Monday, May 31, 2004
It's getting busier here with the end-term exams less than a week away. Today I managed only four hours of sleep.
Yesterday we had a discussion on a Citibank case. It was set in the year 1989, and the issue was whether Citibank should go into the credit card business in Asia-Pacific, and if yes, what it's marketing strategy should be.
We finished studying Game Theory. This theory involves Nash equilibrium, which is named after Nash of Princeton University who had won a Nobel Prize. The movie, A Beautiful Mind, was also about him.
This is the last week of classes for this term. Next week, after the exams, we have a five-day term break. But it will not be entirely free, as we will have HSBC and Citigroup scholarship contests during that time.
Now to why MBA. The compelling reason for most is a promotion into a managerial role. For instance, at the ISB, there are many IT professionals, who had been doing extremely well in their technical jobs. These people also have great soft skills. They would like to move up the ladder into middle and senior management. ISB intends to produce future leaders. So the MBAs would move up to head major corporations one day. To do that, one needs to know concepts of general management, which an MBA program teaches. An MBA also gives us a great network of batchmates and alumni. For some, MBA is the vehicle of choice for a career shift. For example, an MBA helps an Army officer or a marine engineer to enter the corporate world for a desk job. In many careers, an MBA is a rite of passage. Investment banks typically expect their Analysts to get an MBA before promoting them as Associates. Of course, higher salary is also a good reason to do an MBA. Many people double their salaries after this one-year MBA.
The MBA has a great value proposition, but I lack the time to explain it the way I would have liked to. Perhaps some other time.
I will be posting less frequently until the exams get over on Tuesday, June 8th.
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Yesterday we had a discussion on a Citibank case. It was set in the year 1989, and the issue was whether Citibank should go into the credit card business in Asia-Pacific, and if yes, what it's marketing strategy should be.
We finished studying Game Theory. This theory involves Nash equilibrium, which is named after Nash of Princeton University who had won a Nobel Prize. The movie, A Beautiful Mind, was also about him.
This is the last week of classes for this term. Next week, after the exams, we have a five-day term break. But it will not be entirely free, as we will have HSBC and Citigroup scholarship contests during that time.
Now to why MBA. The compelling reason for most is a promotion into a managerial role. For instance, at the ISB, there are many IT professionals, who had been doing extremely well in their technical jobs. These people also have great soft skills. They would like to move up the ladder into middle and senior management. ISB intends to produce future leaders. So the MBAs would move up to head major corporations one day. To do that, one needs to know concepts of general management, which an MBA program teaches. An MBA also gives us a great network of batchmates and alumni. For some, MBA is the vehicle of choice for a career shift. For example, an MBA helps an Army officer or a marine engineer to enter the corporate world for a desk job. In many careers, an MBA is a rite of passage. Investment banks typically expect their Analysts to get an MBA before promoting them as Associates. Of course, higher salary is also a good reason to do an MBA. Many people double their salaries after this one-year MBA.
The MBA has a great value proposition, but I lack the time to explain it the way I would have liked to. Perhaps some other time.
I will be posting less frequently until the exams get over on Tuesday, June 8th.
Saturday, May 29, 2004
My previous manager, Rob, left a nice long comment, as always praising all that is Belgian. Indeed, Belgian girls are the most beautiful, Belgian beer the best in the world, Belgian chocolates the most varied, and who can forget Tintin. I miss Belgium. Incidentally, Rob is Dutch, and not Belgian!
I am not going to put up my pic in suit, as I won't be able to handle all the fan mails that will start pouring in! (Actually I look like a dog wearing a suit). So instead, I have put up my doggy's pic.
Lots of things have been happening on campus. There were basketball matches between different sections. My section lost out, but we were declared the best cheerleaders. Dallas Cowboys, here we come!
The student election results were announced, and thankfully I did not win. Now I can devote the time to academics, and try to get a B or better grade.
Tomorrow I have to participate in BBC University Challenge Quiz contest. My mind is rusted now, so I don't think I can be very good at it.
Some people would like to know my GMAT score etc. It's not a great score. Here's a big clue: I did not hurt ISB's average GMAT score. As for undergrad grades, they are nothing to write home about.
Another person wanted to know how many of us here are from the major Indian IT firms. There are indeed many. I think there are at least 20 from Infosys, over 10 from Wipro, and so on.
I wanted to speak about the value of an MBA, but it's getting late, and I have to finish my assignments now. Probably next post. But I'll give this teaser - pay packages for some MBAs from Harvard etc start at close to USD 200,000. Is that reason enough to do an MBA? One could retire in five years as a millionaire, buy a small island off the coast of Florida, hire some Swedish massagers, and live happily ever after. Reality is quite different, and MBA has greater utility than that, so wait till next post.
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I am not going to put up my pic in suit, as I won't be able to handle all the fan mails that will start pouring in! (Actually I look like a dog wearing a suit). So instead, I have put up my doggy's pic.
Lots of things have been happening on campus. There were basketball matches between different sections. My section lost out, but we were declared the best cheerleaders. Dallas Cowboys, here we come!
The student election results were announced, and thankfully I did not win. Now I can devote the time to academics, and try to get a B or better grade.
Tomorrow I have to participate in BBC University Challenge Quiz contest. My mind is rusted now, so I don't think I can be very good at it.
Some people would like to know my GMAT score etc. It's not a great score. Here's a big clue: I did not hurt ISB's average GMAT score. As for undergrad grades, they are nothing to write home about.
Another person wanted to know how many of us here are from the major Indian IT firms. There are indeed many. I think there are at least 20 from Infosys, over 10 from Wipro, and so on.
