My journey to Columbia University – Graduate School of Journalism

Team getyourMBA recently met up with Pavni Mittal (Page on linkedin.com), a former candidate with getyourMBA, who successfully applied to and received admission to the prestigious Columbia Journalism School this year. Just 1 month into the program, Pavni is already managing a hectic schedule of classes and assignments, while acclimating to New York and all that this great city brings with it!

Pavni is doing a 1 year course, M.A. in Journalism, with a concentration in Politics. She hopes to use this and her background in business reporting to get make a career in Foreign Policy. Here is a summary of our conversation with her, where she shares a number of great insights and tips for aspiring journalism candidates:

Team getyourMBA: Let’s start with you telling us a little bit about your background. What were you doing before you joined Columbia?
Pavni: I have a background in Political Science. I was at Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi University. After graduating, I did a post graduate course in journalism at Asian College of Journalism (ACJ). After this, I was an Anchor & Senior Correspondent with CNBC TV18 for close to 4 years.

Team getyourMBA: Since you already had a Masters degree in Journalism, what prompted you to apply to Columbia? 
Pavni: I found that the predominant focus at ACJ was very technical. The program places emphasis on things such as production, and putting a program together. It prepared me very well for Television, but I realized after working for some time that I wanted to go deeper into the subjects I covered. The program at Columbia is for experienced journalists, with a very application oriented curriculum. We are routinely asked to consider the events happening globally, and think about them from a journalistic point of view. In essence, this is where you get to master the ‘Art of Journalism’.

Team getyourMBA: How did you pick the schools you applied to?
Pavni: I only applied to Columbia since it’s the best. I was very clear from the beginning that I would go only if I got admitted to Columbia.

Team getyourMBA: What is the application process for journalism schools like?
Pavni: The application consists of 4 main parts – 1) TOEFL score 2) Three essays 3) Recommendations 4) Transcripts (at least, this is what is true for Columbia Journalism School)
I was able to waive writing TOEFL since I was working at CNBC and that was enough to show my proficiency in English. 
The three essays have the following focus – one essay is autobiographical that requires you to essentially write about “Who you are”. The second essay is professional, with a focus on “What you have accomplished so far”. Finally, the third essay is a SOP, with a focus on “Why do you want to do this program”.

Team getyourMBA: How was the essay writing process for you?
Pavni: I struggled with it to be honest. Till today I don’t know how I wrote what I wrote :) First of all, I started my application too close to the submission deadline, because I confused the deadlines. This left me with very little time for writing my essays. Also, I struggled the most with the autobiographical essay since I wasn’t sure how to portray myself. I was confused about things such as – What should I include and not include in the essay? How do I make my essay culturally relevant to someone in the US? How do I make sure my essays convey a coherent story of “Me”? It took me about 10-12 iterations before I got it right.

In this regard, working with getyourMBA helped me a lot as the biggest change I made with their help was to my essay content. Earlier, I was getting all kind of advice around correcting my language, to sounding “cool” in my essays. getyourMBA helped me change course to getting my content right and making sure that I was able to connect the dots across various key points to convey a great story about myself, my achievements so far, and why I wanted to join Columbia. 

Team getyourMBA: What tips do you have for a candidate applying to journalism schools?
Pavni: First of all, start a little earlier than I did! More time will definitely help you think through your application. And then, it’s very helpful to get someone who is familiar with the university application process in the US to review your essays. Many folks in India who don’t have this exposure may give advice which might not be very relevant. Schools here care about diversity and what value each candidate adds to the class. It is important to bring this across in your essays as clearly as possible.
A big thing I realized during this process is that the essays cannot be treated as disjoint pieces of writing. Everything has to come together as one, single coherent story about yourself and your world view so far. It’s almost like a caricature of yourself.

Team getyourMBA: What about recommendations? How did you select the people you asked for your recommendations?
Pavni: I asked three people for my recommendations at first – my previous supervisor, one of my university professors and the CNBC network head at the time. The key thing in a good recommendation is that it should have a personal touch – the person should be able to write about what struck them about you, and what they think about you, as opposed to simply stating your accomplishments and what you’ve done.

