY useful for me: it helped change my mind about the program I would apply in. If you see the title of this blog :LFMcandidate, I was interested in the LFM program at MIT, but after attending the session, I am planning to apply in the regular MIT Sloan program. I personally think that given my interests, Sloan regular MBA would be better suited for me. In case someone who is in the same position as me and has trouble deciding between the programs, please email me offline and we can chat.. I have done my due diligence on these programs.

Well then..that out of the way, Highlights of Sloan and info session:

• Sloan has done away with tracks altogether and have come up with an innovative thing called track-maps, based on experiences of previous classes . So you have no majors, but personalized tracks. Cool...
• 43% international sudents.. WOW... that is the largest % I have seen. Translates into a network of 20,000 alumni and 100,000 MIT alumni.
• There was a funny video made by class of 2004 - on typical day in the life of a Sloanie... very cool!
• IAP: independent activities period (in Jan): no classes, just mini-courses and exercises.
• People: down to earth, humble, and very very smart. I had a guy approach me and started talking to me in a very calm manner - turns out he is an entrepreneur who went to B-school and is now at McKinsey. One thing though - all 15-20 alumni were men.. I dont know why that was.. maybe just coincidence. Also, lot of them were in tech firms - Oracle, Seibel, Cisco, Yahoo, Amazon.. some in startups, not too many finance folks.
• Fellow applicants: This info session took the prize for the lame-est fellow applicants. While I am not going to go into details of the composition, it was obvious that most of them were techies. So they were asking questions like - How do adcoms value community service? or ..I was stuck in my cube the past year, so how do I answer the question- "Anything meaningful in your life the past year"? Comon!! I felt bad for the patient Adcom guy Jon (who btw was very dynamic) answering all these questions.
• Sloan has a behavioural interview.. out of 3000 applciants, 900 are interviewed..about 1/2 are admitted.
• $50k competition - started 3COM, Akamai technologies and host of others... Entreprenurship is big at Kendall square - home of MIT.

About people: I think some comments I had heard of Sloan folks is partially true. I mean, about Sloanies lacking the aggressiveness and leadership qualities. But I think its a bit more involved than that - Sloan produces leaders who are innovative, technologically grounded, but most importantly -humble. They roll up their sleeves at REAL problems - not give high level strategy all the time. This is a very unique feature of the school - and I felt at ease among such people.

MIT Sloan on-the-road

Sloan is coming into town. I hope to be there and ask a lot of questions about the program. Sloan, in my opinion, is a pretty close-knitted school (370 class like Stanford). A lot of Sloan applicants are self selecting, since the school has a focussed approach. This is partly due to the strong quantitative focus - for e.g., someone interested in a Corporate Finance IB program will think Columbia or Stern; someone thinking about Hedge funds and Quant funds would take Sloan seriously. Similar parallels exists in marketing and strategy as well.

If anyone in the bay ares wants to car-pool with me for the event, that would be great!! Please leave me a message..

Oh, btw ..saw Apprentice yesterday. I find it funny that Ivana (VC from Boston) keeps whipping out her Laptop and starts entering random numbers into a spreadsheet, EVEN before the task has been well thought of. This is one thing, we MBA wanna-be's need to be cognizant of - think bigger.. first startegize, then delegate, and then get into the nitty-gritties. In a way..think of the entire system and then delve deeper into the sub-systems!! [We Engineers are guilty of this as well - we think impementation first rather than strategy]. Ivana: I dont know if you are just an analyst at the VC firm, but you are nothing but a spreadsheet monkey, so go do an MBA first! (Sorry readers, if that sounded harsh... but hey "its not personal.. its just business" :)-

Wharton status: complete for Round1

Now it's FOCUS time for Kellogg. I am planning to submit an additional recommendation for Kellogg, because it is something unrelated to work and talks more about my leadership/teamwork focus. I think this is important as it highlights some other aspects of my candidacy.

I posted on BW forum regarding this and this is what I heard back:


I have a question about an optional recommendation. I am asking my current supervisor to fill out the Career progress survey. However, I also wish to ask one my peer who works in a professional organization that I am a part of, to write a recommendation commenting on my leadership skills.Does the optional recommender need to use the same online rec form (which seems to be more geared for career progression), or can they write a general letter of recommendation in a sealed envelope which I can send with my hardcopy applications.

Hi,
You may choose to submit an additional recommendation in a general letter format--the recommender can use the upload option of the online form (page 3), or submit a hard-copy letter in the same package as your transcripts (all hard-copy paper materials should arrive in one large envelope labeled "online application").
Regards,
Kristen

Application update

Wharton: Finished Online app., Recommenders submitted recos, Sent supplemental materials by FedEx.

Kellogg: Finished App-1, working on App-2 (essays need revisions), Scheduled interview with an alumni (dates not yet finalised).

Stanford: Attended a GSB tour today morning. I was the only from the area - rest were from Boston, Houston and Minnesota. One person was from Tokyo and the other from Israel. Wow..!! Talk about International focus...

The tour was interesting. I knew a lot about the School from before, so wasnt that useful for me. The person giving the tour was a 2nd year who had a cool laid back attitude and a good sense of humor. He did compare the nice facilities at Chicago and said that Stanford is planning to raise funds for a new facility. I thought the facilities were fine: a bit outdated, but fine. The cafeteria Arbuckle is nice, wireless internet, and plenty of lounge spaces (with LCD screens everywhere to notify where the classes are being scheduled..COOL!!)

I asked some questions about the on-campus housing for married students. I heard that for single students, there is a nice facility called Schwab residential center (lots of avenues for partying, socialising and group work). The married folks are in Escondido vollage (sp?), which also houses other graduate students.

Looks like Stanford has dropped to Round 2 for me. I just could not do justice to the application with the dealine for Round 1 looming so close. This has given me some breathing space and for my recommenders as well.

2 years and counting...

I met my wife two years ago on this day. We met in a certain mid-west town at a friends place.

In all our application efforts, we sometimes forget the most important person who stands behind our endevours - our spouses or SOs. Reading some of the blogs of current B-school students- the hectic routines and all- nighters, I think we will be asking for greater scarifices from our spouses in the years to come. The balance of work and life is something which everyone needs to determine for themselves.

While I am still thinking about what matters the most to me for the Stanford essay, I do know who matters the most to me!!

Application update

I think I have things under control as of now. I gave my recommenders some information about me for them to use while writing recommendations (I agree that I havent given them a lot of time for Wharton which is only 10 days away, but they were notified a month ago and hopefully had a chance to go over the questions and started forming some ideas... can you tell that I am a optimist?) I have received my transcripts from the registrar of my undergrad and grad universities. I am ready to send these to W and K by the end of the week.

My focus for this week would be Wharton and Stanford essays. I want to give Wharton essays a last look, and work on Stanford's first drafts. I have set a target of Oct 15th for completing the first set of Stanford drafts. I will not touch Kellogg drafts until Oct 15th and work on them until the deadline of 22nd.

Btw, how much time does the Wharton online app take? Any ideas?