PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -3

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Day-3 started on usual note of waking up in panic mode because of lack of sleep and the time crunch. Proof reading of  submitted assignment is always a bad idea, and we did a grave mistake of doing it while heading towards the canteen. We wanted a shock and we got that, assignment was with awfully bad formatting and grammatical mistake. The work was so bad that we thought if the assignment lands in professor's hand he will surely throw it away. But then what's done id done and as there was no chances of reverting the mistakes we came at peace.

Post sumptuous breakfast, we were herded back to the class which started with a short note from seniors on House Cup score and later a surprise quiz. Damn! Fortunately, right answers to right questions were given and most importantly was not sent to any prof for review again. We were not in position to risk our wonderful creations going second time in same day to prof and eventually gaining his wrath.

I wouldn't call the next 3 hour session with Prof. B Mahadevan as a lecture but a healthy discussion for sure. He started with value of case approach and why solutions are not important for any case. Also, how important questions are for any case discussion as students may get lost in myriads of options and end up with nothing.

Case was on ITC e-Chaupal (HBR) past, present and future.The entire discussion showed how multiple people approaches a single problem in multiple ways. Each one coming with their own biases and trying to reason out on 'their' amicable solutions. The discussion ended with an inspiring lecture (yes lecture) by Prof. Mahadevan, who talked about the importance of material approach and the actual goal which everyone seeks. He talked about interesting anecdotes and tales of his real-life entrepreneurial venture. The never-ending pursuit of happiness of humankind while their ignorance towards it at the same time. As usual it was left on discretion of the listener to take the idea in their own way for their own good. This was followed with the a short note from Prof. NM Aggarwal and the result which everyone was contributing and waiting for since past 1 week. Who is the winner for house cup? And the result was announced as 'Best Buddies' are the winner!!! A totally unexpected result but pleasant nonetheless and as a standard practice it was welcomed by a loud and sudden noise of cheering. Yippie! Its an amazing moment and feeling to be a part of wining team. the house cup will be presented to us during our first b-school 'informal' event due next month 'Pahel 2012'.

We were greeted with another 0.5 kg of case study which was waiting outside for us. Great! As if previous 3 kg's where not enough. Class representative election and later with lunch 3 day marathon ended. After few photo sessions around the campus, we packed our bags and vacated the hostel so as to come back to campus again on 15th June, the day when the grinding will actually begin. It will be interesting to see how the course will be manged with multiple things running around.

Last but not the least, a commendable show by the senior batch students. Our batch gave a tough time to them but guess this is the tradition. They never lost the patience and greeted with a smiling face, at least a quality which I need to learn if not master completely.The energy and enthusiasm level was really contagious and helped us to get transitioned smoothly into complex structure of PGSEM program.

Nonetheless, the departing thoughts were quite disoriented, hope to retain sanity in the insane schedule. And here were we who came here to get oriented. Welcome to the world of Bin-ness.

P.S.  : - I love my post scripts and disclaimers so they always come in my posts somehow. Most of my posts are back-dated and are posted on later dates. That's the reason, I lose the sense of tense some time and sometimes post contains hyper link with of  future dated content of some other URL.

P.P.S. : -  If you were waiting for any shocker for day-3, then by now you should have got that, there were none. I love to keep people guessing on matter which is never there. :P

PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -1

For a guy who followed the routine of sleeping as early as 10 PM everyday and waking up as early as 5:30 AM for past 8 months, all rules of biological clock gone topsy-turvy after being awake as late as 2:30 AM previous (shall I say same day) day. Day-2 started with utter panic with ringing mobile and seeing time was 7 AM already. Thanks to group member, got wake-up call in-time for the event starting at 8 AM. Day-2 was dedicated to the CSITM activities with few paper presentation by people in academia and guest lectures by eminent personalities on theme of 'Benefiting Masses Profitably' lined up for whole day.

It was an interesting theme that talked about dearth of opportunities available in the area of  people empowerment while maintaining a regular cash flow. Thankfully the assignment done yesterday, helped to get some head-start on the theme and because of which sessions didn't meet its usual fate as it always happens with me.

