That was the status message that i had posted in Facebook last week. Though the status msg might look funny the journey to get the degree was not that easy. The one year PGPM program in Great Lakes Institute of Management is coming to an end and it was a wonderful one year for me.
If you look at my blog archive the last post would have been on 31rst January 2010... i have not blogged for more than 15 months. I think that will give an insight into how hectic the program was. Of the 12 months here in Great Lakes the first 6 months i was very very busy and in the last 6 months i was very very lazy :P
I like to keep things simple and in a structured way so here is a simple structure for this blog post.
Great Lakes Interview & all other nonsense:
Great Lakes Interview was another comedy... Whatever i said the interviewer would reply back Why would you need an MBA to do that you can very well do that without an MBA. It was a complete stress interview and though i managed to answer all the questions i was not very confident of getting selected.
By the time the GL result came out i attended GD/PI of few more colleges and was also planning to go the world cup final in mumbai :D
So the next one month or so after the result came out was absolute whirlwind with planning for my trip to mumbai, putting papers in HP, knowledge transfer, getting ready to join GL... Now i couldn't remember anything i was always on the move and everything happened in a flash.
Came to Great Lakes campus on April 17th and while all others were networking, playing, chatting, having a jam session with all the guitarists in campus i just slept :D
Induction & Orientation and Chettinad Hospital
Induction and Orientation was fun. We had paint ball, some exercises, some obstacle games, theater,movies, dance, DJ and lot more. It was supposed to be a ice breaking session and for three days we had so much fun.
Everyday there were some accident or the other and people were injuring themselves trying to show off their skills in the obstacle game. People tried to jump form a long ladder and hurt their ankles and some even got fractured and they were out of action for many months.
When my turn came a good friend who was standing next to me advised me - "Are you going to win any medal by crossing this obstacle faster than others? Do it slowly without hurting yourself. Golden piece of advice i literally crawled through the obstacle. Who would want to hurt themselves during the first week of college and miss out all the fun for the next few months.
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| Paint Ball |
Hostel Life
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| My room - F4K |
In my entire life i have never lived in a hostel. So i was excited and scared at the same time. Hostel life turned out to be a heaven. I had my own room and the facilities were fantastic. Had some of the best guys as my neighbors. The only problem that i faced during the initial few days was getting a shower before class. Classes usually start @ 8 or 9 in the morning and the restrooms will always be occupied by someone else. Luckily i was an early riser and i started to take bath as early as 6AM.
I used to sleep at around 10 PM and wake up @ 5 AM now for the last
3,4 months my sleep schedule changed upside down. Every week we had some
party or the other and we had our own Prabha Wines Shop (Santhosh's
room changed into a club) where we played Carrom, Cards, Fifa, OTB (Open
the Bottle) sessions and chatted continuously.
During exam hostel looks deserted and usually all my friends will come to my room (since i had a white board) to study and in a single night we will prepare for 2 exams. Thanks to my friends i managed to pass all the exams somehow :)
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| Bakery Session in Progress - Mohitji's room |
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| Block 4 - The coolest block :P |
The good thing about GL hostel was i never felt lonely not even for a single moment. Lungi Party, Watching Cricket, EPL in the TV room, Playing foosball, Vetti chats near the amphitheatre & thiruvalluvar statue. Had some best time of my life here. The fact that the college was near Mahabalipuram a tourist spot made life super for us. Most of the restaurants in Mahabs were good and so used to go out every now and then to have a super dinner by the Mahabs beach.
Terms 1 to 7
Already this blog post is very lengthy so i don't want to bore you even further by explaining about the subjects that i learnt here in Great Lakes. I will just sum up whatever that i learnt in a line or two about each subject. In GL most of the professors followed the case based approach and it was interesting to learn the subjects through the case based methodology.
Term1:
Marketing Management 1 - One of the best course in Great Lakes handled by Dr.Tapan Kumar Panda. Changed my perspective altogether about Marketing. Even if i go to a roadside shop i would know why certain products are placed at a certain place. Retail, FMCG he covered everything and the cases that he gave for us to solve were very entertaining. Overall whatever marketing knowledge that i gained i owe it to Tapan Sir.
