End of the third Quarter

Though our term6 ended long back officially,.. for few of us it just ends tomorrow as we had one take home exam due tomorrow. We have seen three quarters by now and just one more quarter to go. Just after another month placements will start and not sure whose fate is landing on which part of the planet earth. Time will tell.

Hectic week

Last week was very very hectic with full load of assignments. I missed one class too as I overslept. Again from tuesday we are gonna be busy for another week. First 2 weeks was apparently free in this term. Fortunately I have only one end term. I pity on people who have their end term on Jan-1st. While all will be partying they have to sit and study on 31st night. But again, after giving this many exams no one will give any damn to exams ( ofcourse with few exceptions here and there).

My Best Friend's wedding

She is my best friend from my childhood. Studied in the same school, then same college. But then later, I moved on to do engineering where as she finished her degree. But yes, finally landed with same degree again. She did her MBA too. Just two days back she got married. Things are getting changed. Now I can't expect the same special treatment from her. Her preferences will be changed for sure. She will become busy with her own responsibilities.

Anyways I wish you a happy married life dear.

“Search” wars continue

Today we had the Google PPT for Hyderabad based jobs. I just can’t stop appreciating Google for their innovative capability. Google is known for its innovations. I am sure there will be a huge debate about this if I start discussing about this. Some say Google just got its brand image so. Some say that’s true. Well.. I am not here to say what truth is. It’s just that perspectives are different.

I like Google for many reasons. One of the reasons may be because it challenged the big giant Microsoft. It’s not an easy thing. MSN currently trails yahoo and Google in the lucrative areas of online search. Microsoft had to get some hundreds of millions of users to use its web search services. The real problem with Microsoft is though they have a huge audience the engagement is very less. Somewhere I read that Microsoft gets about 450 million users a month. All that it needs to do is to increase the engagement of the existing users first. Similar to retailer’s strategy.

Term6

Term 6 has started last week. This time i have taken 2 finance subjects and 2 IT subjects. I couldn't get Mergers and acquisitions course for this term:-(. Just to compensate this i have taken another fin course "Investing in Private equity" which also has some part of mergers and acquisitions related stuff. And the other subject which i didn't get is "Financial statement analysis" for which i dont have any regret. Somehow I feel accounting is boring. I really didn't like the subject that much after the sampling. Looks there are lot of assignments this time compared to last term. But no mid terms and just one end term.

Hmm Just 2 terms ahead of D-week(placement week). Lot to be done for interview preparation. we formed into focus groups to discuss about the core term concepts, industry analysis, current affairs etc stuff. But prep hasn't been that concrete as of now. We had Mckinsey, A T kearney conducting some work shops regarding case interviews for last two days. The sessions were quite insightful.

Its the fifth anniversary celebration for ISB. Today we had ILS (ISB Leadership summit), the flagship event of the ISB, for which lot of eminent speakers were invited from different industries and had a great discussion about the main theme- The New India-Changing paradigms in Business Leadership. It was indeed a great show. Tomorrow we have some more events lined up from 3Pm to 10Pm.

Our Honourable Prime minister Dr. Manmohan singh is going to visit ISB for the inaugural ceremony of the Global logistics summit on 5th of this month. I am sure there will be lot of security in ISB and even we will be restricted to move around:-(. More on this later. ciao

Been a long time

It had been a long time since I visited this space. Before I wrote anything about term-5, it got over too. I didn't feel that much work load as I expected in term-5. But the only sad part was at the end of the term most of them were enjoying with just 1 or 2 end term exams where I ended up giving 4 end term exams.

Placement fever has already started in the campus. Few international companies started visiting. I too had my first interview in the campus. And for some companies, people started cribbing about the short lists. Somehow I hate cribbing or complaining about others. No one has any right to say/ask that why a particular guy or girl got short listed. Very funny!!! Why the hell should they crib about others. Rather than cribbing about others, why don't think what can be done to their resume to make more attractive.

