Days @ ISB

I am still having second thoughts about applying to JD Power. There is no time to research the company or industry. If I apply, it will be with a very generic expression of interest. I am also not applying to the Wharton-ISB project because it will require travel to Philly after graduation.
Today I attended a talk by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon. Didn’t find it interesting as I have no interest in biotechnology. After that I attended another talk by a person from KPMG who wants to certify us as Six Sigma Green Belt. I signed up for the training which will be held in December. My company had been insisting on such a training for a long time, so I’ll now find out what all the hoopla about Six Sigma is.
Yesterday night there was a party at the other student village. It was for the birthday celebration of one of my close friends. I had free beer, free kebabs, and nice company – the works. After about ten minutes there, I realized I had to study for the mid-term exam on Wednesday, so while she was not looking, I ducked out of there. It’s so hard to have a sensible social life while at ISB.
I have added a link called atom feed in the sidebar. If you know what it is and how to use it, go ahead and use it.

After a very hectic week, tonight some of us went to a popular nightclub-disco called Bottles & Chimneys. While leaving campus the car wouldn’t start, so we had to arrange for alternate transport. Finally we reached the place at midnight, which is also the official closing time for them. We were able to spend only about 15 minutes there. I don’t understand why the government imposes such rules. The purpose of night clubs is to remain open at night! Afterwards we headed to a restaurant that serves midnight biryani and remains open till 2 am. Now it’s 3:30 am and we are back in campus. Haven’t been sleeping before 3 almost the whole week, and getting up at 7 am. So today I will sleep without putting the alarm.

Apart from assignments, what kept me busy was also reviewing the design and content of the website for the inter b-school contest that ISB is organizing. I anticipate that much of my weekend will go into that helping the web team. I will post the link to it on Sunday evening.

Lots of industry leaders have been visiting ISB of late. Many days there are parallel sessions going on. Yesterday I had dinner with the President of Wipro, who was also visiting ISB. Today there was a talk by a marketing guru from ITC, but I missed it. Heard it was real good. The weekend is also packed with talks. There is a capital markets conference all day Saturday. Let’s see how much time I can spare from the assignments to attend the talks.

Check out the virtual tour of ISB campus at http://www.isb.edu/virtual/index.html .

Past few days have been very busy. We have loads of assignments and group meetings. Have been running around from one meeting to next, finishing up the group assignments.

JD Power Pre-Placement Talk was informative. The work is Market Research, which is also a course I have taken this term. The position is of Manager, which is a high level position in their hierarchy. The job location initially will be Singapore, and the pay package is a handsome one. I might apply.

The five subjects I took this term are Marketing Research, Marketing Implementation, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Indian Financial Systems, and Options and Futures.
All of them are demanding ones, especially the finance ones. For example, the Indian Fin Systems is not just about history of the Indian markets, but a very quantitative subject. You can’t understand Indian Financial Systems without a calculator and a spreadsheet!

One of my batchmates has won the TCS Smart Manager case contest. I will be putting up the report in ISB website soon. ISB team also won a few events at the IIM-Ahmedabad b-school competition. There is another event at IIM-Bangalore where some are going. ISB is gearing up to organize its own inter b-school event called Poseidon next month. Preparations are in full swing.

Check out the MBA journal of my batchmate Shyam at
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/mbajournal/04narayan/1.htm

Yesterday night we had dandiya at ISB. I had no idea how to do this Indian dance, but quickly learnt it, and enjoyed it very much. I will put up a report and photographs on the ISB website soon.

Today a HR manager from EDS had come to train us in interviewing skills and to take some mock interviews. Most of us found the session very boring. Tomorrow a bigshot from TAS is coming to do something similar. I will surely skip that. Have two huge assignments, tons of readings, and need to write a cover letter for applying to Deutsche.

I bought ‘How would you move mount Fuji’ today. This is the book that helps in preparing for Microsoft’s interview. I had been under the impression that Microsoft is interested only in people with background in MS technologies. But some alums working there clarified that background does not matter. So I will give it a shot. I also joined a focus group of Microsoft. I and some fellow students will give our opinion on some of their forthcoming products. Since their office is very near to ISB, it would be easy to do.

My article for Hindustan Times on ISB and MBA will be published in the Delhi edition around the third week of November.

There is another PPT on Monday. It is by JD Power for their Singapore office.

This term the most oversubscribed course was Marketing Implementation. This was because the prof is a highly rated one. So while regular courses had low cutoffs in the vicinity of 250 bidding points, MI went up to 1100. The interesting thing in this course is that it teaches marketing from an Indian perspective. It has case studies on Indian companies like Hindustan Lever. Most of us draw a blank when asked about India. We didn’t know the number of cities or villages, the number of retailers in Chennai etc. In fact, I don’t know the number of states in India, and have difficulty in recalling the Prime Minister and President’s names! On the other hand, I know a lot about the US. So such courses are very welcome!

Lots of things are happening on campus. First there was the Deutsche Bank PPT which kick started the campus recruitment program for our batch. The person giving the presentation had an enviable background – IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, McKinsey India and Switzerland, MS from Harvard, offers from McK, BCG, Goldman, Lehman, Deutsche etc, selected Deutsche. The aim of the talk was to attract people from all backgrounds to investment banking. There was one consistent theme in his talk – come to i-banking because you can become seriously rich if you do so. He bashed MC jobs because they don’t pay well enough, and you don’t rise to responsible positions in as short a time there as you do in i-banking. He also said that the lifestyle is better in i-banking, and you don’t have to work late nights and weekends if you join his division of global markets.
I would probably submit my resume, knowing all too well that I won’t be short listed.
The only way to join an i-bank is to either join it from another i-bank or through campus. So this may be the only opportunity to apply to them.

