Test Prep and a Tablet

Farbood(of Grockit fame) believes the iPad will revolutionize learning. HP says they could've released the Slate 2years ago at a price of $1500. Today, it's about $500. How much will it be tomorrow?? And how much will it change e-learning??

A LOT!! I totally expect tablet prices to fall to the level of cell-phones, even if its with a 1yr contract. The Dell Mini is a great example of the tablet of the future. part-tablet part-phone, it's going to change a lot of things. Sure, it appears cumbersome now, but give it time. Old habits are always a little hard to change.

What about when multi-tasking comes? Imagine sitting in your car/train/bus on your way home or to work, with head-phones and a _G connection.  Chat with your friends as you'll do a "social-prep" or as we called it in India-- "Group Study", attend the same class together, give the same test (play Grockit :D ), white-board with friends,....

The possibilities are endless. And i'm very excited about the future!

Job Hunt in the GMAT-Prep Sector

I'm a little shocked as to how hard it is to find a job in this segment in America. Kaplan, PrincetonReview, Knewton, MGMAT, VeritasPrep, Grockit.. i've applied to them all with nary a response. I have an extremely strong background in e-learning(founded/co-founded 2 different companies), GMAT/GMATPrep (moderated 2 different MBA forums, still moderating 1, built a reasonably decent Fb app, taught math for a while) , am pursuing a Masters degree in Marketing and am seeking a position in marketing and product development. One would think I would make a good fit and yet, my Inbox is strangely bereft of Invitations-to-Interview(mere-formality-we-WANT-YOU-on-board!!)

Sometimes I wonder if i wouldn't be better off returning to India and opening my own prep center. Could probably wipe-out the local competition.

Update: Grockit just responded to an e-mail I sent them, and in all fairness, Knewton did respond even though that didn't end all that well.

Anon writes

Ok, so a couple of things -

1. The MBA is only an end to a goal, not an end in itself. I don't know if this is right, but it seems to me like you're basing (have based?) your whole life around the MBA. That's insane!

2. A 5-year plan to get an MBA seems ludicrous to me. Sure it's a great degree, but there's plenty of other things that you can do with your life.

I do not mean this in a derogatory or offensive manner, and I hope you take it as such. All the best.

Anon, No offence taken :)

I agree it does seem like my entire life is based around it. You are right when you say that the MBA is the means to an end-- in this case the end being Entrepreneurial dreams. I see the MBA as a quicker stepping stone to those dreams.

As for the 5year plan, its working out pretty well so far-- I have another sem before I finish a Masters degree in the US which has been an awesome learning experience and one I highly recommend to everybody. I hope to land a job soon and the financial freedom of a job in the US will afford me chances to do many things that would perhaps not be as possible in India, some purely because opportunities for those do not exist in India.

In short, I am doing the many other things that I could do with my life, yet all the while keeping in mind that at the end of the day, I still want an MBA :)

p.s. I really should stop replying to comments as a separate blog-post no?? :D

KTDP...

or the Kaplan Teacher Development Program is tougher than I thought it would be. Atleast, I am struggling a bit with it. Which is strange, considering I have a fair bit of teaching experience in India. It now looks like that very experience is both my biggest strength and a source of inconvenience for me. In the 2 sessions i've attended, i've repeatedly been told that I appear confident and knowledgeable in the area I am going to teach for-- the GMAT. I am, however, still struggling to up my levels of class participation. I have 10days before the next class, and my biggest concern is that if i dont fix this within the next 2sessions, I won't be asked to return for the 5th session, which will quite clearly mean the end of my teaching for Kaplan. And I haven't even started yet!

As mentioned earlier, one of the many reasons i am currently enjoying my program is because of the way the class is taught. The professor initiates a discussion and lets the class do the rest, gently nudging us along the way. Kaplan has a similar concept-- teachers speak for close to 50% of the time in the class, and the rest is for students' involvement. In India, however, there was no such requirement. Indeed, my CAT students preferred to let me do all the talking since for most it was their first shot at the exam and they didn't know much. The paper-based test was all about strategy--maximumn number of problems in the minimum amount of time. For my LST students, I preferred not to let them speak much because twenty 17yr olds speaking was chaotic, not to mention most of the time they only seemed to be gossiping about their school. Ironically, my classes had become the very thing i disliked about the Indian education system-- the instructor speaking most of the time and the students listening.

Really need to figure this out. And Soon!

mbaMission Essay Seminar

i'm attending the mbaMission's Essay seminar on the 20th @ Boston. If you don't know about it, read more here http://www.manhattangmat.com/EventShow.cfm?EID=3&eventID=4151

Hopefully, will meet some of you :)

Users!

A week ago, i celebrated hitting 900 installs. A little too prematurely. When i released the Phase1 Update, sent a notice out a day in advance to "Fans" and posted it on the app well, the number fell to 899.

A fall of 21 users.

I reasoned that fall thus-- the app is a year old, and those who've removed it, have either moved into a b-school or dropped the MBA plan completely. Or maybe the app doesn't help them any.

Today, i am glad to report that the number is back-up to 925. I am currently experimenting with a content delivery system and hopefully it should work out well.

Fingers crossed :)

Latest Pics from the App!!

Save your Scores

View Your Overall Progress(sorted by Date)

View By Individual Source(Sorted by Date)

For e.g. My Scores for OG12 were graphed as below

While the app does ask for more information at the time of entering the scores, I haven't figured out a way yet to display that into the charts. Rest assured i am working on it and will have it sorted out soon. In the meantime, for those who relentlessly track their errors, this could be interesting :)

Also note that the order of the graphs is PS, DS, SC, CR and RC i.e. you'll see all 5 sections mapped separately but on the same page.