Improving my leadership skills by sharing my personal passion at Bath
From India, to Dubai, to an MBA in Bath; student Rahul shares what he has learnt from the programme.
My background in India and Dubai
Before my MBA, I worked for four and a half years as an engineer for General Motors in Bangalore, India. I then moved back with my family to Dubai, where I transitioned from an engineering project manager to a full-time project and product manager.
Dubai is a wonderful place; it’s vibrant and very tech-orientated. You get to meet people from a lot of backgrounds and I had many international clients. I really enjoyed working with them and consulting for them was a great experience.
It was at this point that I felt the need to expand my knowledge. I wanted to better understand the key business concepts and how different functions in an organisation work. I also feel as a future leader, you cannot have just one domain experience, you have to understand how your actions affect the different areas of a business. So that’s when I decided that an MBA would be a good option for me to accelerate my understanding in that field.
Studying at Bath
Bath has a good reputation for academic excellence and their commitment to innovation in business. I’m a very practical-oriented person. I like to learn through projects, so the Multi-Project Suite really appealed to me in that way.
I came back to being a student after nine years, so I was very excited to just be in a classroom setting all over again. Each of the professors on the MBA course is very accomplished. They bring a lot of knowledge and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every one of the courses so far. Every professor is able to really connect with the students and they’re always willing to have a conversation to expand our understanding.
Every professor really connects with the students and they're always willing to have a conversation to expand our understanding.
Bringing my interests to the student community
The Rubik’s Cube has been a passion of mine for a while. Ever since I discovered it, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of spending a lot of time solving it again and again and expanding it into different kinds of cubes, not just the three-by-three.
When I worked at General Motors, I organised a workshop where I trained a few people to be Rubik’s Cube trainers. It was a huge talking point within my organisation and it was such a big hit that they wanted me to do it again for people who couldn’t attend. It’s something I want to bring to the University of Bath as well. I suggested it through the Student Change Project Programme and I’m really looking forward to running it and training new people.
Just knowing how to solve a Rubik’s Cube might not be a useful skill by itself, but the very act of solving it has a lot of benefits. Before I go into a team meeting or a brainstorming session, I spend five minutes with my Cube. It really warms up my brain and increases short and long-term memory. From my experience, when people get into it, they see a positive difference when it comes to their general problem-solving or memory skills.
My future goals
After the MBA, I’d like to work in operations or consultancy. I’d like to be in a leadership role, where I’m able to really influence people, influence the business and bring my ideas and learnings from the MBA and put them into use.
The University of Bath’s reputation and strong career support will help me to really make my job applications stand out. I have the confidence that I’ll be able to do it.