I wanted to speak about the value of an MBA, but it's getting late, and I have to finish my assignments now. Probably next post. But I'll give this teaser - pay packages for some MBAs from Harvard etc start at close to USD 200,000. Is that reason enough to do an MBA? One could retire in five years as a millionaire, buy a small island off the coast of Florida, hire some Swedish massagers, and live happily ever after. Reality is quite different, and MBA has greater utility than that, so wait till next post.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Question: Which sports event is the highest watched sports event in the world? (i.e. highest watched LIVE, and not on TV)
The answer appears at the end of this post.
Some alums have been kind enough to leave encouraging comments to my posts. One of the alums, Ramki, is already in the Blogger’s Hall of Fame!
Today we had a photo shoot. Had to wear suit et al, and looked my best. This photo would be used while publishing the recruiter’s handbook.
We also had a cake ceremony for all those in my section who had birthdays during this month. But only cake, no beer :(
We had a group case study submission few days back, and got the scored case back today. My group got one of the lowest marks. All group members are upset about it. We had suggested repositioning a conditioner brand, while the correct approach would have been reformulation coupled with repositioning. Cracking case studies correctly is important to land jobs in management consulting companies, so we clearly have a lot of work ahead of us.
There’s a lot of campaigning going on for the various posts in student clubs. There’s a girl from my section who is contesting me, and I am secretly hoping she wins. Girls are usually more creative, so she can do a better job than me.
I had promised to give some statistics of our batch, so here I go. The average GMAT score is 690, which has remained constant ever since the school was set up!
7% of the students have scores over 750 ! The range was 550-780.
The average age is 27 and average years of work experience is 5.
76% students are single. 19% of the students are women, but some of them are married. So sample space is very small, and thus a lot of competition!
There is a lot of diversity - Engineers, IT professionals, doctors, military folks, air hostesses, architects, marine engineers, investment bankers, accountants etc.
The students are from leading companies of the world, including McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Ernst& Young, Accenture, British Telecom, KPMG etc.
I have asked the Admissions office for some more statistics. I will post them as soon as I hear from them.
Next three days we don't have any classes, but have many submissions, so some more sleepless nights going forward.
I have received queries from some asking why one should do an MBA. In my next post, I will talk about why not!
The answer to the sports question is Tour De France.
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The answer appears at the end of this post.
Some alums have been kind enough to leave encouraging comments to my posts. One of the alums, Ramki, is already in the Blogger’s Hall of Fame!
Today we had a photo shoot. Had to wear suit et al, and looked my best. This photo would be used while publishing the recruiter’s handbook.
We also had a cake ceremony for all those in my section who had birthdays during this month. But only cake, no beer :(
We had a group case study submission few days back, and got the scored case back today. My group got one of the lowest marks. All group members are upset about it. We had suggested repositioning a conditioner brand, while the correct approach would have been reformulation coupled with repositioning. Cracking case studies correctly is important to land jobs in management consulting companies, so we clearly have a lot of work ahead of us.
There’s a lot of campaigning going on for the various posts in student clubs. There’s a girl from my section who is contesting me, and I am secretly hoping she wins. Girls are usually more creative, so she can do a better job than me.
I had promised to give some statistics of our batch, so here I go. The average GMAT score is 690, which has remained constant ever since the school was set up!
7% of the students have scores over 750 ! The range was 550-780.
The average age is 27 and average years of work experience is 5.
76% students are single. 19% of the students are women, but some of them are married. So sample space is very small, and thus a lot of competition!
There is a lot of diversity - Engineers, IT professionals, doctors, military folks, air hostesses, architects, marine engineers, investment bankers, accountants etc.
The students are from leading companies of the world, including McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Ernst& Young, Accenture, British Telecom, KPMG etc.
I have asked the Admissions office for some more statistics. I will post them as soon as I hear from them.
Next three days we don't have any classes, but have many submissions, so some more sleepless nights going forward.
I have received queries from some asking why one should do an MBA. In my next post, I will talk about why not!
The answer to the sports question is Tour De France.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
I am going to keep this short today, as I have a test tomorrow.
First of all, thanks to those who left comments to my previous posts.
The election bug finally bit me, and I have decided to contest for the post of Editor of the student newsletter. As everyone says, let the best candidate win.
Yesterday in Marketing class we had a case study on Procter & Gamble - Walmart. The issue was about selling diapers through Walmart, the tussle being between P&G's Pampers and Luvs brands, Kimberly-Clarke's Huggies, and Walmart's store-brand. It was interesting, despite being about diapers!
We also studied Game Theory in Economics class. That was pretty interesting stuff too. The prof had cleverly used a hypothetical dating situation to make it interesting.
Today we had Hypothesis Tests in Stats, and "cost of goods sold" in Accounting. The accounting classes are usually interesting because of the humor factor. The prof almost always discusses two particular companies, Enron and Infosys, and uses terms like the cockroach theory or something like that!
Tomorrow is the much feared Marketing quiz, for which I have to do an endless amount of reading tonight. Day after tomorrow a Stats assignment is due. The end-term exams are also fast approaching. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. One way it's good, as the light could have been the headlight of train headed towards me.
I set out to write a small post, but yet it got big. Back to studies now.
In my next post I will post some statistics of our batch, like GMAT scores etc. Till then...
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First of all, thanks to those who left comments to my previous posts.
The election bug finally bit me, and I have decided to contest for the post of Editor of the student newsletter. As everyone says, let the best candidate win.
Yesterday in Marketing class we had a case study on Procter & Gamble - Walmart. The issue was about selling diapers through Walmart, the tussle being between P&G's Pampers and Luvs brands, Kimberly-Clarke's Huggies, and Walmart's store-brand. It was interesting, despite being about diapers!
We also studied Game Theory in Economics class. That was pretty interesting stuff too. The prof had cleverly used a hypothetical dating situation to make it interesting.