Day started with welcome address by Dean Academics and short note from Prof. NM Aggrawal followed with guest lecture by Mr. Jasjit Singh (EVP Datawind) who talked how they are trying to transform the lifestyle of common man and talked about vision behind 'Aakash Tablet'. Difficulty faced by them and what they are doing to counter the problem. As a whole the theme started unfolding how the masses can be benefited using the technological advances. This was followed by short note from Mr. Anand Sudarshan, (CEO Manipal Education), who talked how he his organization has revolutionize the learning experience of masses by use of technology and online education using tools like edunxt. And how technologies are bringing bigger dreams to the people for whom higher and quality education was a impossible thing to think. We also had a quick lecture by Prof. Sourav Mukherji (OB & HR) talking about various aspect of mass empowerment and difficulties behind the resources not reaching to the masses. Which was later followed by paper presentations on people from academia talking on same theme utilizing services like USSD,Mobile technologies for rural and agricultural empowerment.

Post lunch session began with the lecture by Mr. Vir Kashyap (COO Babajobs.com). It was really inspiring seeing the idea his company is working on to fetch better job opportunities for blue collared groups by utilizing the spread of the mobile's network available in the country. He actually showed how he is trying to solve the last mile problem, not in telecom sense but in connecting all class of people on single platform. It is seriously an excellent example of entrepreneurship venture which is working for people and still generating pro.

Next discussion was scheduled with Mr. Ganesh Rengaswamy, (Partner - Lok Capital) - who talked how he decide on the funding a venture and how their organization is working for ladies in the villages and generating job opportunities for them. Which was followed by lecture from Mrs Gunjan Krishna (IAS officer & Head of eMission - Karnataka Govt). She talked about the initiatives taken by the Govt. and the problem faced. She also talked about the need of hour and the requirement of more entrepreneurship ventures in the field of social upliftment of society. And why some initiatives dies after big fanfare. Too much of information load called for the tea break  which was followed by lecture by Mr Bhavish Sood (Research Director - Gartner). All in all, everyone gave a new perspective and showed why technology is not completely evil and can be utilized for people from poor class as well while maintaining the profits. This was more than what we could have taken for the day, thankfully the day ended immediately with vote of thanks by Mr. Rajesh Pandit (Chief Manger, CSITM).

Now it was the fun time with sports activities lined up. Group did miserably in cricket, satisfactory in Basketball and TT and came first in Badminton. Post-dinner activities information were passed to us and were asked to assemble back in the meeting place for treasure hunt and closing plan. By the time the treasure hunt got over it was almost 11:30 PM. We were tired because of last 2 days activities and lack of sleep but a shocker was given with the assignment and case paper planned for discussion next day by Prof B Mahadevan. What which was expected to be a simple case took almost 2 hours. As it was almost 2 AM and did not had enough energy to discuss any further all discussions were called off and formatting the answers for case questions were started. Being sleep deprived has its own funny quotient, which was released immediately when one of the group member asked for 3 'bullet' points for assignment question. This was duly given as Dhichkaon.. Dhichkaon..and Dhichkaon.. by yours truly. Somehow the assignment was completed, and discussed for some time whether to send the assignment or not in current format as we really did a lousy job.  The day finally ended at 3:30 AM with thought, if this is how coming days are scheduled we are screwed for next 2.5 years. Little did I know at that time that another shocker awaits next day..

To be continued..

PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -1

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

This! Exactly this point, is the difficult part in entire story building when you do not know what to write and what not to. And I always end up writing something, deleting and then re-writing to get the flow of story correct.