From tomorrow term-6 is going to start. But I have a very bad start for this term. Unlike last time I got only 2 subjects this time. I don't really mind loosing for one of the bidded subjects. But if I don't get "Corporate control, Mergers and acquisitions" subject, this would be one thing I would regret about electives. Like an idiot I bidded very few points. Thats okey. Let me see what needs to be done. Chalo, catch you guys once I get all the 4 subjects. ciao

Most Uncommon Commonality

I always used to regret about few things like I could have done/learnt so many things in my childhood etc. But ofcourse being born and brought up in a small town I was not exposed to many things. And the few chances I got, not knowing the importance of extracurriculars I didn't get much into that. But after seeing certain people in ISB I feel really great or rather proud about certain things.

I have seen few people over here who don't have the most basic quality 'common sense'. They dont care about their behaviour, the way they talk to others etc etc. Among the few I noticed I felt very very annoyed about one person's behaviour. Ofcourse he didn't do any harm to me or he didn't say anything to me. It so happened that we as a group were listening to his presentation. Suddenly for one of the questions posed he indirectly addressed everyone as stupids (As if he is a dean lister). I am in the verge of saying "Mind your language". Then thought, who cares about this idiot's behaviour and left as such. I am in no way working along with him. But if I happen to listen the similar thing again, I am sure that I am going to SERIOUSLY WARN this idiot. What the hell he thinks about himself. I don't know how these people worked in their previous organizations. God bless him.

What if I face the same kind of person in my team in any company? I would have forgiven him may be for the first time and second time with a small warning and third time with a serious warning and there after ..........FIRE HIM(ofcourse provided I have that authority:-D). What if my boss is so???? God knows what I will do. When I said this incident to my friend, she was saying that "common sense is the most uncommon thing" in the people. Hmm Looks that's true.

God bless these kind of people to realize their stupidity atleast.

SAIT Tragedy

Officially we finished 50% of our MBA after giving SAIT (Strategic analysis of Information technology) exam (term4 subject) today.

Due to some unfortunate circumstances this exam got postponed just 8 hrs before exam. That was a big tragedy. Most of the students spent a whole day preparing for this SAIT leaving very few hours to prepare for other subject, which was very very tough. (we will have 2 exams per day). This sudden postponement of exam has created a lot of hue and cry in the campus. And today morning 8:30... its SAIT exam time. We were given the papers sharp at 8:30AM. Just after a minute one student in the exam hall shouted "Arey some papers were missing in the question paper, Postpone the exam":-D. This was another tragedy. Half of the questions were missing in almost everyone's paper. Now whom to blame. We were to wait for half an hour in the exam hall for the remaining part of the paper...

SAIT exam actually got postponed because of unavailability of textbooks from which we are supposed to read the cases. But in the exam I hardly found any questions from the cases. Strange!!!! This tragedy led to an open meeting with the entire student body for letting all the students know the reasons behind the postponement and person(s) behind this. No wonder if this meeting lead to impeachment of any elected student body.

Honour code violation:-D

This is a revolutionary movie about a group of students who rise against the system. The means they used to achieve the goal will always be questioned. But not their motive.

Last day with the core section

Yesterday was the last day with our core section and core study groups. We all had a very nice time for the past 6 months. Its very tough to believe that almost 6 months has passed. We had a section T-shirt day yesterday. Here you can see couple of snaps of our section.



Bidding process is finished for 5th term. I could get all the subjects which I bidded for. I took 3 finance subjects and one IT subject for term5. I am sure workload will be high in term5, which is starting on 16th of october.

In another two days we are gonna be 50% MBA's. Two days??? Yes, its end term exams time. Chalo backto studies:-(

Section Parties

As this is the last core term and every section is going to get dissolved after this term, sections are busy in partying, going for some outings etc. Our section had two outings till now in this term. We all went to "Lageraho Munnabhai" movie and recently went to another outing. Unfortunately I missed both of them due to some reasons. We also celebrated formals day (Everyone in the section came in formals with proper business suit and other required accessories) and traditional day (Guys in proper traditional attire, gals in sarees and Chudidhars) in this term.

