A Run

Okie, all set to take a ride in the roller coaster. I’ve been waiting for this moment for more than a year and a half, and the Ivey MBA is just about to begin.

I reached London, Ontario a week back and this being my first experience abroad, proved to be more than interesting. Canadians seem to be more receptive and I must appreciate the sense of discipline, timing and humor that they exhibit.

This blog post attempts at summarizing my interesting and weird experiences during the transition. 9th April 2009, I was scheduled to board the Jet Airways flight from Coimbatore to Mumbai at 3:15 PM and I received a call from the Jet Customer service that the flight was cancelled due to operational difficulties. Alternatively, they got my transit through Jet Lite Airways that was scheduled to leave Coimbatore at 8:30 PM and I was apprehensive because I had to board my British Airways Flight to London, the same night. Thankfully, Jet Airways arranged an alternative through Indian Airlines and I reached Mumbai at 5:30 PM. It was a terrible wait until 2:00 AM. Satya, who also has accepted the offer from Ivey MBA, joined me at 11:00 PM. It took nearly an hour to complete the checkin-baggage screening, immigration check and the security check. It was all sweating and the airport seemed terribly busy as most international flights had their schedules in nights. 10th April 2009, 2:00 AM, I boarded the international flight for the first time and little anxious about the 9 hour flight. Managed to get vegetarian food on board and was not as bad as I had expected. We reached the Heathgrow airport at 7:30AM local time. Having completed the security checks, we were waiting for the flight to Toronto. We were totally stunned watching and walking all through the largest airport; It had to operate subway trains to transport passengers within the airport and that’s incredible. I used my credit card to call my Parents, back home, indeed, very costly. There were no phone booths and drinking water counters, unlike backhome. Finally, we boarded the flight at 12:00 PM and it was a 7.5 hour flight to the Pearson International Airport at Toronto. 10th April 209, 2:30 PM, we headed towards the immigration checks and completed the entry formalities to receive our study permit (or student visa). The trolleys at the Airport were not available for free, unlike in India. One has to drop a Loonie (CAD $1) to operate them. We had our shuttle (abouttown) waiting to pick us up at the airport and drop us at London. Arrived at London Ontario in about 1.5 hours; 190 kms in 1.5 hours is unbelievable.

Tomorrow, I’ll be moving to my apartment and I’ve managed to get some furniture from an outgoing Ivey student. I’ve got my Student ID cards, bank accounts and mobile phone connection in place. Telecommunication is not as diverse as in India; handsets are outdated and they are always tied to a plan, unlike back home where you can throw a SIM card and buy another; even GSM phones are locked like CDMA; there’s also a charge for incoming minutes (or) you should pay extra for free incoming calls. I could manage with vegetarian food almost everywhere, but for the fact that, one doesn’t have too many veggie options; for example, my only takeaway in McDonalds is French Fries. The weather has been generally chill and windy except one day when it was pleasant. The University is incredibly large and the infrastructure is unbelievable. I’ll make a write a separate blog post about the University and the infrastructure in particular. I plan to learn to cook and thankfully, my roommate is an expert in that department and I plan to gram a few good recipes from him.

The international Orientation is set to commence on Wednesday and I’ll have three sessions on Canadian Culture, Living in London, the MBA program, IT Services and tours of Spencer Leadership Centre(Apparently, this is where most of our classes will be held), the Ivey business school and the University. Preparatory knowledge program (PKP) begins on 27th and it will run for 2 weeks (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM), where basic s of Economics, Accounting and Quantitative Analysis will be taught. The actual MBA begins on May 11th, with an orientation to the program.
I met with a lot of outgoing students from the May 2009 cohort and most of them seem to have had a phenomenal experience with the program. They have around two more weeks to graduate and I hope that I can meet with every one of them before they leave the place.