Day Two at ISB

After waking at 4:30 am for the second morning in a row (ah, jet lag!) to the sound of the Hyderabad night, interrupted by the call to prayer from the mosques around Hyderabad, I watched the sun rise from our campus apartment.  What a gorgeous way to start the day... (...followed by a cappuccino in the open-air atrium, a swim in the olympic size pool, and blogging outside in the 80 degree, sunny weather!)

Ty and I arrived in Hyderabad on Sunday morning after 3 flights, 2 airport bus rides, and a taxi trip on the outskirts of our new home city.  Hyderabad seems to be booming, but we've yet to travel into the city itself.  From what we hear and read, the city is divided into an old city, which has existed for centuries, and a new city, growing quickly thanks to its reputation as a multi-national-friendly business center.  As we drove in, we saw construction happening everywhere - paving of roads, building of bridges, and construction of houses and office buildings.  

This new area, near ISB's campus, is known as High Tech City or "Cyderabad".  From our campus apartment, we can see the Infosys and Microsoft campuses - both quite impressive.  We plan to venture off campus this afternoon by foot and take a shuttle ride (about an hour) into the city tomorrow.  I can't wait to see more of the "real" Hyderabad.  

The "unreal" part of Hyderabad that we're experiencing for the next 3 months is the unbelievable ISB campus. It feels like living inside of a royal property - castle included.  We entered the massive gates, passed the "peacock crossing" signs, and saw an amazing sight before us...the main building of ISB.  

Almost all of the students and faculty (most of which are visiting faculty from all over the world) live on campus, which makes for a very communal feel.  The majority of the 450 full-time MBA students are Indian, but the school is trying to increase its international status as a world-renowned business school...and it seems to be working.  We have professors from Wharton, Stern, NASA, and many other incredible institutions.  In addition, our exchange class for this term is made up of 42 people from the U.S., Canada, Israel, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Korea.

Although I know there are many opportunities at Duke and at our other partner institutions around the world, but I would strongly recommend considering the exchange program at ISB.  I can't count the number of times that we've uttered, "I love this place," or "India is amazing," or "We should stay forever," in the past two days...and there's so much more to come.

Stay tuned...