Rohit Tangri: Australian culture - a positive experience

Amid heightened concerns about security for Indian students in Australia, a Melbourne-based MBA student claims to have experienced the upside of some good old-fashioned Australian culture.

After landing in Australia in August 2008 to study his MBA at Melbourne Business School, Rohit Tangri, and his wife quickly settled into their rented house only to find that their power still hadn't been connected.

Within the hour their new neighbour, a Queenslander, had introduced himself, thrown an extension cord over the fence and lent them a heater.

During his first week at MBS, Rohit and his family were invited to have dinner with some other new MBA students in the home of an MBA staff member.

And so began his family's new network of Australian friends.

He says, "It was a great introduction to Australia."

It was a big decision for Rohit to leave friends and family in India and come to Australia to study.

"I sat down with my wife, Payal to discuss the options and she was more inclined for me to carry on with part-time study at Indian Institute of Management, India's most prestigious business school, where I'd just been accepted," he says.

Rohit had already applied to do his MBA in the U.S., U.K. and Switzerland, in addition to India and Australia, saying MBS was attractive because of its reputation, location and that it offered a program which took less than two years to complete.

With a degree in mechanical engineering, a postgraduate diploma in business, a Java certification and 11 years work experience, he was keen to get the next stage of his career started.

The determining factor to come to Australia was that MBS offered him the Dean's scholarship. He and Payal looked at the expenses again, and realised that as a teacher, Payal could work here, which she does, so the decision was made.

With his two daughters in primary school and a three bedroom house in Hillside, about an hour's commute by public transport to the business school, Rohit has about $3,000 fixed expenses a month.

Of that $1,300 goes to rent, $1,000 is spent on groceries and up to $700 is ear-marked for the car, Internet and utilities. Anything else, such as holidays or swimming lessons for the children is extra.

According to Rohit, their cost of living is what they expected based on Internet research prior to their arrival.

He says, he'd already gone through the property listings on the Internet and could see the type of house they could afford when they arrived.

After finishing his undergraduate studies Rohit entered the workforce as a management trainee before joining the National Housing Bank of India as an assistant manager, and a couple of years after that, HCL Perot Systems as a business analyst.

In 2003 Rohit formed his own consulting company offering a liaison service between businesses abroad and IT skills in India, which successfully completed two significant projects over a period of two years, but after being unable to raise the capital required to take the venture to its next phase, he returned to being an employee.

During this time Rohit's work had taken him on some fairly extensive travels throughout the northern hemisphere, including a three-month stint in New York, as a single man and two years in the U.K., this time accompanied by his family.

His return to professional employment took him to the southern hemisphere, New Zealand in particular. It was 2005 and he was 33 years old. In a couple of years he was a project manager and managing projects in diverse locations like Romania and Japan.

"I was at the stage where I was doing more as a manager than a technical specialist, the focus was shifting from operations to strategy," he says. "I realised that I would require a world-class management education to progress my career to the next level of responsibility."

Future plans? For Rohit this is the million dollar question. He freely admits he has no idea whether he will stay in Australia, return to India or work elsewhere.

"The world is converging," he says. "The same companies are everywhere in the world now. We will go wherever our skills are most needed or appreciated by society and wherever we feel we can contribute, and achieve and live in a manner that's best for us."

Currently doing internship with Nossal School of International Health
Postgrad Diploma, Business Studies