Week 46 - The last chapter !!

Exams are over.. de-orientation week is in full swing ... No more assignments ... no more lectures.. only few days from graduation ...

And the facebook is replete with nostalgia/last messages... some of my favs are

1) From Saiket

The last CPs.. the last cold calls, the rogues playing Nascar in the last row.. The TA in the corner watching silently as always.., the occasional jokes that will make the entire class laugh.. the 10min break in between... and so on.. will be history in few hours.. hmn..

2) From Sindhu

A momentous year, went as silently as it came... Sat in the curved classes for the last time, listened to the prof in the well of the class for the last time, enthusiasm and anticipation when I came in... memories and nostalgia as I move out... Cheers to a year well spent

3) From Vineet

Too many lasts to count ..last assignment, last class, last standing ovation to prof, last exam........But why count the lasts n not count on what lasts forever... numerous memories, actuation of dream MBA, and most importantly - Lifelong friends !!! Curtain's aren't down. They never are. Just that the game is all set to be more interesting than ever before !!

Khallaas ( My Facebook status)

And it is over.

Finished.

Done.

week 46 :- Nearing the end

It is raining events at ISB...

Portrait project by the photography club

SLC events.. many of them ...i love their tagline .. "Getting you a life .. One even at a time"

You are never alone at ISB.. if nothing then u have assignments .. specially when u r nearing end of term ...

so people are just doing minimal needed to wrap up assignments.. only ones studying are 

1) who love grades

2) who are whisker away from deans list

3) who have set targets like 3 , 3.5 or 2.5 ( min for graduation)

4) who are just in the deans list
5) and some idiots 

and not to mention .. everyone is nostalgic ....

Facebook is replete with nostalgia status messages....

Fun time over... 

Need to prepare for corporate life again ...

btw,

i got my offer letter ... so i have a job.. for sure ... no reneging by company ... i luv them for that ... 

Date and location are confirmed yet titles tentative for the lack of written communication ...

Rest is best...

End of most happening year of lives of 570 people is just round the corner ..

1 week of studies .. 1 weekend of exams .,... 1 de-orientation week .. 1 day of graduation...

and it is over ...

So soon !!!

weeks 43, 44, 45 - Monotony

Nothing new at all .... Absolutely nothing novel..

I honestly dont know what 2 write ...

same old classes.. same old environment .. nostalgia all around ..

folks with jobs having fun ... Folks with no jobs are full fledgedly hunting for one..

campus is replete with nostalgia..
yearbook is being made...
graduation is so near...
Midterm of term 8 is over .. no one read.. no one bothered...
I finished my mid term paper in 23 minutes.. my fastest till date ...

Rest is best ... My joining and other information will come by next week ...
that will take me to a whole new station ...

Am already looking fwd 2 it ..

Weeks 41 & 42 - Fun for some .. none for some ...

Have been really lazy ..... Sloppy and careless ... but have had lots of fun .... And know what .. I am typing this sitting in  a class... trust me blogging is best use of time in this class ...

41st week

It was exams of term 7 which announced that term 8 is round the corner and the end is about to begin ...
First time I had a course in which I was not having SRK as my group mate ... he has been tagging along ( rather i m tagging .... whatever !!)  Am not used to prepare for end terms.. he is the one who is attentive and intelligent and serious chap .. [Serious = Still after grades ;-)]
but then it makes sense for him he is all close to the coveted dean's list .. hope he makes it..

Just 2 papers later I was done with term 7 .. and managed to ensure that I will not flunk...also ensured that i wont get an A.. But thats ok ... I am nowhere near deans list ...

Anyway after exams the fun part started .. vacations ...

42nd week

This was a week of fun ... For me .. because I am relieved.....for folks who have not yet signed on the dotted line it was a tough period... It was week with completely contrasting memories ..... people with job were in frolic mode and rest were not .. they were still studying ... prepping hard and giving luck a best shot ...

week 43 is term 8 .. beginning of end ...

week 39 and 40 - relieved and unhappy

The relieved word in the subject is for the fact that I have signed off an offer in ISB campus ... Unhappy is the feeling because of following reasons

1) I am not happy with the location offered. Having worked for 6.5 years I wanted to go to a city where I can stay for next few years atleast but this city was a strict no no. Actually I turned down the offer initially because of this. But thanks to some sensible friends I grabbed it again.

2) The package offered though is good is not what I dreamt off before joining ISB. But then it was my dreams that were off the mark. There have been cases in ISB where people actually landed up dream offers but such folks and extremely brilliant, deserving, lucky and exceptional.