Today we had Hypothesis Tests in Stats, and "cost of goods sold" in Accounting. The accounting classes are usually interesting because of the humor factor. The prof almost always discusses two particular companies, Enron and Infosys, and uses terms like the cockroach theory or something like that!
Tomorrow is the much feared Marketing quiz, for which I have to do an endless amount of reading tonight. Day after tomorrow a Stats assignment is due. The end-term exams are also fast approaching. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. One way it's good, as the light could have been the headlight of train headed towards me.
I set out to write a small post, but yet it got big. Back to studies now.
In my next post I will post some statistics of our batch, like GMAT scores etc. Till then...
Sunday, May 23, 2004
It's 3:30 AM, and I just submitted two assignments, one for Managerial Economics and the other for Financial Accounting. Being up until after 3 AM has become a habit now. Even on days when I have almost no work, I don't sleep before 3. I think slowly we are all turning into owls.
The late night assignment submissions are just the tip of the iceberg. Tomorrow we have another assignment, and day after we have a marketing quiz, which requires us to read a dozen chapters from a fat book. If only we could extract more than 24 hours from each day!
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The late night assignment submissions are just the tip of the iceberg. Tomorrow we have another assignment, and day after we have a marketing quiz, which requires us to read a dozen chapters from a fat book. If only we could extract more than 24 hours from each day!
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Added one more pic of a bird's eye view of a part of the campus. No, I didn't go on a chopper to take this, I got it off the internet.
Yesterday night some people went to a place called Ramoji Film City. There were some DJs and VJs who had come there to party. ISB students had free entry, and a free bus to take us there. I did not go, as I was submerged deep into Managerial Economics. ISB students have some nice privileges in the city, for instance no cover charge for entry to T2, a discotheque in Taj Krishna, which is a decent hotel here. We also get discounts on food and beverages in a bar called Ten Downing Street. There are some more privileges, but I couldn't care less. Have loads of work ahead of me for today.
Just read about George Dubya falling off his bike in his Texas ranch. It's funny how this guy manages to get himself into all these problems. Remember he once choked on a pretzel? Here's the new clip:
"President Bush suffered cuts and bruises early Saturday afternoon when he fell while mountain biking on his ranch, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
Bush was on the 16th mile of a 17-mile ride when he fell, Duffy said. He was riding with a military aide, members of the Secret Service and his personal physician, Dr. Richard Tubb.
The Secret Service offered to drive him back to the house. He declined and finished his ride.
Earlier this month, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry took a spill from his bicycle while riding with Secret Service agents through Concord, Mass., about 18 miles north of Boston"
Have a good one.
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Yesterday night some people went to a place called Ramoji Film City. There were some DJs and VJs who had come there to party. ISB students had free entry, and a free bus to take us there. I did not go, as I was submerged deep into Managerial Economics. ISB students have some nice privileges in the city, for instance no cover charge for entry to T2, a discotheque in Taj Krishna, which is a decent hotel here. We also get discounts on food and beverages in a bar called Ten Downing Street. There are some more privileges, but I couldn't care less. Have loads of work ahead of me for today.
Just read about George Dubya falling off his bike in his Texas ranch. It's funny how this guy manages to get himself into all these problems. Remember he once choked on a pretzel? Here's the new clip:
"President Bush suffered cuts and bruises early Saturday afternoon when he fell while mountain biking on his ranch, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
Bush was on the 16th mile of a 17-mile ride when he fell, Duffy said. He was riding with a military aide, members of the Secret Service and his personal physician, Dr. Richard Tubb.
The Secret Service offered to drive him back to the house. He declined and finished his ride.
Earlier this month, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry took a spill from his bicycle while riding with Secret Service agents through Concord, Mass., about 18 miles north of Boston"
Have a good one.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Have put up a couple of pictures in the sidebar (finally figured out how to add pics). The first one is the wrong side of the Acad building of ISB. I am too lazy to go to the front to shoot a photo, so for the time being this should suffice. The next one is my pic, shot near Times Square in Manhattan. In case you are wondering who the blonde is, she's Elle Macpherson. She's over 6 feet tall! I am more like 5'9", a dwarf in comparison.
Nothing much happening on campus. Yesterday night there was a party, which had a thin attendance. There are lots of submissions due for Monday.
There were some snake sightings on campus. Mailboxes were full of emails about the snakes. Just when chicken pox threat disappeared, this new snakebite threat has emerged. But life goes on as usual.
Have a good weekend.
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Nothing much happening on campus. Yesterday night there was a party, which had a thin attendance. There are lots of submissions due for Monday.
There were some snake sightings on campus. Mailboxes were full of emails about the snakes. Just when chicken pox threat disappeared, this new snakebite threat has emerged. But life goes on as usual.
Have a good weekend.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Today's Stats mid-term was a revelation. Put in so much effort last night, yet could not solve most of the problems. Turned out that almost everyone was on the same boat. Just hours earlier, we had given a nice farewell to the Stats professor, who was going back to Carnegie Mellon University. Had we known he had set such a difficult paper for us….
From tomorrow, the second part of Stats would be taken up by a prof from Kellogg School of Northwestern University. Hope he will have some mercy on us and set a paper we can at least have a shot at.
To drown our sorrows, we all tried to forget about the exam. Some can be seen sitting in a group gulping beer, some are watching movies on their laptops, some are playing sports and so on. I played some ping-pong (called Table Tennis in India), badminton, basketball, cricket, and water polo. It was fun.
Meanwhile, I withdrew from the election. I just wasn’t up to it.
The Dell case study was somewhat interesting. It was discussed in class today, and was torn apart. The case was set in the year 1994, and we had to recommend whether Dell should go ahead with manufacturing laptop computers. Well, the verdict after two hours of analysis was that it should. As we all know, it indeed went ahead, and today is a leader in laptop sales in the US and much of the world. In fact I am writing this blog on a Dell laptop.
