Sydney Business School MBA graduate Kaustav Chatterjee believes believes the networks he established during his studies were among the most important benefits of his MBA.
Kaustav’s decision to undertake an MBA was based on his desire to get a more holistic understanding of business to complement his technical skills as a software engineer, but it was the opportunity to build a network of business contacts that will give the biggest return on his investment.
“Since I had worked as a software engineer and mostly on projects where we functioned as a group, where we helped each other and watched each others’ back, and tasks were distributed according to the abilities of the team members – the group-work component of the MBA, which featured projects where there was a lot of teamwork involved, was very familiar and allowed me to get the most from my studies,” he said.
One of the highlights was the opportunity to represent Sydney Business School in The Economist Case Study competition.
Each year, The Economist magazine runs a case-study competition where business schools from around the world participate in a challenge to develop business solutions to a genuine business problem. Each business school selects a three-member team.
“I was chosen competitively to partner with two other classmates,” Kaustav said.
“So we were a team of three representing Sydney Business School and were given a real-life case study by The Economist and their partner, Muddy Waters. We presented a report and a presentation based on our understanding and our recommendations.
“It was a very rewarding experience, which helped me grow personally because we worked in a team and we worked together,” he added.
Other networking highlights included the University-run Networking after 5 events.
“I have attended a couple of these where I could network with others,” Kaustav said. “They were excellent opportunities I have also attended other events where I got to interact with potential employers.”
“In terms of social highlights,” he continued, “I got to meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends. Wollongong is a nice place to work and socialise – I enjoyed the environment and gained much from it.”
Kaustav’s decision to apply to Sydney Business School was based on a combination of reputation and its reasonable fee structure.
“When I was doing my research on which school to select for doing my MBA I looked at the QS MBA rankings and saw that the Sydney Business School was ranked highly,” he said. “As the program costs were fairly low, I thought it would be a good return on investment.”