What makes me happy is that role is good. After the roller coaster ride of one year the switch I wanted from my new job is there ans is something in which i will leverage my past experiences. Just as I said in my interviews:- A job where I can deploy the blend of my education and experience ...

What relieved me the most was  that I now have something to fallback on and the worries of loan installments are no more there... The joining date ad location are not 100% final yet but tentative information is there ...

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Coming to weekly stories
past 2 weeks have been similar to 2 weeks prior to those.. same mixed bag .. just that there are more number of relieved faces... Folks who have not yet landed an offer are still hopeful because some great firms have signed up off late and many more are lined up for the upcoming placement season ( 12th to 21st Feb) ...

Not too sure what else to chronicle. Term 7 classes ended and the costliest subject which i bought this term was the one in which i slept most ... first 6 lectures because i was up till late prepping and last 4 out of habit ...

Term 8 bidding happened and people are now deciding on their graduation requirements ... I m majoring in Strategy and Marketing. In hindsight I should have heard to my freiends who warned me against marketing.. I too feel marketing subjects are a lot more repetitive and that finance or operations would have involved more learning .. Finance was something i could not relate to so no issues operations is my background and would have me if I had majored in operations ... but then i came here for a career switch so I did no do what i did prior to ISB...

This post is not really a chronicle but a reflection , i guess...

Term  exams coming up ...

time to read the syllabus and find out what the hell went on in term 7 lectures ..

btw, 3 subjects in term 7 was definitely a good decision ...

weel 37 & 38 - Mixed bag

These  2 weeks were probably the longest in ISB...for many it was 37th week, for some it was 37th ad 38thj and for many more longer weeks are in sight ..

placements are emanating realities so unexpected and so naked that everyone is shocked ...

it is tough .. very tough.

Many are done .. many are still fighting .. I am in majority ( still striving ) ..

hopefully should be over soon ..

Btw, Got rejects from HUL and ZS.. latter would probably linger a lot longer in thoughts than former ..
also took a bold decision of saying no to a company ....

course of life has changed .. atleast for next few years .. the ISB brand will always be there ... all are hoping to ripe in years to come ....

fingers crossed, hands folded, some smiling faces, some frustrated, some sad, some rejected, some dejected..
life in all flavours ....

week 36 & 37 - silence

It is getting close to end.

Glum faces, anxious walks, deep epiphanies , nervous smiles...
and very very few - confident, chilled out people...

it is war and people are gearing up ...

No one knows what subjects they are reading, people hv forgotten pre-reads .... It doesnt matter anymore ...

me ? - in between ... high mood swings .. surrounded by worries ... at times happy and chilled ...

dont really know what this phase is ..
The only word comes to mind is IMPORTANT .. really IMPORTANT

Hope for Godspeed !!

week 34 and 35 - Stagnancy again

No new adventures .. same old life ... There is no point writing assignments terms in every post...
Only  thing new are rejects .. all consultung companies have proved to be unlucky ;-)

IT career option seems the only way to go ... The one which I escaped from ...Lets see...

A friend put on facebook succintly

26 Dec 2008 - In front of office computer " Why am I doing this technology stuff.. I am going to ISB anyway.
26th Dec 2009 - In front of ISB lecture notes " Whay am I doing this business stuff . I m going to technology anyway..

INteresting, unfortunate and true in most cases

week 33 ... Finding answers !!

Dual minds ... The usual me ... Need to shift focus from CP and other activities which make no sense now to something important .. placement prep...

last week attended 2 case prep meetings to reassert the fact .. preparation = zilch...

attended a mock interview .... left , right and center ... no direction was spared ...

classes assignments etc are usual..

ISB is defininitely happening these days .. My buddy has penned it here.

2 Grades of term 5 are released .. as usual A- ... it has become a stale news .... and umimportant to.. but the student ( of school days) is still to accept that grades dont matter anymore :)


Need to focus ... but then there is no shortlist yet to actually garner focus ... lets see..

week 32 .. nothin new

last week has been routine ...

COBE assignments
LSCM assignments
DGIS assignments

MGTM finally started .. Prof Henry Moon had some visa issues due to which everything was postponed by 10 days ...

Apart from that only change is that Nocturnality within me is at its peak...
For past many days I am sleeping at abt 6 AM.. even when i crash to bed easly I end up getting up and doing something ...

