Only two lists

Today we got the Eco midterm marks. So many surprises, disappointments etc etc in the campus. Everyone started sharing their marks and comparing with others. Highest mark is 45 and lowest is 8. Mean is 24.2715 (yes 4 decimal accuracy) and median is 24. Even the standard deviation is given. It is 7.38484 (5 decimal accuracy).

People who got above 35 are 12% of the class. Might be the dean listers. What about the rest of the batch. Black listers!!! So if someone is not in the dean list(<35) then there is no difference between a guy who got 34 and who got 20. Is it so??? For now, I can't agree with this. May be not much difference between 34 and 30. But certainly there is a huge difference between 34 and 12 right??? Ofcourse MBA is not just getting a good CGPA. It is all about how well you are able to equip with the tools and frameworks and how well you can apply them in the real scenarios.

I don't want to reveal my marks to my parents and make them scared. I just pray god that they should not enquire my marks. Let me see if I can do better in my end term. Chalo anu padaaii karo.

Split Personality!!!!

After giving the mid term exams, don't know what really happened to me. One of my friend is saying that i had split personality. When the mid term exams got over, everyone (excluding the muggu club members) is glad just because they are over and all started partying, enjoying,cribbing about Eco paper etc etc. I really don't know what happened to me. I just came back to room and seriously opened the accounting book and started reading. No No I am not a maggu club member. Might be the mid term repercussion. :-? And all of a sudden I started giving gyan to my friend it seems.

I will be more glad if the same split personality stay with me till this term get over. Hardly 13 days for term exams. I don't want to screw my end term exams. But anyways great lesson learnt from the mid term. Lot of assignments to be done this week, which are due by wednesday 8:45 Am. Ok chalo then back to work:-)

PS: BTW I changed my blog lil bit. I added some music also. I know this music is lil boring. But not getting time to collect some pleasant music. Once I get that I will update my blog. Now don't ask me where the heck you are getting time to update the blog :-D

Mid-Term Fever

Before everyone of us started thinking about the term1 start and its subjects, half of the term already got over. Coming friday we have the mid term exams. Fortunately/unfortunately we have mid term exams for only 2 subjects (Eco and stats). Now all the 422 students joined the maggu club and the membership holds good until this friday evening. Now we started thinking the impact of assignments. Yes,Assignments do help us.

Statistics looks confusing or may be i am feeling so. People who don't know anything about statistics looks relaxed. People who know everything about stats also looks relaxed. People (like me) who knows certain concepts are in deeper trouble trying to figure out how to calculate p-value, what is the use of t-statistic and z-statistic. We are trying to figure out what to write the cheat sheet even :-D

Economics is too much of quantitative stuff mainly calculus. But the concepts are interesting. It is an open book exam. But just think, given just 90 minutes time, where the hell you get time to open the book and search for a problem. Here again the problem is, the more examples we work out the more confident we feel. But how to define "more examples". How many problems one need to work out. We statisticians deals only with numbers. :-D

Exams are very common here at ISB. Just imagine one's life with full of pre-reads, post-reads, assignments, club meetings, group meetings, backlogs, mid-term exams, end-term exams, parties, hangovers and last but not the least ..filling the excel sheets:-D. And all this just within a year (Huh!).I am pretty sure that everyone of us enjoys every moment at ISB.

After learning too much of statistics, I just feel like defining the null hypothesis about myself. Yeah! U heard right! It's about me.

H0: Anu doesn't know statistics -Null ypothesis
Ha: Anu knows statistics well. -Alternate hypothesis

Will let you guys know whether to accept/reject the null hypothesis after the mid term exam.

PS: Cheat sheet is the A4 size paper which will be allowed to take with us in the exam. You can write anything under the sky in that paper.

GSB elections & SPAM

I am not sure who will win in our GSB elections, but we poor souls are ending with so much of SPAM in the mail boxes.

The funny thing is someone sending a spam mail saying that please don't send spam :-) . Even after so much of spam I can show you atleast 20 people who even doesn't know the nominees. This tells how the guys are campaigning. Or to put in other words, those 20 ppl category doesn't care what is going on in the campus apart from the acads :-D. Might be muggu club members.
But the surprising thing is, so many people are making things complicated and unnecessary issues. I guess all this problems will be solved if the nominess themselves take care and start their effective campaigning.