As mentioned in  previous part with Last in the Tower my much awaited IIM dream began. Talk to any one from UP & Bihar belt, you will realize that they seldom use 'I' and believe in concept of 'we' while talking but when it comes to 'II*' then rules of games suddenly takes a different route as it is II T&M, cm'on do I need to tell that again. Yeah, you got it - I will not live a single opportunity to brand IIM. :P

Enough of branding and promotions, coming back to the story line, the mock up rigor show began even before joining the college. Entire batch was divided into group of 5 each with and assignment passed to us which was supposed to be done in group a week before the formal inauguration & orientation. The assignment being a group assignment became a difficult task as no one had met anyone in their group till now, nor were aware about the likes and dislikes of group members. All assignment and work division was suppose to be done via e-mail/SMS as no one had ample time to come and meet. And, as it happens in all such cases, no one's contradict anyone and one who comes up first with any methodology, always gets followed. Somehow the engineered solutions were given to each of the problems, though was thinking all the time while doing the assigned question that If I am able to do this now, then I should be awarded the degree straightaway. :D

Finally the much awaited day came, after a wait for almost month and half. I reached the campus by walk and realized, hostel is quite far from the main gate compared to distance between my house and main gate. Dumped the stuffs in allotted room in O-Block hostel and returned to the PGSEM block as per the schedule provided. Senior batch students gave us walk-through about the rigor of the course, instructions for next 3 days, followed by inspiring lecture from Prof N M Aggarwal (Chairperson CSITM Advisory Council) and Mr. Rajesh Pandit (Industry expert and part of CSITM management team). Both the lectures were highly informative and contagious, talked about our career choices and the rigor. The priority were defined as family & friends first followed with company bosses and colleagues. Because they are the one who are doing a thankless act by allowing us to do the studies on expense of their time. Once all the right things were said, we were asked to assemble at auditorium for further events.

There came the shocker, 3 Kilograms of Material(!!!) to be read for first trimester. And were informed by seniors that another 1.5 kg overall will be on way, to be provided before remaining classes of trimester. As if saying, welcome to IIM Dude, what were you expecting! So as per averaging theory around 1.5 kg of material for each subjects. I guess this is going to be my unit of measure for each subject in next 2.5 years and not sure how many kg will be added on me, reading these kg's. :P

Now the fun part began, group re-alignment was done for entire batch and were divided in 4 groups. Each group were suppose to complete set of assignment/events in next 3 days to win the prize on stake the  'House-Cup'. Innovative introduction for group members were expected as part of first event. This truly showed some interesting characteristics of the each and every group and their respective members. This was the end and were asked to assemble back at 5 PM for the inaugural address by Mr. Anjan Lahiri (President IT Services, MindTree).

Mr Lahiri talked about the problem faced by the Indian IT services and how the rules of games has changed in past 4-5 years. He talked about low growth rate, NASSCOM projection and need of IT professions to keep themselves abreast with new skills so as to keep ourselves on the front of the Growth cycle rather than looking for opportunities just because of accumulated non-performing year of experience. He also talked about the struggle at mid level managerial role playing people to keep themselves relevant to the organization strategy. He talked about tough times ahead and how people will turn obsolete if they won't keep themselves updated. A lot of topics were discussed, but space constraints doesn't allow me to put it here.You can refer the complete details here.

After tea break, we had Mr. Mansoor Khan for pre-dinner talk. Bollywood buffs and stats keeper will identify him immediately as a Movie Director for Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar. But he had a lot of other things to offer sans movies. He talked about the Peak-Oil, Jevon's Paradox, Third Curve. It was pleasure interacting with a person of such diverse interest, and one who have stints with IITB, MIT, Cornell, Movie direction and currently a social worker. His lecture was contrasting to what Mr. Lahiri was talking. With this our today's sessions ended and were asked to leave for dinner. We learnt about an interesting phenomena of the B-School education where students are told about problems and are left on their own biases to reach an amicable solution. It will be interesting to see how the things unfold in next 2.5 years with IIMB.

Post dinner, we were herded back into our group for competing on other events like JAM, Dumbsherads as an ice-breaker. And were informed at 12 AM that party was over with a write-up required as assignment on topic 'Benefiting Masses Profitably' to be submitted before 8 AM same day by group of 5 students. This required us to discuss on topic till 2.30 AM and send the assignment to accumulate few more points for the house cup. With this an eventful but tiring day ended to begin again as soon as we wake up on same day.

To be Continued..

P.S. - Congratulation! For lasting till this point of such a big post which may not be so interesting from third person perspective.