Paradigm is shifting .. Consulting fever is slowly percolating the campus... Shortlists of big 2 are out .... and the results aren't too encouraging for 500 out of 570 ... 4 more lists to be published and then the consulting fever will be constrained amongst 125 odd shortlists ... Luckiest/smartest ones getting more than one shortlists and luckier/smarter ones gettign atleast one shortlist..

Big G was the disappointment for many ... Their requirement was major in Comp Science and after 7-8 years I actually realized i am not from comp science background ...

Still many more to go but then there are more students anyday ....

It is only going to get tougher .....

week 31 - chilled start to term 6

Though term 6 is one of the most gyaan-filled term for me .. the starter week was not much of workload... I have only 4o cases this term .. 1 per subject per lecture ... Talk about case method of learning and i will take away the hilt in this term ..

if only i study .. The paradigm has finally shifted to what we all are here for .. Jobs... Grades dont matter anymore .. Term 5 grades will be the last which we will write in our CVs...Term 6 grades will come when all the shorlisting will be over and hence the grades would not matter .. I dont mind 4 B's in rest of the subjects if I have an A grade job ...

ok ok .. I will do with an A- job.. when i talk to people around i still find many who though worried, have high cutoffs predefined for their target salary... As much as i wish everybody gets their best i doubt this will be the case...

I have applied to ATK, google this week.. just like mckenzie these are companies where applyying is part of graduation .. more than half of the batch applies and more thab three fourth of the applicants get rejected .. still people apply.. i did too .. no second thoughts ...

Come to think of it I would be happy if I get (whatever i was earning before + incremental promotion which I left to join ISB + loan installment + any positive number) .. This actually is lower than what an ideal me wants but then i agree that many students are miles ahead of me and the ones which are behind me are not far ...

I am however giving my best shot so as not to regret in future .. one important thing which shorlisting of this year signifies is the background and work experience before ISB matters a lot .. probably more than grades (if you leave aside creme de la creme companies) ... u need to show a good fit to the role ... aha !! a news ;-)

a) past experience
b) work at ISB - thsi ones toughest bcoz u cant work at ISB more than what many people worked prior to ISB ... thats one of the main reasons I did not take finance ...
c) Passion - i dont really understand how we show this is a page cv ..

Term 6 is ok ..
LSCM is very interesting and what adds fun is that only interesting individuals get enrolled so cp is good ..
COBE - i feel is faff till now ... but thats what marketing is ..
DGIS - the course overall let me down .. i expected a lot more ..
MGTM - the course is running 3 lectures behind schedule , so have not attended a single class till date but the professor's rating has already soared the expectations ...

hoping for the best ..
Best is now defined as a scnari where you have some shortlists .. COme January and best will be a scenario where you have a job ..

P.S. term 5 marks are being declared an there are very slim chances that I will be in top 100 after term 5 grades ... lets c...

Godspeed !!!

Week 30 ... The term break that never was ...

The week started with same old boring end terms .. MKTR and MKSV in 2 successive days .. both text books opened night prior to exam ...

The subject was my facebook status for 5 days ... It was a term break of 5 days with 5 things to be done

1) MKTR assignment:- Perhaps most interesting of all. Involved diving into 7000 records of data and analyzing the car preferences of middle class Indians ... I ended up doing nothing in this project for 2 reasons a) SRK was best person to do this because of his SQL server skills b) I had otehr assignments to complete because SRK was busy in this

2) MKSV Assignment :- Again a report , pure dil se stuff, we search we search we google we search again and then from many searched PDFs we jot down stuff which we dont understand ( expecting that TAs and profs will understand and will bless us with marks) Sure there was analysis part too. but then worst part is to collate the work of all group members .. worst bcoz that made me the only person to have read all BS and then make a coherent flow from 4 5 incoherent repetitive stuff... MKSV was less onerous because the group was good overall ... Lets see...

3) NEGA Assignment :- I liked this one too.. NEGA was one good subject in which we finally came to know of some concrete concepts which helped us structurally analyze incidents of our life too ... good stuff.. a thumbs up from me ... Assignment was a tad lengthy .. again a good group member chipped in to ensure we put up a decent show ..

4) BTC corporate challenge:- 3rd round was Deloitte ... we thought we would do it in a night but when finally sat on the last night we ended up doing nothing till 2 AM ( the deadlined was 7:30 AM) .. we did put some gyaan but the outcome was not up to our expectations ... a bad third attempt will eventually wash away the hardwork of initial 2 rounds ...

5) HUL - We did not send an entry because we started on last night and realized it needs a 2 minute AVI file so we were already short if time ..

Apart from that we played monopoly a lot of times..So much that I am bored of it now ...
But was great fun ...