The basic qualities what everyone expects from a GSB president is, he/she should be someone who is easily approachable. Since he/she will be representing the ISB student body, he/she should have the knack of getting things done, good conflict resolution skills, decision making skills etc etc. Just to say in a simpler words he/she should be a perfect leader. But in the short duration, how can we judge whether a particular person is so and so. Thats where we voters should develop good judgement skills. :-D. Hope this GSB elections will go smoothly without any conflicts (unlike the real time elections).

Coming to the academic front, as I said in my previous post, we have submitted the ECO assignment, just an hour back. In accounting Quiz most of us scored 83 out of 83. Cool!

So far So good

Two weeks already passed away in term1. Mid term exams are around and GSB elections are also around. By end of next week we might be giving farewell to some of our faculty who has come from wharton and columbia universities. This week fortunately we have only one assignment and one quiz. But the Eco assignment is tough compared to the previous one (atleast to me). I really get frightened by listening that some guys already finished their eco assignment. How the hell they could do so fast. Why am i not able to be in the same pace.

Typically most of our assignments start like this.

1. Download the PDF document from the blackboard on thursday night.
2. Have a glance at it.
3. Call up friends and enquire if they have started.
4. Chitchat with them in the intercom.
5. Gossip about all stupid stuff in the world
6. Check emails
7. Log on to Yahoo messenger to see if ne friends are online
8. As it is just thursday attending some party going on in one of the student village or ending up watching a DVD
9. Again call up friends and enquire how the assignment is (tough/easy)
10. Refresh the mailbox (If at all mailbox gets life, it will kick u for refreshing it that many times)
11. Turning the newspaper in and out.
12. Going to sleep early on thursday thinking of doing assignment on friday
13. Finally starting the assignment on friday evening/night
14. Asking about the assignment status to whomsoever you meet.
15. Attending the group meeting on saturday to finish the assignment.
16. Finally submitting the assignment on sunday night.

But there are really smart people whose smart way of doing the assignment is :

1. Download the PDF immediately after the class.
2. Start the assignment and end it by thursday night.
3. Attending the party in the Student village and cursing themselves for wasting time.
4. Heading towards LRC to work out more problems.

In out first Eco assignment, our group scored full marks. As the weightage of Eco assignment is taken as 100% (Best of the two) + 50% (other assignment), its a kind of relief to our group. But the pool over here is best of the best. So to be in line with them, we too need to struggle. ok chalo then let me finish the eco assignment by the end of the day atleast.

PS: GSB- Graduate Student Board. The student reps of this team will meet with the heads of the PGP team after every term and any issues will be taken to the PGP unit thru GSB.

Important info for prospective students:-Looks ISB is not considering GRE scores from this year.

Assignments

Everyone looks very relaxed in the campus after submitting the marketing assignment on Jones Blair case. Here is just a snap which we took while we are submitting the hard copy of the assignment. Some groups finished this assignment much before. Might be they are too smart. I really can find four types of people here.

Type-1.. Hard working guys and will always lock themselves in the library or either in their rooms. Am sure these people wanted to get into the dean's list and wanted to crack the consulting jobs. God bless them.

Type-2... Smart enough, but keeps on boasting that they studied that, this and starts frightening others. These guys are really over confident and feels that as if they can crack nething under the sky. Who knows, these people may shift slowly to type-1 or type-2. They might be committing false positive or false negative error. They can only find out this if they are perfect in statistics.

Type-3.. These guys don't know what is happening around. confused types and will understand their potential only after term-1 results. Struggle hard to manage their time and think of doing everything, but ends with doing nothing. They just wait for weekend to come, so that they can finish all the backlogs. But weekend comes and goes increasing the qty of backlogs.

Type-4. Just trying to figure out themselves in whic type they can fit in. Thats me :-D

I think i should atleast learn from others. Chalo time to open Eco book.

Dunking!!!!

