Summered

Summer placements – they seem to be a national talk whenever IIMs are going for them. Yes, they are an important part of our curriculum but somehow media is more interested in it than we guys are!

It all starts with CV making which I never thought will be such a long drawn and time consuming process. Writing each line very meticulously, in the most precise manner, adjusting margins and fonts and layout, hoping to getting the right message conveyed, showing to seniors and batch mates, getting feedback and making changes – it is really an exercise. One thing is for sure, one will not take too much time from now on to make a CV once he/she has gone through this process here.
The time crunch is felt when we have companies making their presentations on campus, and regular classes being held with quizzes, assignments and pre-readings. Once the CV is done, we go into the prep mode and this is where our seniors are again at rescue. And I think this is the best part of IIM C culture, seniors helping out a lot. This was what they got from their seniors and now we will pass it on to our incoming batch.

Next in line is the application process to companies one wants to apply. Some are relatively easy and on the other end, there are quite a few which consume a lot of time in filling up. The questions asked are quite comprehensive and require much iteration to come up with the final version of the answers.

Prep has no meaning if there is no one to test you on it and yet again we turned to the senior batch to do the needful. Mock interviews are conducted by them and the best part is that they never refuse any junior. They are also doing all this when they are bound by their classes and other academic requirements.

Amongst all this madness and rush, we had our mid term exams and diwali celebrations too :) And I believe this is what really “management” is all about!

Well, moving forward, we had company interactions lined up and as the D-Day approached, the campus was gearing up for the upcoming placement season.
Finally, the day dawned and everyone dressed in their tuxedos was all charged up for the upcoming interviews. For me, the day started at around 9 in the morning and was done by 2 in the afternoon. Taking back to back interviews is not an easy task but I think it is test of knowledge combined with resilience, pressure handling and keeping a high energy level during the day! Some of my closest got offers in their dream companies and it were great to be a part of their joy and happiness. But the day was not that lucky for me but I knew that next day will be my day and it turned out to be that only!

For the record, I will be joining the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) for summers starting in April 2009.

Mandi 2008@ IIM Calcutta

Have you ever jumped into a pool without asking about the depth? Have you ever driven a car without knowing the complete controls? Have you ever taken part in a competition without knowing all the rules? If the answer is no, then read on. If yes, you would empathise with me and still read on!!!

Here, in IIM Calcutta, we have a club called “Census” which organised an event called Mandi (Marketplace). Herein, the only instruction we imbibed was that we may to sell something in a team of 4. So, we just a made of team (which was dramatic too) and registered for the event.

The prelim was an online quiz of 45 minutes in which “Googling” was allowed. One team member was not there to help us and no Wi-Fi was effectively just 2 laptops in use. Yeah, I told my wingies to help me for the quiz which they did. After the stipulated time and sending the entries, we realised that we had missed a sitter and forgot to answer one question, which was also not that tough. Cursing our luck, we forgot about it.

The prelim result came out and we were pleasantly surprised to see our team making it to next round. Around 60 teams had participated and being one of the 8 teams to qualify, really felt good! Then there was a meeting called for all the finalists to explain about the next round and this is where we got the biggest shock of our lives.

It was an elaborate process which all the marketing concepts and game theory and business ‘strategy’ had to be used. We had to sell a product, price it appropriately and promote it like anything inside the campus. For everything, we had a capital of Rs. 2,000 only. The final evaluation was on basis on promotion, feedback of students, and our product as such and finally the profits of course.

The first task at hand was to select the product we wanted to sell. We had a brainstorming session and finally came up with the idea of keeping card games, luck 7 of dice and the most popular breaking the glass pyramid with the tennis ball. To incentivise, we offered double money if the person was successful in any of the events.

Second task was to bid for the promotion place. For this, every team had 1000 points to bid for all the spots. Some bids were secret, some were open and some were online. Net net, we got a decent deal as we got the best place for our banner, a decent place for a poster and fundoo place where our stall was to be put up. Designing poster and banner was the next task at hand and we worked for like 12 hours non stop to achieve the same. Forgot to mention, the bidding process and previous brainstorming sessions had already made up sleep-deprived. On top of that, classes and assignments and submissions and pre-class readings were already in place. To make matters worse, we had our CV submission deadline for the upcoming summer placement. But all of us were just so geared up that everything was happening with just 1-2 hours of sleep.