Rest is ok..

Have applied for Mck and ATK .. not that i will get a shortlist ... it is just a ritual to apply to these companies ...

Week 29 ... The lucky me !!

Week 29. One week which had a few good news.. Well nothing really important but then whatever we get in this rollercoaster year is a bonus..
The news was postponement of a few assignments which if we had to submit would have ended in blunderous submissions... Solely for the lack of time as u might know by know ... At least I know ..

there were reports for BBMK MKSV NEGA, presentations for BBMK and MKTR ..
Good fun ... NEGA was probably last week ... We knew for long that we will need to write these reports but then we always wait for last day .. voluntatily, if not involuntarily :-)

Anyways, MKSV and MKTR have been postponed so more abt them next week ..
BBMK took most of the time .. what I hate most in electives is that we finally end up dividing work in group assignments .. so learning is somewhat different for everyone ( if there is any) ... Plus there is extra load of managing multiple groups ...

Grades of term 4 are out .. and so am i ( from list of top 100 ).. As usual I missed 2 grades by a margin of less than 1 mark .. This took total toll to 7 grades (after not counting 3 subjects in because I had to account for 3 in which I had been lucky) in four terms .. Had I been on other side of luck in these 7 i would have got a scholarship .. but thats ok .. i am here for the holistic MBA experience you see ...

The bad news is that all postponed assignments are due next week (which is the time when I m typing this post) so that will take away the term break ...

BBMK presentation was good .. Great job overall.. However I dont like to have freeriders... thats beyond my control though ...

Another expected bad news was the rejection of my first job application ( A D Little) CGPA , Relevant Experience , Extra currics I had none of these ... just the guts to apply, or shamelessness if you wanna call it :-)

Keeping up the spirit I have applied for McK too.. with a CG of 3.53 .. that is a suicide .. but I have 60 of themm After Mck and ADL it is now 58 ...

Hoping for the best :-)

And yeah, cud finally find time to jot down this post in this hectic term break (where I have 3 assignments and a competition) because I am the only lucky b*****d (out of 570) whose house is without power ..

I hate life at times ... rather most of the times ...

Week 27 and 28 !!

My Bad... This the second time I am combining 2 posts in one ... but then it was beyond my control...
The taxing max week (week 26 , my previous post) spilled all over week 27 and then week 27 had its surprises for week 28 and week 29 now stares at us with 6 deliverables due in next 100 hours ...

Week 27 was marked with competitions ... The flavor of the season, as I have already posted in a recent entry, is competitions .. Core terms are over and no one bothers about grade now .... Ok ok ... I do .. but still significantly lower than what I used to be ...

few reasons for a change in mindset
1) My core term CGPS finally is all screwed up at 3.54 ... I could have done well and I should have done weel but then "plain unlucky" title is worthy on me ...

2) Core terms CGPA are more important for campus purposes and we now need to focus on getting some spikes in our resume .. Enter competitions and its a beeline to having a spike point to talk about ...

3) I now say .. I am here for the holistic experience and not just grades ... I am lying for sure but not 100% though .. i have learnt a lot here in past 6 months and remaining few have their ows agenda ...

Few good things happened with me though.

1) I applied for my first job. Arthur D Little. Its a consulting firm and I sttand no chance of shortlisting but then its a learning too.. If selected I get an interview experience ( They take as many as 5 6 rounds ) .. An interview experience because I will not stand more than a round... simply because our case prep group is still prepping for our first meet ... And I cant blame them .. I too am in same boat... If not selected then i will hopefully be more worried and hence more bothered thusr more serious about prepping ...

2) I was able to put in decent entries ( as I always think they are ) for competitions I participated in ... No good news yet though ... VCIC was one which we could not do even though the deadlines were extended... poor team I guess ..

3) ELP is kind of on track .. The client is liking what we are offering him .. Though an earlier meet with one of the marketing heads was disappointing all in all the client understands we are doing a good job given our constraints ...

And in the regulars

Classes are an eclectic mix of boring and interesting , zero to max take aways ...
As of now I m poised to get a poorer CG i term 5 than my average of term 4 .. but I am pulling my socks .. and you know I dont really start studying till last night ....
I am sure I will be able to manage ...

Plenty of assignments due this week.. Quite a few delivered in last 2 weeks ... 2 end terms next week along with 2 competition entries and 2 more assignment...