We had a party fund left over in the last hyd meet. We celebrated the birthday of K today with that fund. Poor fellow, got birthday bumps. Funny thing is he started shouting before getting the bumps. And he is more eager to get dunked. It seems he didn't even take the bath as he very well know that he will get dunked. :-D. After the cake cutting and all, we took him to the pool and dunked him. Even i got dunked today for the first time. Slowly we started dunking everyone nearby at the pool.

This dunking is one of the many things, which is carried away as a tradition from our alumns. Birthday guy/girl has to get dunked in the pool. And most of the times other poor souls like me also get dunked. But believe me guys, its really fun :-). Big party going on in our village. I was there for half an hour or so. I was soooo amazed by one of the guy's dance. He is standing in the same place, just moving his feet and dancing so good. I was really agaped.Damn! Now am feeling hungry. Hmmm. Managed to get some bread pieces roasted in butter. Hope it satiates my hunger. Newazzz am gonna get up late tomorrow. Lemme read the marketing case and then sleep. Economics assignment is almost done except the final decorations. Accounting tho hogaya and most of us got 60 out of 60. Yet to do the marketing assignment. I just read the first para. Will try to analyse it now. Oops its already 1:50. Never mind. Its never too late. Gudnite!

First Official weekend

Haila! First weekend. Surprising thing is here weekend starts by thursday itself. But what is the use. Loads of work to do. Need to revise the last week's classes. When in the class, I feel like I understood everything. But when I try to recollect I could only see stars moving in my head.

Will try to finish atleast two assignments by friday night and will revise all the 4 subjects in the weekend. Managerial Economics questions are really funny and sounds interesting. We need to calculate the economic profit for sanjay leela bansali if he considers aiswarya rai in his new movie "Devdas Part II -- Terror in Bengal." Just wondering if sanjay leela bansali calculates the economic profit if he ever need to consider aiswarya in his movie :-D
Accounting mey i feel like it is all about how intelligently you balance the balance sheet. Ofcourse there is more than that. Just kidding.
Marketing is the class which is really interesting as we always discuss the real time cases. In fact the faculty makes the class more interesting by showing some videos in the class.
Statistics- Dunno exactly what is going on. I am totally in a baffled state. I need to work more on this subject this weekend.

Almost half of the ISB students can be seen outside the campus. As I stayed in hyderabad from past three years, visited all the famous sites and nothing much left to see in the city. But I can always accompany my friends ofcourse. Managed to get tickets for the movie "pink panther" for tomorrow's evening show at PVR.

Actual Roller coaster ride started

Term1 started from today. (Term1-> 1st May to 11th June). The subjects for term1 are as follows:-

1. Financial Accounting inDecision making-FADM
2. Marketing management=MKTG
3. Statistical methods for Management Decisions-SMMD
4. Managerial Economics-MGEC

We just have 2 classes per day (2hrs per class). But we have lot of pre-reads and post reads for each subject. The total schedule for term1 is given like number of assignmets to be done, deadlines for submitting the assignments etc.

Today we had acctng and Marketing classes. Day started with accounting class. Accounting class is not that interesting. Marketing class is very good as there was some case discussion about FedEx. Asim Ansari (Columbia Prof) is very good. Just to break the ice he started the class with a small joke.

An intelligent CEO of one company wanted to know about his staff and he slowly visits each department one by one.

First he visits the engineering department and asks " what is 2+2"? Then the immediate answer from the engineering dept was 4.000000. CEO feels Woww, 6 decimals. Perfect.

Then he moves to marketing department and asks the same question. Then he gets the answer "2+2 is 4. But if we make it to 3.99 then we can get more value". CEO gets impressed.

Then he moves to human resources team and asks the same question. He gets the answer "Sir, actually it is 4. but with good team work we can make it to 5".

Finally he moves to accouting department and poses the same question. U know what happened? Ne guesses?????

Ok Ok i will tell. Don't stretch. Accounting manager immediately closes the door and asks the CEO "Which number you want me to keep?" :-D :-D

While discussing the FedEx case, class participation is marvelous. Few of my section student's friends themseleves were working in FedEx and they have lot of inside data apart from the case. Ofcourse prof didn't allow the inside data, as we are supposed to go with the data provided.