We also had option of getting 3 pamphlets printed and had to submit at least one promotion video for the same. All this also had deadlines too. We thought about insane ideas for the pamphlets and made 3 videos. Also, the institute has a IP messenger in which one of our team member was really active, which helped us a lot. He created a rage by promoting day in and day out.

After promoting to the best possible according to our capabilities, we prepared ourselves for the big day – the Mandi day where people will actually come and play in our stalls and see the “competition” too. The event was to last 3 hours only and this was the time to rake in profits.

We started a little slow as it people went to eating stalls but there is a limit to which one can eat! Some people start coming in and started winning too ;) Cash excites everyone – this word of mouth started spreading like fire in the forest and people just rushed in to our stall. The crowd was beginning to get unmanageable and people were ready to wait even 15-20 minutes to try their luck. Since, we had a cap of Rs. 2,000, that was the maximum we could give out as prize money. People continuously thronged our stall and since some were winning too, we ran out of cash to give prize money at around 11 pm, still one hour to go for the event to close. We were in profit without an iota of doubt but had a liquidity crunch. But, we had to earn more profit as it was an important criterion for the final standing.

Then, we invited people just to people the game of breaking the pyramid and we were surprised to see that people were playing it without getting anything in return.

In the end, it was an effort which ended on a good note. We were really happy after this event and gave a sense of achievement.

Result for us – could not finish in top 3 but got to pocket Rs. 800 which were our profit and Rs. 1,000 were given to our team as a 'special appreciation for the incredible spirit we showed.' This was due to the fact that we were the only team which met ALL the deadlines for the event.

Life on ultra fast track

Well, well….never thought I will be so occupied in life! I thought that end of term I would bring some relief, maybe just for 24 hours, but now I am sure that thinking of getting a break is like “hoping against hope”.

With so many things to talk about, it is little difficult to figure out from where to start. Let me start from my exams. There are some things which are just too good here. Firstly, every exam has a random seating arrangement in a new room for everyone. This virtually eliminates the possibility of forming a cartel to one’s advantage. Even if one tries to use unfair means in an exam (even for a quiz for that matter), an expulsion from the institute is a possibility. Secondly, the papers are so meticulously prepared and conceptual, that without sound basic concepts in place, one just cannot perform here. Be it any subject – economics, accounts, stats or behavioural science (organisational behaviour). One lesson which I learnt, and the hard way, that last minute preparation is not gonna work here. It is hoped that I will put in little more extra in the next term.

Something which has never happened to me, ever, happened here in the accounts exam. The paper was expected to be tough. Knowing this, I had put in effort before the examination week. Even on the last day, I burnt the midnight lamp to see it through. I am sure I had not put in more effort in anything else in my 25 years, than what I had put in for this exam. But when I got the question paper in my hand, I was just shocked. I kept turning pages to figure out from where to start!!! I did not know a single question and yes, I had NOT prepared the wrong syllabus. First 15 minutes were lost to evaluate how and where to start from. 15 minutes count a lot for a 90 minute paper. Somehow, someway, I did whatever I could and left the examination hall 10 minutes before the scheduled time. My mind had stopped working and given all hopes to clear this paper. But soon I realised that everyone (ya..apart from select few ;) ) was screwed left, right and centre. Waiting to see at least some grade in front of my name in this paper. GOD, save me, please!!!

After our end-terms we had some literary events on campus organised by one of our clubs. Wanted to take part in Hindi debate but paucity of time (lame excuse, I know) was a bottleneck. But there were some on the spot events like Hindi and English JAM. It was fun to take part in them after so many years but sadly lost in the prelims. Last event of the day was antakshri, organised as a part of Hindi Diwas on the campus. The day ended on a high with our team finishing 2nd :P :P

Term 2 began and with a bang. Some of the faculty is really strict and we had a surprise quiz in the second class itself!!! According to me, my performance was pretty decent but nothing be said for sure. The number of assignments has increased exponentially and while I am writing this, I have like 2 more group presentations to work on apart from class readings and case analysis submissions and what not! Although I have just 15 hours of classroom teaching in a week term , but the subjects are intense and faculty is pretty demanding.

