What is it really like to study for an MBA? How do the students juggle their work load and their personal life? What do they hope to achieve once they have gained an MBA? Read the FT's MBA blog to find out.

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The following students will share their business school experiences over the current academic year

Sanjay Gonchigar, IIMA
Age: 34
Nationality: Indian

MBA programme: Sanjay Gonchigar is studying for a one-year post graduate programme in management (PGPX)at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. A graduate with 12 years' work experience, he has previously worked for Hewlett-Packard & IBM in the financial services and BPO operations domains. His last role before joining IIMA was with the Deutsche Bank - Global Business Services, as an AVP in the Operational Risk Management team in Bangalore. He is a keen traveller.

Pranay Harsh, Wharton School
Age: 25
Nationality: Indian

MBA programme: Pranay Harsh spent his early childhood in India before moving first to the United Arab Emirates and then to the US. finally settling in the US where his family continues to live today. He studied for an undergraduate degree at Georgia Tech and then after working in the financial services industry, joined Bain & Co's Singapore office as an associate consultant. He is studying for an MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania "to learn the things he didn't know he needed to learn". He believes that Wharton will give him the formal business education he requires, with an emphasis on running and/or owning a business.

Vladimír Vaňo, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien and Carlson School of Management
Age: 31
Nationality: Slovak

MBA programme: Vladimir is studying for an EMBA on the Vienna Executive MBA programme organised jointly by at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Vienna Austria and Carlson School of Management in the US. He is currently chief analyst with Volksbank in Slovakia, a position he has held since 2007. He has wide-ranging experience in the financial sector, having worked with Deloitte&Touche; and Ing. He has had internships with Merrill Lynch in New York City and has also worked with an economic think tank and NGO focused on employement policies in Washington.

Naveed Syed, London Business School
Age: 28
Nationality: American

MBA programme: Naveed Syed is studying for his MBA at London Business School and intends to specialise in entrepreneurial management during the programme. He holds a degree in business economics from UCLA. On graduation he moved to New York City where he worked as a media and technology investment banker for BMO Capital Markets, before joining the mergers and acquisitions team at Yahoo!. He further broadened his experience working for a few years in Mumbai in the entertainment industry, before returning to California and joining a startup in Silicon Valley specialising in in-application advertising.

Beth Bremner, HKUST
Age: 30
Nationality: South African

MBA programme: Beth has elected to study for an MBA at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School. After acquiring a management accounting degree at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, she completed her CIMA accountancy qualifications in London and for the past eight years has worked in the finance industry in London and in the Middle East.

Seda Saracer, SDA Bocconi
Age: 25
Nationality: Turkish

MBA programme: Having travelled extensively Seda has opted to study for her MBA at Milan's Bocconi University. Seda is multi-lingual and has for the past three years worked for Jotun, manufacturer of paints and powder coatings in their marketing department. She studied international trade as an undergraduate at Bogazici University in Istanbul.

Federico Zaldua, Columbia Business School
Age: 26
Nationality: Argentinean

MBA programme: Federico begins his MBA programme at Columbia Business School, New York in January 2010. He holds an economics degree from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Federico began working for the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange when he was 19 and subsequently worked for a real estate company for a short while. At the age of 26, with the help of former colleagues at the stock exchange, he started his own investment company focusing in Argentinian assets. He is deeply interested in Latin American art.

Alex Ferrari, University of Miami
Age: 24
Nationality: Argentinean

MBA programme: Alex is studying for a one-year MBA at the School of Business Administration at the University of Miami. He was born in Buenos Aires and lived there until he was 15, when he moved to Florida in the US. He graduated from the University of Miami in 2008 with a BA in business administration and subsequently worked for an airline as a marketing trainee, working with the communications director. At the end of his internship last September he decided to take the opportunity to further his education and was accepted onto the University of Miami's graduate programme. He begins his MBA at the end of January.