Someone left a comment wanting to know if I studied in an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The answer is no. I did my undergrad in one of the Regional Engineering Colleges in India. There are many students here who are from IIT. Speaking of IIT, I am proud that our nation has produced such great institutions of learning. IIT is today spoken of in the same breath as MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. It is a great honour. There was this feature on "60 Minutes" on US television about IITs, which was keenly watched by many. I was in a Hooters restaurant in New Jersey, celebrating my birthday with friends, when the program was screened. So I missed it. The next day I went to an American dentist for a routine cleaning, and she wanted to know if I was from an IIT. She was keen to send her son to IIT. So I sold her on the idea.
I am sure lots of Indians are glued to their TV screens watching the unfolding political situation. Incidentally I haven’t turned on my television for probably last 15 days. The only time I watch it is while having breakfast in the dining hall. The latest news is that Manmohan Singh is likely to become the prime minister. Let’s see what he can do for this country. This guy was a prof at the Delhi School of Economics. I wonder if we will soon have an MBA prime minister, similar to George W Bush, who has an MBA from HBS.
Okey dokey, talk to you later.
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From tomorrow, the second part of Stats would be taken up by a prof from Kellogg School of Northwestern University. Hope he will have some mercy on us and set a paper we can at least have a shot at.
To drown our sorrows, we all tried to forget about the exam. Some can be seen sitting in a group gulping beer, some are watching movies on their laptops, some are playing sports and so on. I played some ping-pong (called Table Tennis in India), badminton, basketball, cricket, and water polo. It was fun.
Meanwhile, I withdrew from the election. I just wasn’t up to it.
The Dell case study was somewhat interesting. It was discussed in class today, and was torn apart. The case was set in the year 1994, and we had to recommend whether Dell should go ahead with manufacturing laptop computers. Well, the verdict after two hours of analysis was that it should. As we all know, it indeed went ahead, and today is a leader in laptop sales in the US and much of the world. In fact I am writing this blog on a Dell laptop.
Someone left a comment wanting to know if I studied in an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The answer is no. I did my undergrad in one of the Regional Engineering Colleges in India. There are many students here who are from IIT. Speaking of IIT, I am proud that our nation has produced such great institutions of learning. IIT is today spoken of in the same breath as MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. It is a great honour. There was this feature on "60 Minutes" on US television about IITs, which was keenly watched by many. I was in a Hooters restaurant in New Jersey, celebrating my birthday with friends, when the program was screened. So I missed it. The next day I went to an American dentist for a routine cleaning, and she wanted to know if I was from an IIT. She was keen to send her son to IIT. So I sold her on the idea.
I am sure lots of Indians are glued to their TV screens watching the unfolding political situation. Incidentally I haven’t turned on my television for probably last 15 days. The only time I watch it is while having breakfast in the dining hall. The latest news is that Manmohan Singh is likely to become the prime minister. Let’s see what he can do for this country. This guy was a prof at the Delhi School of Economics. I wonder if we will soon have an MBA prime minister, similar to George W Bush, who has an MBA from HBS.
Okey dokey, talk to you later.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Well, I was indeed lucky to get a few hours sleep on Monday morning. There have been others who have not slept for 36 hours straight. Life was so much easier when I was working in a 9-to-5 job. Why did I ever leave that blissful life and decide to do an MBA??
Not to discourage prospective MBA students, it's all worth it at the end. These all-nighters are what we are going to fondly remember when we leave this beautiful campus next year. There is so much bonding that happens when you work with groups of students in a crisis situation. Because of all this hard work, when we go to night clubs on Friday nights, it feels so nice to unwind after a hectic week.
It's been one month since we landed up here on 17th April. Time flies. 11 more months now.
On personal updates front, I have teamed up with three others to participate in the BBC University Challenge Quiz program. If we qualify in next few rounds, we would be competing with other universities on national television.
Also, I put a nomination for myself for the post of Vice President of the Marketing and Communications Council. I have never ever run for a position, nor voted in any election, so this is a first. In fact I have second thoughts, and may even withdraw from the race.
We have a mid-term exam tomorrow. I have not even reached the mid-point of my preparation for it, and it is already 2:30 AM. Apart from the exam, I have to prepare a case study for Dell Computers too.
Take it easy.
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Not to discourage prospective MBA students, it's all worth it at the end. These all-nighters are what we are going to fondly remember when we leave this beautiful campus next year. There is so much bonding that happens when you work with groups of students in a crisis situation. Because of all this hard work, when we go to night clubs on Friday nights, it feels so nice to unwind after a hectic week.
It's been one month since we landed up here on 17th April. Time flies. 11 more months now.
On personal updates front, I have teamed up with three others to participate in the BBC University Challenge Quiz program. If we qualify in next few rounds, we would be competing with other universities on national television.
Also, I put a nomination for myself for the post of Vice President of the Marketing and Communications Council. I have never ever run for a position, nor voted in any election, so this is a first. In fact I have second thoughts, and may even withdraw from the race.
We have a mid-term exam tomorrow. I have not even reached the mid-point of my preparation for it, and it is already 2:30 AM. Apart from the exam, I have to prepare a case study for Dell Computers too.
Take it easy.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
It's 5:15 AM, and I just submitted an assignment. Same is the case with most others. No sleep. Worst part is some people have classes from 8:30 AM. Luckily my class starts at 2:30 pm, so I can catch some sleep.
Talk to you later...
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Talk to you later...
Saturday, May 15, 2004
It was another long day. Since morning I have been trying to make sense of a case study. Case studies are interesting to read, but to propose a solution, we need to back up our suggestions with loads of concrete data. And that's where I start losing interest. It's easy to give a subjective opinion on what you would tell the CEO to do, but very difficult to base your decisions purely on data provided.