I have joined a new club on campus called “Sunrisers”. Herein, we are a group of people who believe in early rising but somehow are not able to do it. This is how it works. A leader wakes up 3 people. In turn, those 3 wake up 3 more and the chain continues. So, I have slept at like 4 in the morning but still woken up at 6. Getting up early again gives me an opportunity to play badminton, take a long walk of the campus and enjoy the scenic view amidst pure air :) Rest of the sleep is compensated in the evening. But my average sleep has come down to 5 hours.

Buying a bicycle has been one of the better decisions. It allows me to save a lot of travelling time and results in bit of exercising too ;) ;)

Amidst this life-going-on-a-rocket-like-speed, I am still able to watch Prison Break season 4 episodes on Tuesdays itself, without fail. With more TV series scheduled to start pretty soon and my schedule expected to get more hectic, it will be difficult if not impossible, to watch the episodes so regularly.

Sports are also underway big time now. I gave my name for TT and badminton, but could not make it on time for badminton match due to other commitments and hence, my opponent got a bye. My TT match was pretty interesting. I lost the first set 21-19, won the second set on deuce. Third set started badly for me. I started with my serve and score line read 1-4. My opponent extended the lead to 8-2 with his serve. I worsened the situation by making it 4-11. But it was over yet. I broke this serve and made it 11-9 :) :) Here the battle got really fierce and getting one point was contested hard. I finally lost the set 21-16 and, of course, the match too. Maybe, lack of practice before the match did me in.

Oh yeah! Forgot to mention. A marketing game has been organised by a club inside the campus. Prelims was an online quiz and our team has made it to the finals, even after missing 2 sitters in the quiz :D :D The finals will start sometime soon and hope to crack that too! After all, some good moolah awaits us ;) ;)

Durga Puja break is coming in like 2 weeks and can't wait to go home...

Amidst all this – I just wonder one thing. Why are there only 24 hours in a day!!!!

Electronic Mail

This is really strange, what happenned with me lately!

I had to get my friend e-mail some stuff really urgently. This was on Tuesday, September 2, 2008. I told him around 12 pm to do so and he did the needful instantly. But suprise suprise...I am not receiving that mail for some unexplained reason. Or maybe Murphy's Law was operating at that time. I waited for like an hour and got really impatient.

My friend was in the US and hence it was sleeping time for him. So, I did not want to disturb him. Ignoring this delay, I went for my class and checked it back at 4 pm and still no trace of that e-mail. I pinged him on gtalk but apparently it was still not a great time to be up in US (my bad luck !!!).

Somehow my prayers got answered and he responded around 4:45 pm on gtalk. I told him about this and he instantly sent me an another e-mail. Oh, forgot to mention that I needed that mail by 6 pm; come what may.

But somewhere someone was against me. I am not receiving the second mail too. GMail is delivering all spam, my other mails and but not this one! Well, I calmed my nerves and waited more. But at 5:15 pm, I requested him to send me another one but this time gave my yahoo, rediff, hotmail and all other ids which I have :P

As he was in the process of doing this, a small notification popped up in gtalk; informing me about a new mail and I was delighted to see that I have received his mail...finally :) :) This was the first one which he sent out.

I informed him about receiving the same and abandon the third e-mail sending operation. I received the e-mail at around 5:30 pm, after around 5 hours of it being sent and just 30 minutes before I needed it!

Now, comes the best part. He had sent me 2 mails and I had received only one. Right. Little did I care about it. But, when I checked my mail some time back today, Voila - there it was...mail no. 2 :) :) This means an electronic mail took approximately 67 hours to be delievered.

Cant get slower than that :D :D

Something worse possible is not receiving an e-mail at all which was sent out.

September is here :)

Come September and we have all the TV series back!

Strating with Prison Break Season 4; the first episode is already available here. I am waiting for How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) Season 4 and The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) Season 2 to start from the 22nd.

Given the relatively less number of classes in my term 2, I am pretty hopeful of watching the episodes on a regular basis.

Also, it is the month of birthdays in family and lotsa people on campus; so can expect a few parties too ;)

Well, I have been writing for the Business Standard newspaper regularly, and they found my response to be good enough; for the second time today. They did the first time here. Hope to continue the good run.

Things coming up - End Term Exams, selections for Badminton (less hopeful) and Table Tennis
(more hopeful here) Teams for the institute, lotsa Business Competitions of other B-Schools and some being floated by the companies.

Wish me luck!