Business Statistics - taught by P.K.Viswanathan Sir. He is a statistics wizard. For someone who wrote Probability & Statistics thrice in UG i had great difficulty in understanding the concepts. Mota Moti a very enjoyable class. PKV sir was a genius yet very humble and i really liked the way he hummed songs when class was going on.
Financial Accounting - Dr. Suri Sekhar - You gaaat it. God level in accounting. Only reason why even people like me understood what a balance sheet was. Assets, Liabilities, Cash flow statement he had the ability to make even a kid understand the difficult subject of Accounting.
Micro Economics - Prof.Shanthi - Economics was a very important subject. Without knowledge of Demand & Supply how will you understand business? But these classes were terror classes. Prof. Shanthi was known for her notorious cold calling and people literally hid during her classes. Later when i interacted with her while organizing many events i came to know she was a good person but inside class room you can never escape her stare and cold calling... better to go prepared with pre-reads.
Intelligently Interacting with others - Prof. ISF Raj - an excellent faculty from XLRI. Course was about how to deal with groups and other Organizational Behavior stuff. Boring subject but he made it interesting with many examples and acecdotes.
Business Communication1 - Lalitha Maheshwaran - Great class, total fun, we were asked to give 2 mins speech about some topic of our choice and we had some legendary speeches from Spartans in BC class. Her teaching methodology was unique she showed movie clips which was very effective in learning.
Business Communication2 - P.B.Varadarajan - The less said the better. The entire spartan batch would agree that this was the worst class in the entire program. We were supposed to learn how to write B-Plan, Reports etc but we ended up doing useless ppts about some stupid ABC company. Hope i never meet him again.
Term2:
Macro Economics - Rakesh Singh aka Rocky the Rockstar... His last lecture will be a special treat in which he speaks about the indian economy continuously for 3 hours without any break and poof he will be gone and the entire batch of 300 spartans were dumbstruck. Was able to understand what Mint and Economic Times published everyday thanks to this man.
Managerial Accounting - our beloved Dean - Uncle Bala Balachandran - Believe it or not folks only when the class is about to get over Uncle Bala would remember that he actually needs to teach something about Managerial Accounting and Activity based costing... a super course with 90% Uncle Bala's gyaan and 10% Managerial Accounting slides :D
Financial Management - Oh a finance paper so zzzzzzzz slept in all of the FM classes!!
Marketing Management 2 - Harvard cases were good but seriously What was the Learning? except DIODVAC & green chutney :D
Operations Management - Prof.Vaidy Jayraman - a cool prof who watched Shivaji movie along with us.. Boom Kaboooom he will never allow you to sleep even for a second by making all these noises a very nice professor who taught OM in a simple way and who remained as a very good friend for many spartans including me.
HR Management - A.G.Balasubramaniam - Didn't you read the subject title HR Mangement. Boring. Slept off.
IT for Management - Prof.S.Ramanathan - My empirical study guide and mentor... super cool prof. Subject was very easy since it was mostly related to IT. Had awesome fun in his class.
Term3:
Strategic Management - Prof. Sriram - Finally a subject apart from marketing which interested me. Porter's 5 forces and learnt many strategic moves by legendary businesses. Important subject for consultants. But i am still puzzled how i manged to get 2.35 marks out of 30 for class participation :P
Quantitative Methods - T.N.Badri - Very good professor but still i don't know what i actually learnt from this subject.
Market Research - Prof.Bharadwaj - A very nice professor, he repeats everything twice so that everyone understands the concepts very clearly.
"You can't just ask customers what they want then try to give that to
them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." - Steve Jobs.
Steve jobs never relied on Market Research and scoffed at it. So am I :D
Management Information Systems - Prof. Sridhar Nerur - Another super cool prof from US. No bandha No vetti scene he used to say how he learnt more from the chats he had near the Tea Shops in IIM - Bangalore than in Classroom and i whole heartedly agree with him. Subject was also interesting since it was related to IT.
Investment Analysis - Prof. B. Venkatesh - Only finance paper in which i paid attention and got an "A" (Thanks to Mohitji and Mukeshji's bakeries before the exam) . Terrific professor and whatever that he taught us will surely help us plan our personal investments in a better way.