Long story short, my group just completed a first draft of the solution to the case study, and it is already 2:30 am. Tomorrow I will try to polish the draft a bit, and make it presentable. We also have other assignments that we need to work on tomorrow. So another very busy Sunday to look forward to.
F1...F1...F1 !
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Long story short, my group just completed a first draft of the solution to the case study, and it is already 2:30 am. Tomorrow I will try to polish the draft a bit, and make it presentable. We also have other assignments that we need to work on tomorrow. So another very busy Sunday to look forward to.
F1...F1...F1 !
Friday, May 14, 2004
Those interested in placement related info, and are in a hurry, scroll down to the last few paragraphs.
The quizzes and mid-terms are all behind me now. Today everyone is enjoying life. Some have gone to a pub called Bottles and Chimneys, some have gone shopping, some are partying in their rooms, while still others are working out in the recreation center.
I worked out in the gym for sometime, then played badminton, had a little drink at one of the room parties, and at midnight celebrated a birthday by dunking the birthday boy in the pool, as well as getting myself dunked. It was a good midnight swim.
Speaking of badminton, it is one of those games that most Americans have not heard of. In fact, some US students are using the badminton route to get admissions into top universities. I guess there will come a day when badminton, cricket and men's soccer would become popular in the US, but that day is very very far. It is hard to change habits of sports viewers. Yankees rule!
An alum left a comment that the second term would be far more stressful than the current term. It just keeps getting worse! I hope we will get used to handling such pressures by then.
Finally something about placements. It's too early to talk about our placements, so I will talk about the recently graduated batch's placement. This must be historical information for regular ISB followers, but still I will put them here for the benefit of others who came in late. The approximate figures are: highest domestic annual salary was Rupees 2 million, and interestingly the offer was not taken up. The average domestic salary was Rupees 900,000. International average salary was USD 90,000 and highest was USD 150,000.
Almost all MBA recruiting companies came to campus. A few of them are McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, IBM, Microsoft, Dell, GE, Novartis, Unilever etc.
If anyone wants to know further details, please visit ISB's site at www.isb.edu, or leave a comment to my post.
Later.
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The quizzes and mid-terms are all behind me now. Today everyone is enjoying life. Some have gone to a pub called Bottles and Chimneys, some have gone shopping, some are partying in their rooms, while still others are working out in the recreation center.
I worked out in the gym for sometime, then played badminton, had a little drink at one of the room parties, and at midnight celebrated a birthday by dunking the birthday boy in the pool, as well as getting myself dunked. It was a good midnight swim.
Speaking of badminton, it is one of those games that most Americans have not heard of. In fact, some US students are using the badminton route to get admissions into top universities. I guess there will come a day when badminton, cricket and men's soccer would become popular in the US, but that day is very very far. It is hard to change habits of sports viewers. Yankees rule!
An alum left a comment that the second term would be far more stressful than the current term. It just keeps getting worse! I hope we will get used to handling such pressures by then.
Finally something about placements. It's too early to talk about our placements, so I will talk about the recently graduated batch's placement. This must be historical information for regular ISB followers, but still I will put them here for the benefit of others who came in late. The approximate figures are: highest domestic annual salary was Rupees 2 million, and interestingly the offer was not taken up. The average domestic salary was Rupees 900,000. International average salary was USD 90,000 and highest was USD 150,000.
Almost all MBA recruiting companies came to campus. A few of them are McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, IBM, Microsoft, Dell, GE, Novartis, Unilever etc.
If anyone wants to know further details, please visit ISB's site at www.isb.edu, or leave a comment to my post.
Later.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
There is another quiz tomorrow, a mid-term exam day after, and lots of submissions for Monday, which will spoil the weekend. Enough written about the back-breaking studies. Now let me focus on non-academic topics.
The campus is huge, I think over 230 acres. There is a Main Academic building, two student villages, executive and faculty housing, and a recreation center.
The student villages house all the students in either shared four-bedroom apartments or individual studio apartments. I have the luxury of a studio apartment all to myself. The standard of the apartments are pretty similar to what you would find in the US and Europe. These are fully furnished with beds, TV, sofas, kitchen utensils, microwave, refrigerator, air conditioners, telephones with voicemail, high-speed data ports for laptops etc. These are serviced apartments, meaning housekeeping would clean them, change linen and make your bed etc. The only complaint I have is that there is no bath tub.
The recreation center has facilities for swimming, squash, badminton, basketball, pool and gym. The center's airconditioning snapped the day we arrived at the campus, and I can tell you it's not very exciting to run on the treadmill when the outside temperature hovers around 40 celcius (over 100 fahrenheit easily).
The academic center has lecture theaters, which are pretty high-tech. All the room controls are automated, so you can push a button on the LCD display to remove the window blinds, and push another button to dim the lights etc. All kinds of gadgets are there in the classroom, from VCR to projector. The classrooms are obviously airconditioned.
Apart from classrooms, the acad center houses a dining hall, book store, bank, convenience store, mail room, various offices, library, auditorium etc. The food is decent enough, but one gets bored eating the same kind of exotic dishes everyday.
All the open spaces in the campus have wi-fi network access. Since most of the students have centrino laptops, they can log on to the network from anywhere in the campus without needing wires. So we can call ISB one of the most "non-wired" campuses in the country. The network is high-speed, similar to cable or DSL lines. So internet surfing is a breeze.
Off to bed, catch you later...
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The campus is huge, I think over 230 acres. There is a Main Academic building, two student villages, executive and faculty housing, and a recreation center.
The student villages house all the students in either shared four-bedroom apartments or individual studio apartments. I have the luxury of a studio apartment all to myself. The standard of the apartments are pretty similar to what you would find in the US and Europe. These are fully furnished with beds, TV, sofas, kitchen utensils, microwave, refrigerator, air conditioners, telephones with voicemail, high-speed data ports for laptops etc. These are serviced apartments, meaning housekeeping would clean them, change linen and make your bed etc. The only complaint I have is that there is no bath tub.