Team getyourMBA: Did you give any pointers to the people who wrote your recommendations?
Pavni: My previous supervisor didn’t let me see what she wrote, but she promised me that if she has agreed, she would make sure she did a good job. What I do know now is that she mentioned things like “When I worked with Pavni, this is what I found out about her” and “When I met Pavni first, this is what struck me about her”, which was great, since it connected who I was with what I’d written in my essays. For the other two people, I gave them some pointers for the recommendation.

Team getyourMBA: Were there any interviews at Columbia?
Pavni: No, there are no interviews.

Team getyourMBA: So now that you’re through, in hindsight would you have done anything differently?
Pavni: Definitely. I would have liked to start earlier. Also, I think I should’ve tried to enjoy the process more. The essay writing requires a lot of introspection which is very useful for planning your long term career, not just for gaining admission.

Team getyourMBA: How has your experience at Columbia been so far? Are you enjoying it?
Pavni: It is all that I expected and much more. The class is so diverse. I’m working with Africans, Americans, Europeans, Asians. It completely changes your world view. It’s way more hectic than I thought it would be. I’m still a little bit dazed! Soon I’ll have to start job hunting so that will be very stressful. But I’m learning a lot each day and glad about that.

Team getyourMBA: Any parting advice for candidates who may be considering applying?
Pavni: Be very clear why you are applying. Your primary goal should be to learn and master your craft so that you can apply it to your field. Your goal cannot be simply to get a higher paying job as the chances of that happening, especially if you’re a foreign student, are not 100%, since you won’t have relevant cultural context from the get go. Many students in fact go back to their jobs after having learnt new skills in the course. So your primary goal should be to learn.

Great advice Pavni! Team getyourMBA wishes you all the best at Columbia and in all your future endeavors!!

IIM Admission Interviews - some myths, some truths and some advice - Part II

So, it is interview season again, for admission to the IIMs. Some of you might have received your calls already, Congratulations! Many others will probably get them soon. So how are you going to prepare for the big day?
 
Well, you could start by reading Part I of this post,  IIM Admission Interviews - some myths, some truths and some advice - Part I, which appeared previously on this blog and then come back to this one where I continue to bust few more myths and give some advice. 

So, to continue from the previous post on this subject - 
 
Myth 3: IIM interview panels are just looking for any reason to reject you. So any slip-up, just a single mistake and you are out. So it is absolutely critical to give correct answers to all questions.
This is far from the truth. Because the interview is, by itself, not the deciding factor in a candidate’s admission. You can check out the website of the IIM’s for the evaluation process and see how points are awarded for each individual element of a candidate’s profile including their academics, the CAT score, their work-ex etc. and of course the interview. So the interview is just one of several factors that affect your chance. To grade you on the interview, the panelists will encourage you to come up with good answers during the interview and if you come up with one bad answer but a bunch of good ones, they will rather grade you well for your good answers than grade you poorly for the one bad answer.
 
Myth no 4: One needs to be careful not to disagree with the interviewers or say anything they might not like or they might reject you.
First get one thing clear. Interviewers are tasked with SELECTING not rejecting. These are selection interviews. The panel is actively looking for good candidates. I remember how exhausted and fatigued the whole panel would feel at the end of a session if we did not come across good candidates on a day and by contrast how refreshed and satisfied we were on days when we met some bright sparks. The point is that Interview panelists always hope that the next candidate will be a bright prospect, one who will be a pleasure to talk to. Some candidates, either for the fear of saying something wrong or maybe because they are just plain nervous, hardly say anything at all. Perhaps the notion is that the lesser you speak, the lesser the chance of making a faux-pas. But if you do not speak out your mind, how does the panel find the reasons to select you? Interview questions may be of the problem solving kind or of the type when you are asked to describe a situation or event, or where you are asked for an opinion on some subject or simply to check if you know certain facts. In some cases there might be a right or wrong answer as with solving problems or with fact based questions. But even here, if you know the solution to the problem you should be able to also defend your solution logically by explaining each step of your working if needed. And if you are asked for an opinion, feel free to give it but also know that you might be asked to explain why. If you differ from something the Interviewer says, speak out your mind freely but also be prepared to explain your point logically. Interviewers love to get into a lively dialogue with candidates on any subject. The Caveat here is of course that you should always be polite, If you disagree with the interviewer do so politely, try not to interrupt unnecessarily, no curse words obviously, never be rude, avoid making any politically incorrect statements, do not display too radical views. For example never say something that could be construed as a racist remark. And in general do not talk negatively of anyone.
 
