The 5th Term

The last term had clearly been the best in terms of lack of academic rigour….and that followed by Shodh Yatra was the icing on the cake ! Having experienced the bliss of being a tuchcha, I was all set to continue enjoying life to the fullest in the next term as well. But I also ensured that I do not lose focus on the quality of courses that I chose. And hence I took up an interesting set of subjects that I thought I would love studying, apart from, of course, the fact that they should fit into the time table nicely so as not to interfere in my blissful activites of tuchchadom :)

I took five courses and an independent project : International Business Dispute and Resolution (Yep, u learn that too in MBA!), Legal Aspects of Business (No no, I don’t intend to be a lawyer..its a compulsory subject), Managerial Communication, Merger Acquisitions and Corporate Restructuring & Philosophical Foundations of Management (yeah, you read it right !). The project was on Negotiation in Movies J

I am still so proud of the kind of subjects I took…Hahaha ! IBDR was taken by a prof about whom I had heard so much that I couldn’t help signing up for the course. And trust me, I had no regrets. He was clearly one of the best profs of IIMA when it comes to teaching style and humour ! He was very particular in making sure we all were up to date with our current affairs and GK. Our classes would begin by discussin some of the headlines of the day and his sharp and witty take on those. He would often show us some youtube videos of some great ads etc; he was a big movie buff and lots of his examples somehow traced their way back to some 70s hindi movie :). The best part was that the quizzes and exams were newspaper articles which we had to interpret and analyze given the theory that we studied in the class! And the classes were all court cases between fighting companies over legal/political/personal issues! IBDR classes were fun and I had decided that I will again take the same prof’s courses in the next term as well. It was a diff coincidence altogether that I again got to interact a lot with him during Chaos, about which I will write later.
MC was a big value add. A short course on communication, which I initially thought I don’t need, but was proved so wrong when I went through it! Another excellent prof, with a brilliant teaching style! No theory at all. Only action! In every class, student will speak in front of everyone , sometimes impromptu, other times some prepared articles. The audience will then rate the speaker on a scale of ten and all those ratings would determine the final grade of the student! The prof has nothing to do with the grading:) And trust me, there were hardly any biases involved coz grades were the last things on our minds! The course was so inspiring that we all loved every bit of it. Two biz presentations in the end that were video recorded cleared small chinks in our armory and everyone ended the course feeling much more confident about ourselves. MC was clearly one of the best and most valuable courses I have done in the two years at IIMA.
PFM was a great experience as well. The course dealt with philosophers and their ideologies and even though lot of times I hadn’t the slightest clue about whats happening in the class, I still loved it. That’s coz arguably the two best profs of IIMA took the course. Prof Ajay Pandey and Prof Seb Morris! I was bowled over by their intellect! PFM classes got the most creative and intellectual juices flow out of them. Their depth in fields as diverse as Biology to History to Maths to Physics to Arts was stunning. I was amazed as to how could someone know so much. And on top of that, the classes were nothing but discussions between us n them. Mind u, when I say us, I don’t mean I :) I was almost always a mute spectator! But couple of guys in the class were very learned on the subject and they led the discussions. Nevertheless, a very unique course indeed!

So academically, the term was a bit more hectic than the last one, also coz I had taken MACR, which I knew involved quite a bit of finance to which I will need to devote extra time! But it was worth it coz I got to learn a lot from the course.

But the term was not an acads term at all! So what was the highlight of the term? What kept all tuchchas at IIMA busy in the 5th term? Well, one answer – Business Competitions! Yep, u got it right…almost every B-School conducts a Biz Fest during this period. These fests consists of various case contests, biz games, quizzes, trading games and so on….The interesting thing I realized during this time was that people took part in all these contests with diff motives! Some of them did it to boost their CVs for placements – a lot of awards in diff biz contests at prestigious B-Schools surely add weight to ur CV; Others did it coz of the monetary benefits – all the contests do offer some hefty prizes; and finally the rest did it coz they didn’t hv much else to do on campus :)

Honestly speaking, I didn’t know which category I fell into. Actually, initially I didn’t even want to take part in any contest. I wanted to stay clear coz I knew it would involve a lot of work and I was somehow in no mood to work a lot in my tuchchadom days! I thought lemme know enjoy n hv fun and do bit of acds and that’s all! In fact, that was one of the reasons I didn’t even join the organizing team of Confluence this year, despite many requests coming my way to do so. However, I slowly realized that its good if I do take part in at least few of these contests – both for my CV as well as for doing something intellectual rather than just sitting around n watching movies!

And so I ended up joining a team. The funda is that before the season, teams of 4-5 are formed and the team then takes part in all the contests during the entire term in diff fests! And the most prestigious of all the events was of course the one at the most premier institute – our very own Confluence! I slowly realized that people were very serious about the winning the Award of Excellence at Confluence, an award given to the best team that gathers most points across diff events! And even though my team indeed had some very stud people, we were somehow not very enthu abt the award. We just wanted to participate and win as much as we could. Simple.

And thus began the great B-School contests fever of the 5th term! Cases after cases, quizzes after quizzes! It was kind of fun sometimes, and seemed like a huge burden at other times. With everyone sharing work, it never got overbearing. But it certainly kept us busy the entire term.

Confluence was good fun. This year I was not in the organizing team and that gave me an opportunity to participate in lots of events. And we actually did win a couple of prizes to our delight, even though we didn’t expect to with out not so diligent efforts :) The four days of Confluence were pretty much like the last year. Diff faces but similar structure. A welcome break for all of us when the campus was buzzing with people from all over the country, when we at times wont find place to sit in our very own CT! But it was so satisfying to see that the event was a huge hit as usual – and I was so happy for the organizing team coz I had gone thru the effort it takes to make this a success and knew the joy of seeing it all unfold so nicely….Well done Dola, the Conflu Coord, and the entire team, who worked their hearts out for months together for these 4 days of success!

As for me, well, to tell the truth, I did feel a bit left out. I have always been into the heart of all activities at IIMA and was feeling weird not being a part of Conflu team….being on the other side was not really something that excited me. I wanted to be in the thick of action, working days n nights n then feeling proud to play my role in this grand event….but I knew that as the clock ticks away, my time is gonna come near, where I will be right back into action…Chaos was not very far away :)

But that didn’t mean that I had a sedate term. Apart from all the contests I took part in and won, there was something very special that happened to me and that unexpected success will perhaps be one of my biggest ever in life…I will write about it in my next entry…but this term would essentially be remembered for the rush of enthusiasm and diligence it infused into the otherwise laid back tuchcha life, all thanks to the frenzy of biz contests!

Apart from that, life was rocking….Badminton, Late night cricket, movies, exploring ahmd, mess food and all the craziness in the dorms….some things never change !