After the case discussion, adverisement effects and all, we got to see the actual ads by FedEx. There was one hilarious ad by FedEx. You can check out that ad in the following link:

http://www.fedex.com/us/about/unitedstates/
advertising/tvads/mbawm.html

Yesterday someone was saying that the answer to FedEx case was 43!!!!! I just got shocked and ran into my quad and checked the book to verify whether i missed anything in my analysis. That was real shocking? How can anyone can come up with a solution for a case. Its a case, not the math problem to work out.

But after listening to two classes, what I could make out is-attending any class without pre-read is mere waste and in turn it will lead us to confusion. Hope I finish all the pre-reads before attending any class.

PS: Take the ad in a positive sense.

Finance=Logic+CommonSense+Stretch

The one good decision I have taken is enrolling only in accounting pre-term. Today we had the last pre-term class on accounting. Just 4 classes and looks we learnt a lot in accounting. But still not confident enough. Prof was too good. For now the subject looks very interesting. But there is lot of confusion too.

The thumb rule one has to remember in accounting is:

Debit is "what comes in"
Credit is "What goes out".

Now I have got some brief idea about journal, ledger etc. Can I prepare a balance sheet on my own. Hmmm, may be..but not that confident. Can I understand the transactions happened by seeing the balance sheet. hmmm :-? may be.

Now the confusing part is " When there is an expense, that means we are spending some money and they are going out" Then why do we say expense is debited and income is credited. This is where we hve to stretch more.

Thats why finance = logic + commonsense + stretch. :-)

Term1 is gonna begin from Monday. The seating arrangement is decided and affixed on the lecture theaters for each section. Still need to finish the reading of marketing management case.
will try to finish it by this night. So that I can go out to city tomorrow.

First class at ISB

Today I had the experience of first class at ISB. It’s a pre-term on Accounting. It is marvelous. I don’t really have words to explain. Faculty member Mubeen Rafat is too good. Since Accounting was new to most of us (IT guys and gals), so much of class participation. So many questions, so many doubts, from almost everyone in the class. Lot of questions like:

What is an asset?
Who will audit?
Who will pick the auditors?
What if auditors give wrong results?
How will cash become an asset since it didn’t incur any expenditure?
Whether salary is an asset or liability? Etc etc

In the class when mubeen was telling the example like “when we get 100/- from the stake holder and if we could generate 20/- as a profit from that….then one student asked a question like “how will the assets and liabilities get balanced now, as there is some profit generated. (Ofcourse it is a very basic question, but think in the perspective of the student who is very very new to accounting). Then immediately she answered “the extra generated profit 20/- becomes an asset and we are liable to share with the share holders too. So 20/- is to be written in the asset side to balance assets and liabilities. Then one guy immediately asked “Just for the heck of balancing I should write 20 in the assets side?” :-):-).There was one more interesting question. “If the company goes for bankruptcy, how can we show the company money in terms of shareholder’s own property?

But believe me, class was really really interesting or rather I should say interactive. 2 hrs just flew away.

Hmmm. Backlogs started. We are supposed to read the case before attending the Marketing class. Almost 150 pages to read. Few notes to read for other classes too. I should finish everything by this Saturday. Will try my best to finish.

Are you India's creative future?

The British Council is partnering with IIMB, UK experts and the Common Wealth Business Council to hunt for twenty creative or rather lucky candidates who have that potential and who can display the rampant courage. The twenty selected people will then be exposed to two-week training at IIMB. The "creative future" school inspired by the British Council will enable potential enterpreneurs to articulate the ideas in a way which will engage both western and eastern interests. the ultimate aim of this program is to "create a creative business path way between India and UK".

Applications are invited from individuals aged 18-35 from across the creative sector. Details and application form available on www.britishcouncil.org.in/creativefuture

Last date for submitting application is 6 May 2006.

