Entrepreneurship at Rotman

Finally a post on entrepreneurship. One of the main reasons to do my MBA was to learn skills , build friendship with like minded people and one day, make my entrepreneurial dream into reality . My career started in a startup, working literally in a garage. We failed and then I moved on. But that dream still remains. Having reached at cross roads where one needs to make choice of the future, a wise decision I made was to do MBA. Many had asked me , how would an MBA teach  entrepreneurship? You cant learn entrepreneurship in class, rather you need to learn it by doing it. Here is this post for those dreamers who want to make a dent in the universe and not sure if an MBA would help them.

Business Design Workshop

One of main reasons why I joined Rotman was because of Business design. Rotman is an expert in this field.  Rotman Design works is a design consulting agency inside the Rotman building. They offer workshop on business design and I enrolled for the first workshop.

The whole saturday flew fast with hands on learning about the business design framework. We were doing empathy workshop for finding user needs, then brainstorming, then strategic planning and finally prototyping . We were given a business problem and we were solving it step by step throughout the day.

It was amazing how ideas flowed in when the brainstorming session was just for 2 mins with the restriction that nobody is supposed to negate ideas.

Foundation term

Two words to describe it so far, “Absolutely Amazing”

I loved every bit of it and told my mom over phone, that it was the reason why I wanted to do an international MBA. Its not just learning its the learning experience.

But it was really an intense term with just 1 month timeframe. The 1st test was in 2nd week. The subjects were real foundations for an MBA, which were Managerial economics, Ethics, Decision making and Integrated modelling. Profs were amazing and especially Prof Avi. I became a big fan of him.

Rotman Orientation day

It was a true orientation day,and I have never attended such orientations in my life. I was expecting that orientation will be boring and just explaining what I already know. But Rotman Orientation days were really insightful.

Prof Mihnea ran a session on Integrative thinking. All 350 of us were divided into groups of 5 each. The prof gave us some notes about a case study and we were supposed to solve it in 1 hour. It was brilliant experience when none of us had any experience of solving business problems. It was purely because of using common sense, our group came to a solution. After an hour , the prof reviewed all our solutions and made best teams to present on how and why they arrived at that solution. Then he walked through the process of Integrative thinking which is embedded in our coursework at Rotman. Then we grouped again and continued solving the case using what he taught us.  The day was like a big workshop on Integrative thinking and didn’t feel like orientation.

We were solving business problems even before attending a single course. And that was an exciting experience.

By end of day Prof gave us valuable insights and then said “thats how you should think at Rotman”.

The next day was on networking. Again it was a group based workshop on Reciprocity ring , a concept that relies on human tendency to help. By end of workshop I believed in the power of networking. Prof ended the day with a note “that how you should network”.

Having learnt how to think and how to network , I was excited to step my foot into the first day at Rotman

Rotman pre MBA and Boot camp

When Rotman announced pre MBA, i was wondering if i should leave for Toronto that early.  I didn’t want to miss spending time with family , especially my second son who was just born.  I decided against attending all courses and joined only for the last week of sessions.

One highlight about the 1 week session that i loved was Voicing Yourself. It was provided by the Self development lab. The teacher was an actor and i was amazed how one can present well just based on voice. She taught us the techniques to enhance our communication during presentation.

Another best reason for me to attend the 9 AM session when i actually landed at Toronto just a day before in the noon, was my interest to meet other Rotmanites. I made lot of amazing friends in that 1 week.

Boot camp was the AMAZING part of the beginning.

The Journey so far

Its not the destination that counts, its the experience of the journey

Pursuit of my happiness: Thats what I describe about my journey that I am currently going through.

“Its one life. Live your dreams”  has been my moto in choosing this path. I was AVP at the largest Investment bank and was working at Singapore. Enjoyed all delights of life with caring wife, lovable kid and a high paying job.  I walked the same path every software engineer walks until I hit the crossroads. I could continue walking straight and earn more money or change directions and seek adventure.

This is my adventure. My path to happiness.