Mandarin - we learnt this for 3 terms and the only thing that i still remember is "Ni papa mama shenti hao ma? (How is your father and mother? )
Karma Yoga - another important component in Great Lakes is Karma Yoga. Is it social service, transformational leadership, god knows what it is... Initially i was very interested in doing it. We were split into teams and were assigned a village to do Karma Yoga. We conducted Science clubs, Drawing competition and some of my other friends organized health camps in their villages but after a month or so we got different directions. Stop doing what you have been doing so far.. do this do that and all other unnecessary distractions. I was getting tired of it since it was difficult explaining to the villagers what we were trying to do and so i quit KY after 3 terms and i do not regret it.
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Terms 1 to 3 were the very important terms where all the core courses were taught to us and it was extremely hectic and tiring. Classes start as early as 7 in the morning and extend till 11 PM add to that the surprise quizzes, group assignments, presentations the pressure was too much and the exams were very tough. Somehow cleared the 3 terms and our gang took a much needed vacation and went to Wayanad during our term break. Had a beer after nearly 4 years to celebrate the completion of three grueling terms.
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Terms 4 to 7 consisted of elective courses and since i specialized in marketing i took marketing courses predominantly. Life was good. Light work load. Interesting subjects. More free time for fun activities until placements happened.
Placement Week:
I thought i could relax a little bit after Term 3 but i had to prepare for the placements in December. Started reading all the subjects all over again. Wrote many versions of my resume to an extent even on day0 i was making changes to my resume. Attended TCS, Infy, HCL, MSAT interviews and got offers from Infy and MSAT and i chose MSaT since the role was interesting. Consultant in User Experience Management for web portals. I was happy that i got placed on Day 0 and so went to Akshaya with my friend Sanchit to have a beer to celebrate :)
The course load was light and still we were made to remain in the campus since we had classes every other day. I was feeling bored since i hadn't ventured out on any photography trip nor took up any assignments. I had made a conscious decision not to take up any wedding photography assignments to concentrate on my studies and in the last few months since there wasn't much to do i started doing wedding photography assignments once again and loved every bit of it.
After placements i ran out of my savings and so i started participating in many photography, short film contests and managed to win few of them.
1) First Prize in TAPMI photography contest - "Right Angles"
2) Third Prize in IRMA photography contest - "Udaan"
3) First Prize in GL Zoopraxis movie making contest - "Zoopraxis"
20,000 cash prize and i managed to stay afloat in the last few months of GL :P
Movie for first round - "Dream On":
Movie for second round - "Find your L'Attitude":
Friends in Great Lakes
The most important part of this post. Without my friends i am a big zero. When friends are around and they support you... you feel like you have the strength of thousands of elephants. They are the reason for my happiness, laughter, enjoyment everything and i am really glad that i found some amazing friends for a lifetime. Our gang is called the "Pin Palagai Pasanga (the Back Benchers) and seriously a blog wouldn't be enough to list down all the fun we had for the past one year.
Thanks a lot guys for supporting me in my every moment of happiness and sadness.
Apart from PPP i got lot of other wonderful friends in Great Lakes and after all that is what you need from a MBA college. Our batch was very diverse and we celebrated each and every indian festival in an amazing way... be it pongal, holi or onam - everything is the same for us and we all celebrated together like a family.
I know i can go to any city/town in India and if i need any help a spartan would surely be near to help me out. Thanks a lot guys... We are the best... Ahoooo!!! Ahoooooo!!!!
What i learnt from my MBA (both inside and outside classroom)!
At last the end of this very lengthy blogpost. When i sit and think on the very last day of my MBA program as to what i learnt from my MBA i couldn't think of anything.... But i am sure i have changed a great lot in the past one year for good.
Who can be a better teacher than life itself and i think the last one year has given me enough experience to handle life in the best way possible...
I am very happy today that i have completed my MBA today... As of now i have been placed as a consultant in an IT major but i will be starting my own business (something related to creative media industry) in a couple of years and i surely need all your blessings and support for that :)
An amazing journey has come to end and i would like to end this post with a wonderful quote from my favorite movie - "Motorcycle Diaries"...
"What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land."
Cheers,
Shiva