The other big story on campus is course sampling. Mon and Tue were for sampling the different courses on offer in this term. I attended 7 classes in these two days. Finally I decided to stick with my original course selection. The interesting part is study group formation. We no longer have groups fixed by the administration. So we are free to choose our friends. Lots of mails are floating around where people are seeking members for their groups. I have formed my groups with my closest friends, so life would be easy this term.
Tomorrow we don’t have classes because many people would add/drop courses based on their sampling experience. I am thinking of using this break to go to the city to see Durga Puja.

It has been a busy term break as usual. Busy not because of studies but busy enjoying life. My brother and sis-in-law came visiting me, so I took them around the campus and city.
All good things come to an end, and so has the term break. Tomorrow we start classes.

Tomorrow we also have the pre-placement talk of Deutsche Bank for their international investment banking positions. This will be the first ppt for our batch. Only after listening to them I'll decide if I want to apply. Need to fine-tune my resume too.

The new http://www.isb.edu/ site is up and running now. The campus buzz section has two stories about people from my(erstwhile) section D, thanks to a certain someone from our section doing the write-ups and being in the website team (Hint: me, me, me). So while there were lots of sports events, the only one to get publicity was the one where we won! All the sports pics had been taken by me too. Also, this year’s admissions brochure has only one picture of students from our batch, and that one is of our section on black t-shirt day, taken by me. As for the site itself, there are quite a few issues with wrong spellings and broken links. I am sure these will be ironed out soon.

This term onwards there will be no fixed seating layouts. So I can choose to sit in the last row or with my friends etc. We need to carry our name tags along with us because of this.

Yesterday exams got over – what a relief! Immediately after the exam I headed out to the city to get away from all the studies. Saw the movie Bride and Prejudice. Didn’t like it. Too many song and dance sequences.
Today morning went to play golf. Came back and started working my way through the hundreds of emails that have piled on in my outlook during the exam period.
Today evening I’ll be going out for dinner with my study group. We need to decide between Ohri's, Hyderabad House and Taj Krishna.
Tomorrow on behalf of ISB I need to write a piece for the Hindustan Times on the value of an MBA. Having a writer’s block already.
This Friday again we have a campus visit program for prospective students. I will be present to answer questions and show them around the campus.
Every time I return to campus from the city, it strikes me how much of an island the campus is. It’s a luxury resort, an oasis of peace, far removed from the mad traffic of the city. The feeling is just like returning to the US from India. Except that instead of a flight, it is by an autorickshaw.

Hurray! Got all the subjects I had bid for. The bid clearing prices went high, which means I will have less points in future terms - winner's curse!

Exams start tomorrow. This time out of the four courses, there’s only one that needs serious study – Investment Analysis. The rest all are of the type that can be answered using common sense. So I would be going into these exams with no preparation at all. These are Strategic Analysis of IT, Management of Organizations and Government, Business & Society.

Here's an applicant's blog http://sathyaraj.blogspot.com/ . I met him in Chennai a month back. It's always fun to read applicant's blogs. There was one last year by I think someone called Tad Holbie, where he had put up pics from all the campuses he had visited, and kept updating people about his progress with the applications.
Today whole day got wasted thinking and rethinking about what electives to take, and how much points to bid. Finally I submitted whatever my close friends were submitting.
After a long time I put on the TV tonight. Such urges come only before exams. Saw The Apprentice. It was about running Planet Hollywood's restaurant in Times Square, NYC. I have been to that restaurant, so it brought back memories. Who knows, six months from now I might be eating there again!

Queen’s School of Business has topped the businessweek international b-school rankings this year. Should I have taken up their offer? Not sure! The biggest reason I did not go there was the lack of good placements, and that problem still exists.

Tomorrow is the final bidding day, and am still in doubt which subjects to choose for next term. I might take three Fin and two Marketing courses, and schedule most of them in the morning.
End-term exam is on Mon and Tue. Lot of studying to do in the next three days.
Today was our last core term class. I had suggested to the sec reps that all sections wear their respective section T-shirts today for a group photo. They did, and it was quite a sight. Four different T-shirts, red, blue, black and a different black. The campus looked so colorful!

We are halfway through the program at this stage. Six more months left. This term gets over early next week, and with it the core terms will come to an end. Next four terms will be electives, and so new sections will be formed for each course. Tonight we have our section D party to mark the last days of togetherness as a section. Some interesting games are lined up for the party. One involves giving roses to our crushes. Another is a treasure hunt. And the most interesting would be the one where we will be tested on how well we know our group mates. Apart from these, there will be chicken kebabs, good music etc, so looking forward to a great time!

I finally pulled out of the ELP (Experiential Learning Project). It was a strategic project for the Admissions Department, and would have been very interesting, especially because I had got a great team with me. But it would also have required a lot of hours on weekends and term break. After a lot of thought, I took this hard decision.
This decision provided instant gratification. Yesterday when I was playing badminton, most of the other students were sweating it out working on their ELPs!
Today we had a dry run of the new elective bidding system. I bid for five courses for the next term, and got four of them. Am on the waiting list for the fifth one. It was hard to decide which courses to take, with many interesting ones lined up. I finally opted for three marketing and two finance courses. Tuesday we have the actual bidding, and I have to devise a strategy to win all my courses. One interesting thing is that we can also bid for the time slots. I am not a morning person, so I gave higher preference to getting late-morning or afternoon classes.

Yesterday I along with some batchmates participated in a campus visit program for prospective students. The prospective students were shown a presentation and a video, and then we took them around the campus. It reminded me of my campus visits in US last year.