Good opportunity for the people who are looking for the entrepreneurship and who have some creative business plan.:-)

Pre-Terms

Pre-term sessions started from today. The courses offered in the pre-terms are Quantitative methods, Business statistics and Introductory Accounting. We have given the pre-term assessment tests for all the three. I flunked in all the three tests, but opted only for accounting. Its not that am damn good at Quants and stats. When I gave those two tests I am aware of the terminology atleast, but for accounting i don't have any clue and am totally blank in that. My classes are gonna start from wednesday.

Now the biggest challenge to everyone ( atleast to me) is sitting continuosly in the class for 2 hours, concentrating in the class, taking notes etc etc. Unfortunately only 4 classes for accounting unlike quants and stats.

Feedback got from some of the students who attended the quants and stats class:-

Quants feedback:-
1. "Oh my God! He is so fast and i couldn't follow him properly. The mistake i did is i didn't pre-read the quants pre-term course pack".
2. "Quants is cool compared to stats. I guess its because of the faculty".

Statistics feedback:-
1. "What is the need to prolong that tobacco details so long. Sounds funny."
2. "Basically the faculty's voice is not very clear. It is tough to make out what he is speaking ."

As I said earlier sitting in the class continuously for 2 hrs, concentrating in the lecture is a tedious job . The more work ex a person has the more tedious it is. Getting back to academics will take some time. But I am damn sure everyone of us will be ok by May-1st. No other choice. We have to ....

For the last few days, there were some flood of mails, exel sheets. Everyone is ending with filling one or other excel sheet. This is just the start i suppose ;-)

Leadership Development program at ISB

Yesterday we had this Leadership development program (which is called as LDP) brief intro by one of the resident faculty. Last year this program spanned for three months. This time the duration is increased. Also as part of LDP, 360 degree feedback was taken about us from our colleagues and friends. All the 10 forms will be consolidated and they may suggest us some improvement areas. LDP program may cover some of the soft skills like personality analysis, listening skills, presentation skills etc.

MBTI (Myers-Briggs type indicator) is one of the widely used tool in the recruitment process. We are supposed to write a test and this MBTI will classify us in one of the 16 types and it will tell the recruiter whether we are apt for the role or not. This tool is used as part of the LDP last year. I am not sure whether this tool will be used this year too.

Diverse and talented pool

Last Night we have the talent night show. Show was amazing, awesome. I don’t have further words to explain about the show. Though our section didn’t win anything, I would like to appreciate the salsa and karaoke team for their great efforts and participation. Everyone did a fantastic job. ISB PGP 2007 batch consists of singers, dancers, guitarists, weight lifters, body builders, gold medalists, tax commissioners, models, choreographers etc. Such a diverse pool!!!

Too many mails flooding in the inbox regarding the formation of clubs, electing the club presidents, selecting the team members etc. Last year every club did a phenomenal job. Hope our batch do better than last year’s batch and hope this enthu continues till the year end.

PS: Looks section B is leading now in the intersectional competitions.

EVC club Gyaan and Inter sectional competitions

Entrepreneurship and venture capital club meet is the one which inspired me more than any other club gyaan till now. It’s just because of the speaker. One of our alumni has literally lured almost everyone into the entrepreneurship. He spoke very practically and brought the real facts in front. God bless him with bright future. Not only he in particular. Almost every alumni is very helpful and they are really cooperative. Expecting the same kind of cooperation from our batch too.

There were many inter sectional competitions conducted so far. Our section won the Frisbee match in today’s competitions. As of today, our section is leading. Still few more competitions to get over. Not sure who wins finally. If we keep aside these sections and all, we all belong to one community, i.e. ISB Community.

Just decided not to worry too much about the placements from day1. I will put my best and leave the rest to God.

First week at ISB

It was truly an amazing feeling to enter into ISB for MBA course. No doubt that anyone who visits ISB falls in love with this place. In the registration process which happened on 15th, we were allotted our pre-term section names, core-term section names, section details, study group members, core term course details and class timings per section etc etc. Orientation sessions were planned from 16th to 21st. And the pre term classes start from 24th and end by 30th April. I opted only for the accounting course to get the feel of the classes and to know the accounting terminology at least.