The recreation center has facilities for swimming, squash, badminton, basketball, pool and gym. The center's airconditioning snapped the day we arrived at the campus, and I can tell you it's not very exciting to run on the treadmill when the outside temperature hovers around 40 celcius (over 100 fahrenheit easily).
The academic center has lecture theaters, which are pretty high-tech. All the room controls are automated, so you can push a button on the LCD display to remove the window blinds, and push another button to dim the lights etc. All kinds of gadgets are there in the classroom, from VCR to projector. The classrooms are obviously airconditioned.
Apart from classrooms, the acad center houses a dining hall, book store, bank, convenience store, mail room, various offices, library, auditorium etc. The food is decent enough, but one gets bored eating the same kind of exotic dishes everyday.
All the open spaces in the campus have wi-fi network access. Since most of the students have centrino laptops, they can log on to the network from anywhere in the campus without needing wires. So we can call ISB one of the most "non-wired" campuses in the country. The network is high-speed, similar to cable or DSL lines. So internet surfing is a breeze.
Off to bed, catch you later...
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Trinity posted a good comment that I haven’t introduced myself yet. Well, I am your typical engineer-IT consultant and have 5.5 years of work experience with an Indian company called Wipro Technologies. I worked in India for six months, in New Jersey for 4 years and in Belgium and Norway for less than a year. I don’t know what else to write about myself. Well, one important thing is that I am single, so if anyone of you reading this is a single girl who is accepting applications, contact me!
Today’s Army leadership presentation was superb! There was capacity crowd, and it ended with a standing ovation. I salute these men.
ISB is no less than a boot camp I must say. Today turned out to be another cool day, with just one stats quiz. But the next few days are going to be action-packed. Tomorrow we have a quiz on marketing and on Friday we have a midterm exam for Accounting. It’s not even one month since we landed up here, and already we are neck deep in studies.
If the US and India are talking about elections, can ISB be far behind? Today student elections were announced. There would be presidents, vice-presidents etc for different clubs etc. May the most deserving win.
The biggest news on campus these days is chicken pox. Some of the students have been infected and quarantined. Others are scared of catching it. May the force be with us, and I hope they get well soon.
Someone suggested that we should get 7 hours of sleep to prevent catching the pox virus. So am headed to bed now. Damn tomorrow’s quiz. I can’t read 300 pages in one night anyway.
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Today’s Army leadership presentation was superb! There was capacity crowd, and it ended with a standing ovation. I salute these men.
ISB is no less than a boot camp I must say. Today turned out to be another cool day, with just one stats quiz. But the next few days are going to be action-packed. Tomorrow we have a quiz on marketing and on Friday we have a midterm exam for Accounting. It’s not even one month since we landed up here, and already we are neck deep in studies.
If the US and India are talking about elections, can ISB be far behind? Today student elections were announced. There would be presidents, vice-presidents etc for different clubs etc. May the most deserving win.
The biggest news on campus these days is chicken pox. Some of the students have been infected and quarantined. Others are scared of catching it. May the force be with us, and I hope they get well soon.
Someone suggested that we should get 7 hours of sleep to prevent catching the pox virus. So am headed to bed now. Damn tomorrow’s quiz. I can’t read 300 pages in one night anyway.
Monday, May 10, 2004
There is an empty feeling today. Everyone was expecting a surprise quiz or something else to disturb our peace, but nothing happened. It was one of the coolest days. Two lectures, no cold calling, no immediate assignments. Wish life was this simple everyday.
Tomorrow however we have a statistics quiz. So some reading to do tonight. Tomorrow we also have a presentation by an Army Officer about his experiences in the world's highest battlefield Siachen. This is supposed to teach us about leadership. My own brother, an Army Officer, has already done Siachen Dobara (twice), so I know a lot about what goes on up there. Compared to what they face, our MBA is a walk in the park.
Lot of you would be thinking that MBA is all work and no play. As I have said before, we do have fun whenever possible, and the work is not all that boring. For example, we had a Flight Simulator software, where we had to manage a low-cost airline company's operations. We could buy new planes, hire or fire employees etc. Final aim was to increase the airline's stock price to as high as possible. It is something that we would love to do even in our spare time.
In my last post, a comment was left asking me to post about international students in our batch. I don't have official figures, but I had heard the adcom people say that between 5 and 10 candidates of foreign origin had been offered admission. I think due to various reasons, only a couple (from Germany and the Middle East) were able to join finally. There are also a few of Indian origin who are US or UK citizens. And there would be many who are permanent residents of US and European countries. The Paki babe, that the commentor wanted to know about, apparently had problems securing an Indian visa, and thus did not join. This is all from grapevine, so take them with a pinch/bowl of salt. I know the Pakistani girl was a big hit among the previous batch when she had come to the campus for interviewing. I guess it's good that she did not come, or else there would have been a brutal fight over her!
Today we received notification of scholarships of HSBC and Citigroup. Probably six scholarships, each worth about $10,000. More details will be made available soon.
Till next time...
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Tomorrow however we have a statistics quiz. So some reading to do tonight. Tomorrow we also have a presentation by an Army Officer about his experiences in the world's highest battlefield Siachen. This is supposed to teach us about leadership. My own brother, an Army Officer, has already done Siachen Dobara (twice), so I know a lot about what goes on up there. Compared to what they face, our MBA is a walk in the park.
Lot of you would be thinking that MBA is all work and no play. As I have said before, we do have fun whenever possible, and the work is not all that boring. For example, we had a Flight Simulator software, where we had to manage a low-cost airline company's operations. We could buy new planes, hire or fire employees etc. Final aim was to increase the airline's stock price to as high as possible. It is something that we would love to do even in our spare time.