Today we all celebrated Dandiya Raas playing Dandiya till 2 Am That was really fun. Almost everyone of us played Dandiya. I never played Dandiya till today. First time in my life I played Dandiya and I really enjoyed it.

Just 5 days left for our End term exams. This time all are faff subjects. Guess what! I am planning to take Fin major. Credit goes to Professor Ramana Sonti. He is our current prof who is teaching Investment Analysis in this term.

Like puzzles

Do you like puzzles? Here is an interesting link for you then.

One of my friend has forwarded this link.

http://www.freestuffhotdeals.com/hacker/1.html
I took 17 minutes to hack this. Got strucked for 4 minutes at stupid 'ojofuffo'. Ofcourse this puzzle is not really that tough. I am sure one can finish this in around 10 minutes. Will post all answers after a while. Till then enjoy this.

Term 4 (sep 4th-Oct 6th)

Our last core term (Term4) started yesterday. As usual we have four subjects in this term and the subjects are:-

1. Investment analysis (INVA)
2. Government, Society and Business (GSB)
3. Management of organizations (MGTO)
4. Strategic analysis of Information technology (SAIT)

Except Investment anaysis rest three are qualitative subjects. Learning wise we will learn a lot in a very much broader view in this term. Though not much work in an academic point of view, we need to work harder for other things like ELP (Experiential Learning Program), PAEV (Planning an Enterpreneurial Venture), LDP (Leadership development program), Problem solving skills workshop (conducted by Mckinsey) , finance workshops etc etc. Every minute is valuable. Also in the last week of this term, we may need to bid for fifth term subjects.

This term is squeezed into 5 weeks rather than regular 6 weeks term. Looks some companies may come in mid october for placements too. But no concrete data available about that. Resume workshops, General sessions by CEO's (which are biased as preplacement talks) are starting in a much faster pace. Hope I handle all these without any stress. Let the force be with me.

Back after a long break

After a long time here am back to blogging. We finished our term3 and currently enjoying the term3 break with some ELP (Experiential Learning program) project stuff. I still haven't decided whether to take major in finance or not. Few alumni said that in their batch most of the people dropped their idea of specializing in finance after doing investment analysis subject in term4. Looks that is pretty tough. Our term4 is going to start from coming monday. The other 3 subjects we are gonna have this term is kind of qualitative stuff. I decided to keep my total effort in Investment analysis. If I can understand the concepts well and if I can score better in Investment analysis then for sure I will take Finance as my major. Otherwise I will just give up and balance my portfolio with some Leadership and change management and Enterpreneurship subjects.

Today we had a project (ELP) kickoff meeting. When we are discussing about the scope of the project with the CEO, he mentioned a lot of terms which we learnt all these days in our MBA. I am sure this project will help us in applying our MBA learnings and it will also enhance our skill base. We prepared project plan and discussed few things like how to go about it and other related stuff. We are supposed to finish the project by December-23rd. Hope we do our best in the project.

By the way I forgot to mention. I got scholarship very recently. When I shared this news with my dad he was very happy and I could see his happiness in his eyes very clearly. It is a real great feeling to see your parents feel great about you. I can give up anything in my life to see my dad in such a way. I know how I am brought up. Never in my life I can forget my roots.

Tough Gets going

Just today we got our midterms over. After writing exams almost every 15 days, today I didn't even feel like I gave my mid term exams. May be as it is said "when the going gets tough, the tough gets going". We almost got habitutated to the pressures and these exams. In the core terms we will have only study group. With just one study group I have seen so many conflicts rising in the groups for whatsoever reason.

From 5th term we are gonna have electives. So we may have to form our own study group and the study group varies with each subject. And apart from that we will have another group for the ELP project. So per term we may have 5 study groups. I really can't think of that situation how we are gonna finish our assignments when there will be more than one assignment.

This week we have so many assignments and I have interview for ELP project too. One of my friend came from banglore for just 2 days. One friend is leaving hyderabad. One friend is going to US.Few mails to reply. Uff so many things to do. Can't even afford to go outside of the campus to meet my friends. Just 2 more weeks for this term to get over. My god! I really couldn't believe this. I am sure by the time I come out of this shock our term4 will get started.

