Calibrating expectations

A lot of times your expectations from any venture are set by what you hear from other people around you or just the 'popular' opinion.The subject of this post is my MBA program. I have come to the conclusion that my expectations from a Harvard MBA are now drastically different (after close to 10 weeks) from what I came in with. The expectations I came in with were shaped a lot by what I heard about the program or what people around me said their expectations were.

However, I have realized it is different in the following ways: I just realized over the last 10 weeks from my interactions that most of my classmates are candidates sponsored by their employers i.e in the worst possible case, they are assured of a job with their employer and what's more they get elevated from their pre-MBA jobs to MBA jobs. Ex: An analyst at a consulting firm will join back as an associate.

So there is lesser academic pressure and most of them are doing an MBA to unskill and have a gala time.

I also realized that these guys were getting paid pretty decently compared my Indian salary (Ofcourse on a PPP basis I was doing pretty well back in India) so they have lots of disposable income. So, I should always be mindful of the student budget that I'm dining, shopping, partying, commuting etc....

So, it would never serve me well to blindly try to 'be like everyone else and do what everyone's doing'.

So, I've toned down the expectations a little bit and working on the areas which are my strengths and knowing where I couldn't possible compete/conform.