Maxime Droubi, IMD
Age: 33
Nationality: French/Syrian

MBA programme: Maxime Droubi was born in Syria, but left his home country aged 16 to study firstly in the UK and subsequently in Lausanne, Switzerland where he gained a masters in engineering in communication systems. He worked in the US on both the east and west coasts, before returning to Europe to work in various telecommunication and consumer electronics industries. He is studying for an MBA at IMD in Lausanne.

Michael Cooper, Strathclyde Business School
Age: 38
Nationality: British

MBA programme: Michael is studying for a full-time MBA at Strathclyde Business School, UK. He was born in the UK and has a degree in environmental biology with post grad qualifications in audit. His 15 years work experience have been spent travelling the world to provide regulatory IT consultancy to life science clients. He hopes that his MBA will help to focus and extend his entrepreneurial skills.

Cezanne Maherali, Insead
Age: 27
Nationality: Kenyan

MBA programme: Cezanne is studying for an MBA at Insead and is attending classes at the school's campuses in Singapore and Fontainebleau, France. She comes to Insead from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked in sub-Saharan Africa for four years as a corporate finance and management consultant. Cezanne hopes her MBA will help her to play a key role in ensuring sustainable private sector development in Africa.

Rahul Bajaj, Chicago Booth
Age: 31
Nationality: Indian

MBA programme: Rahul is in the second year of his MBA in Finance and Strategic Management at the Chicago Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. He began his career as a financial analyst in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley in New York, before moving to India to become an entrepreneur. As well as establishing a security services company, Rahul is also an actor and writer.

Nathan Lang, Kellogg School of Management
Age: 24
Nationality: British

MBA programme: Nathan has enrolled in the accelerated one-year MBA programme at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US. He plans to major in finance, entrepreneurship and marketing. Before joining the school he worked for Boston Consulting in London, Mumbai and Dubai. He has a degree in economics from the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Gleana Albritton, Vlerick Leuven Gent
Age: 31
Nationality: American

MBA programme: Gleana has recently moved to Belgium from the US to study for her full-time MBA at the Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management. She has held various marketing roles in the media and entertainment sector in the US and her last position was as director of events and field marketing at Fuse Networks, a national music cable TV network. She has a business administration degree from Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia in the US.

Aswini Anburajan, Judge Business School
Age: 29
Nationality: American

MBA programme: Born in India and raised in the US, Aswini is a former journalist and worked for NBC and public radio. She reported extensively on the Barack Obama presidential campaign and the experience has motivated her to look at how news organisations can create business models in the digital age. She is studying for an MBA at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge in the UK.

Kane Cuenant, Skolkovo
Age: 26
Nationality: Canadian

MBA programme: Kane is studying for his MBA at Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, Russia. He has a degree from Queen's University, Ontario and has a keen interest in humanitarianism. Kane has worked at the Bureau Veritas, a certification company, where he advised multi-nationals about trade transactions to developing countries. In his humanitarian role he has worked for United Planet, in a fundraising and management consultancy role.

Ryan Conway, Thunderbird School of Global Management
Age: 34
Nationality: American

MBA programme: Ryan Conway studied finance at Arizona State University, before moving to New York City for a career in broadcast media advertising and then to Chicago to work as a senior account executive. His media experience allowed him to work with a variety of clients including domestic and foreign automotive groups and political entities and working in the advertising industry taught him about negotiation, client management and strategy. A keen traveller, he has visited more than 30 countries and feels comfortable with Thunderbird's "global environment". He is eager to work in the renewable energy sector or human capital/strategic consulting on graduation.

Elli Papadaki
Age: 27

Elli Papadaki is head of business education advertising and has worked at the Financial Times for the last four and a half years. She is keen to study for an MBA to hone her existing management skills and interact with other MBA students and learn from their experiences.

However, before she can apply to business school, she must first overcome the hurdle of the Graduate Management Admission test. "I have come to realise that knowing a lot about business schools and their various programmes is very different to preparing to apply to one," she says.

"This is why it is with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation that I am about to embark on the journey of preparing for the GMAT via an online classroom over the course of a month in preparation for the final exam." Follow Elli's blog over the next four weeks as she prepares for the test.