In my last post, a comment was left asking me to post about international students in our batch. I don't have official figures, but I had heard the adcom people say that between 5 and 10 candidates of foreign origin had been offered admission. I think due to various reasons, only a couple (from Germany and the Middle East) were able to join finally. There are also a few of Indian origin who are US or UK citizens. And there would be many who are permanent residents of US and European countries. The Paki babe, that the commentor wanted to know about, apparently had problems securing an Indian visa, and thus did not join. This is all from grapevine, so take them with a pinch/bowl of salt. I know the Pakistani girl was a big hit among the previous batch when she had come to the campus for interviewing. I guess it's good that she did not come, or else there would have been a brutal fight over her!
Today we received notification of scholarships of HSBC and Citigroup. Probably six scholarships, each worth about $10,000. More details will be made available soon.
Till next time...
Sunday, May 09, 2004
One of my batchmates had his birthday yesterday, so at midnight we dragged him to the campus swimming pool, and threw him in. This is called dunking, and is part of the ISB culture now.
There are some bystander casualties everytime there is a dunking. So another batchmate, who was standing close to the edge of the pool, was also pushed in. Now he had an expensive digital camera on him, and that went in too. Needless to say, the camera has stopped functioning. By the way, if he is reading this, I was not the one to push him.
We also dunked some of our batchmates who have received admits from the Indian Institutes of Management. The results were declared recently, and there are quite a few among us who have got such offers. Most are sitting on the fence, but at least one of them I talked to said he is going to decline the IIM Ahmedabad offer. No surprises there, as I heard that there are people who have declined Wharton and Stanford to be here. Does ISB rock or what?
As most of you would know, Friends finally came to an end last week. In India they don't telecast the latest episodes, so I will have to wait to see it, although I read that a DVD would be out this week itself. There has been some debate going on regarding Friends being an overhyped series. I tend to agree. There has been a lot of hoopla over nothing. I personally liked Spin City and Raymond better.
Gotta go, will be back soon.
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There are some bystander casualties everytime there is a dunking. So another batchmate, who was standing close to the edge of the pool, was also pushed in. Now he had an expensive digital camera on him, and that went in too. Needless to say, the camera has stopped functioning. By the way, if he is reading this, I was not the one to push him.
We also dunked some of our batchmates who have received admits from the Indian Institutes of Management. The results were declared recently, and there are quite a few among us who have got such offers. Most are sitting on the fence, but at least one of them I talked to said he is going to decline the IIM Ahmedabad offer. No surprises there, as I heard that there are people who have declined Wharton and Stanford to be here. Does ISB rock or what?
As most of you would know, Friends finally came to an end last week. In India they don't telecast the latest episodes, so I will have to wait to see it, although I read that a DVD would be out this week itself. There has been some debate going on regarding Friends being an overhyped series. I tend to agree. There has been a lot of hoopla over nothing. I personally liked Spin City and Raymond better.
Gotta go, will be back soon.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Well, well. I had a little too much fun the last couple of days, and am now way behind schedule in my studies. The whole day today got spent working on a balance sheet and income statement of a fictitous company. I still can't figure out why certain items are debited and others credited. I now have a new-found respect for accountants the world over.
I was talking to one of the guys in my study group, and it turns out that we both studied in the same school, The Army Public School in New Delhi, at the same time. However, there were far too many sections to know everyone.
There is a whole lot of studying to do today and tomorrow. Microeconomics, Statistics, Marketing, Accounting etc. I did not know where to start from. So I went to the library and picked up a couple of Tintin comics. The librarian said that the rest of the Tintins had been checked out by my batchmates. So I am not the only one!
As promised, here's the answer to yesterday's puzzle. To give some background, this goat-car situation was used in game shows in the US in the past, where the contestant had to decide whether doors should be switched.
The answer is that it is advantageous to switch doors. In fact, the probability that the car is behind the other door is 3/4. Let's look at it this way. To start with, the chance is one in four of getting the door with the car, out of the four possible options. After the host reveals what's behind the other two doors, the situation changes. If you decide to switch, you will win in all eventualities except when your original choice of door 1 contained the car. This happens with probability 1 – P(Car behind 1) = 1-1/4 = ¾. Thus, it is to your advantage to switch your choice of door.
Confused? Well, don't lose heart, I got it wrong too!
And if you are wondering how my game of tennis went, it didn't happen. Work-life balance goes out the door when you come to a place called ISB.
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I was talking to one of the guys in my study group, and it turns out that we both studied in the same school, The Army Public School in New Delhi, at the same time. However, there were far too many sections to know everyone.
There is a whole lot of studying to do today and tomorrow. Microeconomics, Statistics, Marketing, Accounting etc. I did not know where to start from. So I went to the library and picked up a couple of Tintin comics. The librarian said that the rest of the Tintins had been checked out by my batchmates. So I am not the only one!
As promised, here's the answer to yesterday's puzzle. To give some background, this goat-car situation was used in game shows in the US in the past, where the contestant had to decide whether doors should be switched.
The answer is that it is advantageous to switch doors. In fact, the probability that the car is behind the other door is 3/4. Let's look at it this way. To start with, the chance is one in four of getting the door with the car, out of the four possible options. After the host reveals what's behind the other two doors, the situation changes. If you decide to switch, you will win in all eventualities except when your original choice of door 1 contained the car. This happens with probability 1 – P(Car behind 1) = 1-1/4 = ¾. Thus, it is to your advantage to switch your choice of door.
Confused? Well, don't lose heart, I got it wrong too!
And if you are wondering how my game of tennis went, it didn't happen. Work-life balance goes out the door when you come to a place called ISB.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Today's stats quiz had an interesting question. It was the following:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of four doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door at random, say number 1. The host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens two other doors, say numbers 3 and 4, which both have a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door number 2?" To answer this, compute now the probability that you will win the car if you decided to switch.