And yet, while this may be obvious to most people, it is a typical mistake many candidates make. Particularly in response to a question like ‘why should we select you among so many others like you?’, candidates often take off in describing how others have this short-coming or the other and so try to show they are better. This is not a good answer. Instead concentrate on your own strengths, your own abilities. Give examples of how you demonstrated some good quality from situations in your past. 
 
Myth no 4:  IIMs prefer engineers – just check out the class profile of any IIM and a large percentage is always engineers – so non-engineers are at a disadvantage.
 
While it is a fact that engineers form a large percentage of admits to the IIMs, this is certainly not because the IIMs prefer this to be so. In fact going back to what I wrote earlier in this Blog, the attempt is always to provide as much diversity in the class as possible. So then why do the IIM classes consist of so many engineers? Well, because quantitative skills do form a necessary requirement for a candidate to successfully complete the MBA curriculum. Quantitative and Statistical Analytical tools and techniques are increasingly becoming part of the skill set of the Business Manager of today. And to grasp these well, a certain level of quantitative ability is necessary and engineers by virtue of their education, possess these abilities in larger numbers than many other graduates. The CAT also tries to assess this skill among all aspirants and the ones with better quant skills score better.
 
But once you have been called for the interview, this is no longer a factor. Even though there might still be a few stats or maths questions you may be asked in an interview, these are always very simple, easily answerable because you prepared for the quant section of CAT. And overall, at the interview stage, the non-engineers in fact have a better chance simply because they are different by the very virtue of not being engineers among the pool of applicants. So instead of worrying about the engineers, bring out your own strengths, speak up from your own different perspective and demonstrate how you are unique.
 
Coming now to some advice and suggestions:

• Some questions do tend to be asked very often in admission interviews and you will find them on many a website. Questions like ‘tell us something about yourself’ or ‘what are your strengths and/ or weaknesses’ etc. And while it might be a good idea to write down few points you can use to answer such standard questions, DO NOT rehearse your answers too much. Definitely do not rehearse in front of a mirror or anything. Rehearsed answers always sound very flat and jaded. Let your answer be extempore even if you did some preparation for it. It will sound fresh and will therefore be more convincing.
  
• Similarly, never use answers written by anyone else for you. If you want to go over the points you wrote for an answer, with someone else just to check if they sound good, by all means do so. But finally, make your own list of points, in your own language, so that when you are answering to the interview panel, you will speak in your own words, with your own language signature. Interviewers have a knack of catching on when you provide ‘coached’ answers and they usually do not like that.
  
• Among the subjects to prepare on for the interview, I have already highlighted the importance of being well prepared on everything that is written on your CV and anywhere else in your application documents. If you worked with a company or if you interned with one, make it a point to know about the organization, its products, its main competitors and the industry in which it operates. If you organized an event at college, be prepared to describe what you did, how you did it, what problems came up and how you solved them etc.
  
• It is also important to realize that an MBA is about running a business. So make the effort to become aware of the general business climate in the country, read up on the general economic scenario, read up on data like the rate of inflation, rate of economic growth, its trend in last few years, projected outlook for the economy etc. Also be generally aware of the political goings on in the country and how they might impact the business climate etc. If you are asking for admission to an MBA course, you must demonstrate an interest in managing businesses and must therefore be aware of the climate in which businesses operate.
   
  And finally, understand that more often than not in an interview, what matters more is NOT the exact answer you give, but the way in which you give it. Demonstrate to the panel that you are confident about your own abilities (not over confident please) and in full control of your emotions. If asked to solve a problem, provide the solution and also, if asked, be ready to explain how you arrived at the solution. If asked for an opinion, feel free to give your own point of view and be prepared to engage in a discussion on the subject with logical arguments. Even if you do not know the answer to a question, have the confidence to say so, without feeling nervous about not knowing it. “No one knows everything on this earth and if I am not able to answer this one particular question, it in no way reduces by suitability as a candidate for admission” – that is the impression you want to convey to the panel.
   
  All the best for D-day. Be cool. Be confident. You can do it.