Started meeting many people, exchanging the profiles etc from day1. It’s really really tough to remember the names of the people though we exchanged our profiles. I hardly remember 60-70 names till now. We had the dean's and deputy dean's address to our class first. Dy Dean Mr. Ajit Rangnekar is a real smart guy. He has all kinds of flavor in him. I was truly inspired by his smartness. So many gyaan sessions, inter sectional competitions conducted by our alumnus. We should be extremely thankful to them for conducting some games which worked like ice breakers for us to know each other. And should appreciate them again for staying back to take these gyaan sessions.

The gist I could make out of all the gyaan sessions is:

1. Be aware of the honor code and don’t ever try to violate the honor code.
2. Plan well and don’t keep any backlogs.
3. Class participation is important. But yes, one should not ask questions just for the heck of it.
4. Grades are really important if one is looking over consultancy jobs.
5. Work hard and slog your ass out for the first four core terms. If you are able to make it to dean’s list continue with your hard work. Otherwise forget the grades and think seriously about the take over from each class.
6. Punctuality is another important factor. Be on time to class.
7. Submit your assignments on time.
8. For the group assignments, it’s the team work. Work well with your team, be good with them, and encourage them when they feel low.
9. Participate in some of the important club events.
10. Prepare yourself for placements well in advance i.e. right from term1.
11. STRESS! I guess this is the usual and the most common term I am going to hear for the next one year. Plan properly and overcome the stress.
12. Last but not the least is "Have fun for the whole year during ur stay at ISB".

We got 24 hours in our hand i.e. 1440 minutes. It’s all about managing these 1440 minutes properly and in a well planned manner. If I am able to succeed in managing my time well, I don’t need to use the word stress at all.

I wish all the best to all my batch mates :-)

Just Half day to go

After a long wait,finally the time has arrived. Hardly 12 hours to go to step my foot in ISB as a student. Just 1 year course. I have listened, read a lot about life at ISB for that one year. Very tight schedule. Planning is the IMPORTANT thing which is required now. I need to plan things well in advance. I should be able to manage my time well for activities other than studies too. I am very excited about the coming days and also kinda tensed too. Not sure where I stand in such a big competetive pool.
I am a very lazy girl. I have to keep all my laziness aside for the next 1 year atleast. I have to work hard. Just an year course, 8 semisters, 4 subjects per semister, 5 weeks per semister, hell lot of assignments :-(. I have lot of responsibilities too. So many people adviced me to take up the US offer and settle. I have chosen myself this path. I don't think that I will give chance to anyone to say that I have chosen wrong path. I am very conscious about my choices. All the best to you dear. Just do it.:-)

send off to my bro

Just came back from the airport. My Bro (Anil) is leaving to Denver,Colorado. Oh my God! I couldn't control my tears at the airport. Now even my mood is not good. Just thought I will be ok if I write this atleast in my diary. He is the only bro to me and also elder to me. My dad was saying, if i would have accepted my offer, even i would have joined my bro. But thats ok. Never mind. I can understand my dad's feeling. He wanted to see his daughter in US. Thats his dream. Never mind Dad. I will try to fullfil ur wish somehow. If I can't make it on my own will atleast marry some guy whoz settled in US. But lemme try to get it done in the first way. If not.... alternative is there. So no worries.

Will be eagerly waiting for my bro's call after 18 hrs. I miss u anil :-(.

Farewell Time

Hmmm.. Finally it’s the time to get farewell from my company. Last Monday was my last working day. As everyone I too got affected with LDAW syndrome. Yesterday night my colleagues have given me the farewell party at Chutneys, Hyderabad. Gone are the days where I really enjoyed my work, helping my colleagues. When I joined as a fresher in my company I was assigned to one mentor (Sudip). I still remember those days. I just folded my hands and went to him and asked “Sir! Can you please give me one program to analyze.” Now to the same person, I just go and sit on his table and say “Kya Sudip! Kya problem hain? Do u require ne help”. Life is ironic. I miss all those days and all the people here in my company. Everyday I used to go down and used to have that road side panipuri nd sometimes chat too with my colleagues.

I learnt a lot in this short journey. There will be something to learn from any creature in this world. God bless my company and my colleagues.