Thursday, July 29, 2004

The classes in this term are too good. I am not a guy interested in operations but the Managerial accounting and Operations classes are very interesting. The professors are from Kellogg and they are very good in developing intuitions.

One thing I can be sure is that what they are teaching is the latest in the industry. I have read some issues about the problems in cost accounting in manufacturing firms and these classes hit that problems in the very beginning. So these classes are not going to be mundane, teaching the assets and liabilities but focus on bottomline improvement.

Coming to Biswajit's question -  Sun Micro offers solutions manager and customer engagement manager positions. Verizon offers project manager and program manager roles. Verizon has also called for fresh graduates last year but I am not sure of the positions offered to them. Students with around three years of experience get BD or program management roles.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Yesterday there was a mail from an alumni to the student batch. Our batch is supposedly concentrating too much on the grades and the mail advised us to concentrate on networking and other aspects in addition to grades. I do believe that grades tell nothing about us to the recruiter unless we are top 15% or so.

Tonight I have convened a meeting to discuss about the placement policies. The companies coming to the ISB mostly look for experienced peoples and they do iterate about their expectations while calling for applications. This would automatically reduce the number of applications but companies such as MCKinsey, BCG etc do attract very large number of applications, which may indicate the absence of focus among students. CAS is desperately trying to reduce the number of offer wastages. Students are afraid that they may become guinea pigs. Lets see how this goes.

For me, anyway the options are limited. I want to go back to IT and all the IT companies coming for campus don't necessarily accept students with less than three years of experience. For example, I think verizon asked for students with more than 4 years of experience and Sun asked for more than five. 

Monday, July 26, 2004

Am back After a long time ...
 
I went to my hometown, Pollachi and had a nice term break.

Today I had entrepreneurship class. I don't have any other classes today but have a lot to read for tomorrow.

In this term, I have corporate finance, Managerial accounting and Operations along with entrepreneurship. I have a positive feeling towards this term. The markets are bullish and I am positive about the placements too.

As a PLACOM representative, I am planning to meet all my placom babies before this Wednesday. Knowing each of them personally would be very helpful during the placement process. The new PLACOM policies, especially the cap of ten companies that one could apply, has a created  a storm of reactions in the campus. PLACOM has to solve these issues before starting to work on training and tiering.

Ok. That's it for today.

 

Thursday, July 15, 2004

It is Exam Time ...

Exam fever is at the peak. Everyone is seen roaming with a book. I don't think I will be able to blog before next wednesday.

Finally we have drafted placement policies. We have restricted the number of offers to two. We have also put a constraint that one can apply to a maximum of 10 companies per tier.

Let me start my exam preperation.

Monday, July 12, 2004

It is raining here ... I am just sitting near the window and watching the rain. Yesterday I watched two more movies. Now I think its time to start studying for the end-term.

In Placom, we are discussing about the placement policies. Policies have been given by CAS and we are brainstorming on them. I will disclose the policies once it is published for all students.

I am going home during this term-break. I think life will turn hectic next term onwards.

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Just one more week to go...

The end-term exams are on next Monday and Tuesday. This term went very fast and was very relaxing. I really enjoyed this term both in terms of learning and relaxing.

Today I watched "12 Angry men" and "Life is beautiful". Both are good movies.

The finance club here arranged sessions about budget. The pre-budget session was good. I was unable to attend the session on the budget day. Tomorrow there will be post-budget discussions by a panel of veterans from different industries. The budget is bad for me with my stocks going down (25% loss). I started my first trade at a bad point - the day before election. So you can know now why I have such a huge loss.

But, overall, I am happy with the budget. I am confident about PC and Manmohan and I am happy that the country is ruled by educated economists.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Yesterday I was not able to sleep properly. I watched the movie "Pulp Fiction" and went to bed late. I dreamt of roaming in the beach, alone in the night, with turbulent waves. I was disturbed by the dream and searched in the internet for dream analysis. It said that turbulent waves symbolize mixed and confusing emotions in my mind. It also explained that the dream could reflect exploring my "own unconscious" in a spiritual way. Somehow the dream disturbed me.

Today morning, my Mother called me in the phone and scolded for not calling her. From the day I have come to the ISB, the link between me and the external world has been cut. Thank god, I don't have any girl friend. I have noticed my friends finding hard to allot time to call their girl friends inspite of the busy schedule.

Note: In my previous post, I wrote that Prof. Vohra was from Wharton. Actually, he is from Kellogg. Sorry for the mistake.



Sunday, July 04, 2004

Today we had the launch of Aikya. Today I got up late due to yesterday's party threw by my team mates ( We won in Markstrat and hence the party). Then rushed to the Aikya launch. Aikya is a program where each study group will be allotted a family in Hyderabad. This will make sure that we develop relationship with the family and understand the culture of Hyderabad.

The family allotted to our group was not able to come today and so we may meet on some other day this week. We were joking that we have become orphans ( Arpan shah became Orphan shah and Animesh kumar became Anaadh kumar).

Tomorrow Jagmohan's class will discuss about the key learnings from Markstrat. We have two new profs coming this week to handle the remaining classes of DMO and Competitive Strategy.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Monday is the last class for prof. Jagmohan Raju. He was a wonederful professor. His timely wits and deep knowledge in the subject blended together to give a great experience. Prof. Vohra, Prof. Raju, Prof. Anjani Jain ... all profs from Wharton are good. I envy Wharton guys.

I spend time watching movies. Yesterday I watched "My cousin Vinny" and "Airplane". "My cousin Vinny" is really a classic comedy. It also emphasizes that grades are now way related to performance in the job. :) A way to console myself for my poor grades.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Just now finished the Global Eco mid-term. Yesterday I got the Grade for Micro Eco. Micro is the only exam in which I performed above average. This term I have to pick-up.

Our group is doing well in Markstrat. Usually our group assignments won't work but this time it is rocking. May be experience effect !!

Sometimes we don't notice the repercussions our actions could create. We had a case about a projector company that wrongly signalled Sony that it is going to compete in Sony's market. This signal was untentional and completely wrong. The company had no idea of competing in Sony's competence. Prof. Jagmohan dealt the case very well and it was like reading a suspense story. Now, coming to the point, the same kind of signalling has happenned in case of Regular reader. I never intended to be nasty in yahoo groups but some of my messages has made him think so. I ought to be careful in my blog and forums !!