Did this really need a click?

This looks really funny. No idea why this man want to take a photograph when their faces are hardly seen. Any Guesses?

Bidding

Today we finished indicative bidding for the electives. I am in a major dilemma in selecting the specializations. I have three choices in which I need to pick 2. I am thinking about IT,Finance and Entrepreneurship. Considering the fact that I have around 3 years of experience looks it would be better if I select IT as one of my major. IT and finance combination will be good. But am I planning to shift to finance???No clue, but just keeping the option open about that as of now. I guess I may land up taking IT and finance. We need to take 6 subjects in one concentration if we have to specialize in it. In IT I could get only 4 interesting subjects. Need to analyse more. Even after analysing if I dont get the other 2, I am not going to take 2 extra IT subjects just for the heck of specialization.

After having a glance at all the subjects, I am getting a feel that ISB MBA is sort of Quant oriented. Apart from the subjects I should start working on other things like industry analysis, collecting information about companies and things like that. I just prepared some rough plan about this. Let me see if I can stick to that plan. Most people don't plan to fail. They fail to plan. Atleast I overcomed the first step.

I couldn't change my sleep cycle though we have morning classes this term. Just got habituated sleeping around 4AM. It is bit easier for me to get up by 7:45 or 8 AM than hitting the sack before 4AM. Till now managed to attend all classes. Anyways just 12 more days I should follow this morning schedule.

Ok chalo guys. Buenos noches Y Buen fin de semana.

Quite confused

In the very first week itself am feeling that Term3 is very hectic. Except Enterpreneurship, other 3 subjects look similar to me. Somehow landing up in calculating present values and net present values. Totally lost in the other 3 subjects. I need to figure this out in this week itself to avoid later repercussions :-D. Before we come out of term2 trauma, so many assignments lined up in term3. Thats life at ISB.

Finally marketing results of term1 are out. I didn't score well in marketing, but thats okey. I am pretty sure that I am not taking marketing as my major. I really can't see myself doing some conjoint analysis down the lane in my career. yet to finalise about electives. I should catch hold of some alumns regarding this. Let me see.

PS:I lost my mobile two days back. That was my brother's gift. So sort of feeling senti about that. Anyways no point in thinking about that right now. I could retain my same old number. Thanks to Airtel. :-)

Term3

From tomorrow term3 is going to start. This time we have morning classes . I am habituated to sleep late and get up late from past 7 years. I used to bunk my breakfast just to sleep for some more time in my engineering days. Even my previous company timings were very odd (1 PM to 10 PM). I got used sleeping at 3 or 4 Am in the morning and getting up by 9 or 10 in the morning. I can't blame anyone for this. Its all my mind set. I just have to make my mind to think that I am a early riser. Let me see if I can succeed. But for sure I am gonna miss atleast 1 or 2 classes this term.

In this term we have
1. Enterpreneurship
2. Managerial Accounting and Decision making
3. Operations management and
4. Corporate finance.

I need to decide about my major(s) also. I am not very keen in taking IT&Tech as my major. Being a techie and taking IT major doesn't make any sense.But yet to decide. Thinking about finance and enterpreneurship as of now. Also this is the right time to start preparing resumes and analysing industries. Most of our alumns suggested to do this right from Day 1. Anyways its never too late:-). Okey more later. Adios:-D

Likhthe Jao...Likhthe jao

Today our competitive strategy paper was in this way. I didn’t like the way the paper was set for this exam. As part of the competitive strategy course we studied 10 cases (Cola wars, Nucor Steel, Intel, Jollibee foods, Eli Lilly, Cisco, Dell, Walmart stores, Mckinsey and Johnson & Johnson). It is an open book exam. Basically this exam tested our written skills rather than the strategy concepts I guess. At the same time this is the first open book exam which most of us (or rather everyone) used books extensively.

Instead the paper should have been something like a case followed by few questions about case like key takeaways from the case or something of that sort. Anyways I am just glad that paper got over.

Two more to go for this term2 to get over. ;-)