Adil Ahmed is Future Proof
“Be honest about why you want to do an MBA.”
Excellent advice from Adil Ahmed, who went to Wharton last year and also won a Joseph Wharton scholarship worth $100K.
Adil was working for Schlumberger, the world’s largest offshore drilling company, as a petro-technical expert when he decided to apply for an MBA. He was afraid of getting pigeon-holed into what is quickly becoming a legacy industry and wanted to transition into new energy industries like EV’s.
He knew there was a gap in his skillset; he had oil & gas expertise only and an MBA would be the perfect tool to help him pivot into the future of energy and mobility.
The son of a subsistence farmer, Adil’s father was the first person in the entire village with an education. He received a civil engineering diploma and got a government job, instilling the value of education into Adil and his siblings.
Adil excelled in school and confesses his choice of going to IIT Roorkee was purely pragmatic.
“The ROI is highest at IIT”
He got a B. Tech. + M. Tech. in Geophysical Technology; again, based on what choices he was offered based on his grades. Once at IIT, Adil did a summer internship with ONGC and though he valued the security of a career with ONGC, he did not want to be a government employee and wanted to try new things and gain global exposure.
He was hired by Schlumberger via a campus placement and then spent nearly five years working as a petro-technical expert on the ground in India and the Middle East and remotely with clients in the US, Africa, Europe and Australia. Adil made gold mines safer in Australia by helping avoid geographic faults and made fracking safer in the UK by helping mitigate tremors.
Adil decided to apply for an MBA about four years into his stint at Schlumberger. He says choosing Admissions Gateway to partner with for his applications was a “no-brainer” because of their reputation and the recommendations he had received from colleagues.
Adil says his counsellor at Admissions Gateway helped him highlight the impact of his work at Schlumberger in the way that business schools waned to see it. This started with his resume which he admits, was not good. Together with his counsellor, he says they went through almost fifty iterations of his resumé till they were happy with it.
His counsellor helped him not only with figuring out which schools to apply to but also with career counselling and even soul-searching for his essays, helping him frame his goals in a compelling fashion.
Admissions Gateway helped Adil apply to Wharton, Kellogg and Booth, with Ross and Fuqua as his safety schools. He is currently a first-year at Wharton and says it is everything he had hoped for and more, marvelling at the diversity in backgrounds and expertise of his classmates from around the world.
Looking back, Adil says the GMAT score is not nearly as important as most people make it out to be.
“A perfect GMAT score won’t help unless you’re sure why you want an MBA.”
He encourages applicants not to underestimate themselves and limit their options while applying. Adil’s final piece of advice is to do some soul-searching about why you want to do an MBA.
“Once you’re clear about your reasons, it is much easier to convince others.”