Rollercoater Ride it has been so far ... Literally

Week 26 - Taxing Max

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Week 25 - Post Interval action

I should probably change the blog posting day to wednesday.. That when i usually post...
(though a week later at some times) Last 2 weeks were great. Term 5 has blowm a lot away. The subjects were finally finalized after all that bidding first week of classes and at the end of 2 weeks I have already lost interest in 2 subjects MKSV and BBMK.. Way too slow .. non engaging profs...

Topic and content matter .. Profs matter more ...

The thing that deserves mention is what makes this term different .. Different study groups and
so it requires a hell lot of coorcdination .. I was lucky to have formed groups with few new people ...

Another is competitions .. Its like at every point of time somewhere some comopetition is being
launched and people have suddenly realized we need atleast one on the CV.. And that makes
sense .. Plus it is a welcome change ... though life becomes tiring , some thinking out of the
box , some designing , some formatting .... and all at the cost of pre-reads :-)

The good part for me in term 5 .. No Mid term... and only 2 end terms ... Bad part, lots and lots of assignments and projects ... and high weightage end terms..

We have weathered 4 terms .. 4 more to go ...
Focus is changing .... Gotta foocus !!!
Hopefully :-)

Week 24 - Biggest term break ever !!!

Core terms are over ... Before the grind begins for electives there was a break ... 10 days.. 10 well deserved days .. and I just had fun ..

Slept and Slept and Slept ...

Week 22 and Week 23 !!! Twins ??

Sorry. I know I m combining 2 weeks details into one but then I will try to do justice.

Weel 22 was crazy. We had 5 nightouts (almost) in 7 days and our eyes were actually drooling about bed. We were just done with the mid terms on the weekend and so the background of not sleeping is all set already ( given that you all know i study only on last day, no matter how much i hate myself for that).

On monday after classes I went to SRK's place to do something about the BTC corporate challenge but he was not well so after trying and trying and not getting anything done I left after an hour . Kind off disappointed I was. But then thats ok. He too had slogged hard for midterms and was tired too.

Tuesday was the deadline for DConstruct a competition we were interested in so me , shouvik and deepu puled off the whole night ... making a 6 slide PPT. We actually started for that competition at abt 10 and sat till 6 in the morning.... We made 6 slides of PPT but could not really format them nicely so it was time to fall back on SRK "the great formatter". We called him to wake him up and he surprised me by saying that he dint sleep and has completed work on BTC corp challenge thing. I was smiling ear to ear. What a pleasant surprise it was.

Anyways we submitted Dconstruct on Tuesday (almost another night out) ( got rejected next week). Submitted the BTC thing on wednesday ( will be rejected on national level but we hope to qualify for round 2 of BTC corp challenge)..

Thursday was another competition but we finally dropped it knowing that it was way to open ended and that pure gyaan which will be selected for round 2 cannot be given in a day.

So wednesday we started working on 2 humongous assignments .. SAIT and GSBC and actually finished on sunday .. All plans of preparing for end terms starting next thursday went down the drain ... So did the sleeping plans before starting the end term prep...

This was week 22 for me.

Week 23 started with we submitting the 2 assignments and starting for end terms with continued sleepless nights ...a few more of them and we were done with end terms of term 4.

INVA was breeze , MGTO wowed everyone , GSB stumped everyone and SAIT too was ok ...

Anyways that calls for intermission of the ISB chapter with core terms and electives round the corner..

The weekend was planned to be spent in Bangalore with the gang but then flood in south caused the buses to be cancelled and thoe plans too bit dust ...

Anyways we had fun here...

week 21 - Why oh Why ?

week 21 - midterms for 4th term...
INVA was ok but paper was tougher based on what was taught in class...
SAIT and MGTO are the reasons behind the subject of the post .. they were test of ur writing speed and how much can u reword same fact again and again ...

I hated the MGTO paper specially ...we expected 4 questions and we had 10 questions...
midterms were sat and sun and we had classes till friday ...

i felt like signing off from ISB ...

Next week is comptition week .. ( i say this bcoz it is already wednesdayof next wednesday ) ...
stay tuned ....

Week 20 - Already forgotten !!

It is thursday and I m posting my last week.. I honestly cant recall anything right now ... the classes were boring , prose conferences continued , takeaway tending to zero .. etc etc ..

Just a few submissions here and there .. I liked the MGTO classes this week.. The professor is cool .. Louis Martin .. The subject souns relevant but then again it is more to be learnt by practical experiences ... Fun, nonetheless.

We had AIKYA launch last week .. That was interesting ( accompanied by delicious dinner) .. We have an AIKYA family now and they are renowned and settled businessmen of Hyd... It was sure fun ...

More later... Too tired to think ..