Common sense told me that the probability would be half. In my next post I will tell you if that is correct or not. If you want to dig deeper, google for "Monty Hall Dilemma".
Today everyone is having so much fun that it looks as if we have a term break. I believe it is a well-deserved break after a stressful week. A one-year MBA requires one to put in so much more effort to cover a two-year's course material.
There was a session by an ex-Enron executive today. I did not attend, but heard it was pretty interesting. One thing we all master quickly at ISB is time management. With limited time on hand, we have to prioritise activities. So if we have a window of one hour, we need to decide if we want to prepare for next day's lecture, or work on that long case study, or hit the gym or swimming pool, or attend presentations by key executives of major corporations etc. We just can't have our cake and eat it too. I had planned to play some active sports or work out in the gym everyday, but it has become more like a once a week thing. Anyway, tomorrow I am definitely going to play some tennis, and probably also squash.
Will be back soon.
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Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of four doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door at random, say number 1. The host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens two other doors, say numbers 3 and 4, which both have a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door number 2?" To answer this, compute now the probability that you will win the car if you decided to switch.
Common sense told me that the probability would be half. In my next post I will tell you if that is correct or not. If you want to dig deeper, google for "Monty Hall Dilemma".
Today everyone is having so much fun that it looks as if we have a term break. I believe it is a well-deserved break after a stressful week. A one-year MBA requires one to put in so much more effort to cover a two-year's course material.
There was a session by an ex-Enron executive today. I did not attend, but heard it was pretty interesting. One thing we all master quickly at ISB is time management. With limited time on hand, we have to prioritise activities. So if we have a window of one hour, we need to decide if we want to prepare for next day's lecture, or work on that long case study, or hit the gym or swimming pool, or attend presentations by key executives of major corporations etc. We just can't have our cake and eat it too. I had planned to play some active sports or work out in the gym everyday, but it has become more like a once a week thing. Anyway, tomorrow I am definitely going to play some tennis, and probably also squash.
Will be back soon.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Feeling relaxed now. Assignment submitted, readings done, case analyzed, class participation done. Came back from classes at 7 pm, played some ping-pong, had three-course dinner at the campus dining hall, and am now watching Friends. We have a Stats Quiz tomorrow on Probability, but after going through one of the most difficult days today, tomorrow's work seems like a piece of cake. Will go to sleep by 1 am today, which is very early by ISB standards.
One sad news today was that one member of my six-member study group has decided to leave ISB to join LBS. Sad because we will miss him, but I also feel happy for him. LBS maybe a better fit for him. This reminds me that there are people in our batch who decided to come to ISB over Top 20 US schools, including Kellogg, Duke, CMU etc, and I think also Wharton.
Speaking of LBS, a professor of General Management had last week come from LBS to teach us. He made the lectures extremely interesting, mostly because of his quick wit. I guess he must have received very high feedback rating from all of us.
Tomorrow promises to be a fun day, because we have a three day break after tomorrow. No classes on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Will probably go for a movie tomorrow evening at the local Imax theater. There are lots of assignments, cases and readings to be done for Monday which will keep us busy through these three days.
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One sad news today was that one member of my six-member study group has decided to leave ISB to join LBS. Sad because we will miss him, but I also feel happy for him. LBS maybe a better fit for him. This reminds me that there are people in our batch who decided to come to ISB over Top 20 US schools, including Kellogg, Duke, CMU etc, and I think also Wharton.
Speaking of LBS, a professor of General Management had last week come from LBS to teach us. He made the lectures extremely interesting, mostly because of his quick wit. I guess he must have received very high feedback rating from all of us.
Tomorrow promises to be a fun day, because we have a three day break after tomorrow. No classes on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Will probably go for a movie tomorrow evening at the local Imax theater. There are lots of assignments, cases and readings to be done for Monday which will keep us busy through these three days.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
It's past 3 AM, and there are still miles to go before I can sleep. There was an assignment due, which most of us dropped a little while ago in a drop box in the academic building. The stream of people continues even at this hour. But that's not the end of the story. We need to study five chapters of a marketing book before tomorrow's class, and need to prepare a Fedex case study!
Ok, time to go back to studies.
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Ok, time to go back to studies.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Had to mention this - inspite of the heavy work load, we have already had three big parties. The parties are really great, with lots of beer, good food, and all-night dancing. ISB rocks!
PS: Being new to blogging, am not familiar with the functionalities of this software. I would like to put some links and photographs, but don't have the time to go through help to know how to do it. So if someone who is reading this can help, please mail me at raja155 at hotmail dot com. Thanks.
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PS: Being new to blogging, am not familiar with the functionalities of this software. I would like to put some links and photographs, but don't have the time to go through help to know how to do it. So if someone who is reading this can help, please mail me at raja155 at hotmail dot com. Thanks.
Hello World!
Hi, this is Raja Banerjee, reporting live from the Indian School of Business (ISB) at Hyderabad, India.
I am here to pursue ISB's one-year MBA, so am part of the Class of 2005.
It's been two weeks since I have been here, and it already seems like two months.
We have been having pre-terms so far and it's been busy like hell. I am from an IT background, so it has been all the more difficult for me to assimilate all the statistics and accounting concepts that have raining on us for the past two weeks.
Will be back with more news soon.
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Hi, this is Raja Banerjee, reporting live from the Indian School of Business (ISB) at Hyderabad, India.
I am here to pursue ISB's one-year MBA, so am part of the Class of 2005.
It's been two weeks since I have been here, and it already seems like two months.
We have been having pre-terms so far and it's been busy like hell. I am from an IT background, so it has been all the more difficult for me to assimilate all the statistics and accounting concepts that have raining on us for the past two weeks.
Will be back with more news soon.
