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.