Doing well at a B-school: Academics

This is the first part of a series of Doing well at a B-school articles I plan to write. Today I'd share my experiences and insights on what I felt may work academically at ISB or in any B-school. Halfway through the year I realized my follies and felt the need for these precious tidbits from seniors which are difficult to get in a 1-year B-school. A disclaimer before I begin: these are just my personal thoughts. Please don't come back to me if any of these strategies don't work.

Exams: The so called easier subjects such as for Strategy of OB are actually tougher to score at because the TAs have specific guidelines on points in the answers. So you have to really follow the class well to understand professor's points of view. The hard core fin subjects have very high spread so be sure to practice practice and practice sample questions. After the first 2 terms I just couldn't get myself to study the day before the exams coz of fatigue or burnout or whatever. This is a disaster. I changed this during the last few terms to great effect. So make the most of the day before exams. To set expectations, a general rule of thumb is that about 8 marks above average guarantee an A (at least at ISB).

Assignments: Well this is really tricky and there's no right answer. Few electives in fact have only assignments that decide the grade. So just work hard in them I guess. For core terms, they generally don't matter so for subjects which have >80% weightage on exams you are better of ignoring assignments (where spread is very low) and concentrating on exams.

Projects:For most projects, using some fancy frameworks to analyze the issues really help. Also try to bring in concepts taught in class. Very importantly, if the project is in slide/PPT form, and you've to submit both hard and soft copies, you must put in some animations irrespective of guidelines. Sometimes presence (or absence) of animation (whatever quality) makes the difference.

Class Participation (CP): The much abused part of B-school life, CP hardly matters during core terms in the overall scheme of things. In electives, CP does make a whole lot of difference due to very high spread. But a word of caution. Please don't blabber or ramble if you have nothing substantive to say. I have seen numerous people who constantly jabber get very low CP marks wherease a few well thought out points win very high marks. And, it is OK not to speak in a few classes, really!

These were just few things that I felt I could have benefited from if I knew them from the start. If you are just starting out on a B-school, do remember that grades follow learning and learning follows enjoyment. So don't forget the enjoy the b-school experience in class or outside.