This is the best time of the year, the season I look forward to the whole year. After months of heat comes the wonderful rains and everything turns beautiful, it becomes cooler. And Mumbai looks the most beautiful in the rains, inspite of all the mud and puddles, and the train delays and those thousand problems that this season brings. There is nothing as wonderful as sitting on the Marine Drive when it is raining, the high waves splashing…How I miss Mumbai in rains!!!

But, it isn’t all that bad here in Hyderabad. Its been dark and cloudy for some days and it drizzles sometimes. And the most wonderful part of being here in rains is that the peacocks start screaming the minute it starts raining. There is a huge neem tree a lil away from my window, which is home to a group of peahens and a peacock and a koyal. So, whenever, it seems like its going to rain, the Koyal and the peacocks start screaming, and its so wonderful to hear them. I just keep looking out of the window, in the hope that maybe the peacock will start dancing, but it hasn’t happened yet. Sometimes, I feel I should have been a peacock, I become as happy as they do when it starts raining. I can’t ever be sad when its raining, I just find the rains so beautiful and awesome. This, definitely is the best time of the year!!!

Today was the first day of term 2 and what a day it has been. It started with a competitive strategy class which discussed the case of the cola wars. Pre-reading for this class took quite some time as we had to prepare the case. Seems all the classes will be like this, case discussions in all the classes for which preparation before hand is required. We are also required to prepare a project focusing on strategy of a particular company that we select. More details, I guess, would be provided in the lectures to come.

Second was the Macro economics class. I have never really liked macro economics. I hope it grows on me like statistics. How I miss Bob Stine and Waterman’s classes!!!

And then had to prepare for tomorrow’s class (Marketing Management and Decision Modelling and Optimization). DMOP is the most dreaded course in the entire syllabus, will meet it tomorrow to know just how bad it is. As for Marketing, we would be playing a game called MARKSTRAT, which, I have heard from seniors takes up a lot of time. Right now, I have to read one chapter from Kotler.

And I have to submit a 1000 word write-up on Self assessment on effective leadership for the LDP course by tomorrow. I should have done it last week, but I was too lazy. The long break did seem to do a lot of good. But now we are again back to the hectic schedule and it just doesn’t feel like today was the first day of the term.

Last week was just wonderful with absolutely nothing to do. I had a LDP session on Thursday, so couldn’t go home. But, it was great being in campus and having absolutely nothing to do. It has become cooler here and there its always breezy. So, it was a wonderful time to walk around and explore the campus. Also, watched a lot of movie. And then had a one-day people skill workshop as part of LDP. Earlier, we had filled up a psychometric test consisting of 130 question. During the workshop, got a feedback on the same and also did some group activities to basically observe how we function as part of the group. I did not find it as useful as I had expected it to be.

We have another round of elections coming up, this time for various clubs. Also, CAF (Centre for Analytic Finance) is hosting a one-day banking conference this Sunday.

Last week, I also attended a seminar on “Informed trading, Information Asymmetry and Pricing of Information Risk’ by Pradeep Yadav

Thats all on the first day of Term 2. Hope this term is not as killing as the first one

In Game theory, signaling is a strategy by which Sellers send buyers signals that convey information about a product’s quality. In the labor market, education is a strong signal. So, education might not really improve my productivity as a employee, but it is an important signal to the employer. So, is that all an MBA is about? A signaling strategy that we would use to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the crowd. Or is there actual learning involved in it? Since the time I have come here, I have wondered how much am I actually learning? Am I making the most of this opportunity? How important are grades? Do grades enhance learning or do they hamper learning? Should most of my efforts be towards scoring better grades? Can there be a balance such that good grades and learning both happen together? And what about other extra-curricular activities? Will I really be a better decision maker at the end of this one year or am I just doing this as a signaling strategy. Hopefully, all my questions will be answered.

For some classes, we have grades for Class Participation (CP). So, there is CP and then there is Arbit CP (wherein people talk just for getting points). And today, a classmate coined the term Desperate CP. DCP is when you have just 2 classes left and your CP points are way below average. So, you want to make the most the class by talking a lot. Today’s marketing was fun, with people raising their hands almost all the time and saying things which didn’t make much sense. And after some time, it stops being funny and starts becoming annoying. The discussion goes off track just because people want to say something only to improve their CP marks. The whole ‘discussion in class for a better perspective’ argument is good, but there has to be some control on it. We are a class of 75 people and if everyone wants to say something, then the whole of 2 hours would be spent doing that. Some points are good, but some are just examples picked up from Kotler. That’s when I want to tell them that I can very well read the book, I am in the class to hear something new and if you can’t say something new, please let the Professor speak. Your one point on CP is not worth wasting 75 people’s time. The last marketing class, I am sure, would be a chaos.

Today, the stats mid term marks were declared. The marks for Economics and Accounts were declared earlier. I heard someone say that they should declare all the marks on the same day. Bad news should be given together. Zor ka jhatka ek saath.

I have started spending more time in the library these days. And after seeing my stats marks today, I realised I should have started doing that earlier. I have my thumbnail session tomorrow for the student profile book, which will go to the recruiters. So, I have to write in 10 sentences how I dramatically improved everything in my earlier organization and how wonderfully brilliant I am The photo shoot was done earlier last week. It felt a little odd to be wearing a suit when the temperature outside was at least 35 degrees.

We have a ‘just out of the bed’ theme for tomorrow’s class. So, I can again get up at 8 for a 8.15 class, but not be late this time

Life, here at ISB, is going on as usual. We are almost nearing the end of term 1. After the Statistics class today, I realised we had just one more Stats class, and that made me kinda sad. I am so enjoying it and I look forward to it so eagerly.

I started my week by getting late for the very first class on a Monday morning I got up at 8 for a 8.15 class, was late by 10 minutes. The economics class is going good too. We are doing game theory. I did read up a bit on it and it is quite interesting. But I have yet to read more on it and really understand it. Tomorrow is the marketing class and I am yet to read the case study. Prof. Piyush Kumar is yet another amazing professor, he has some great insights. And his analysis of the Virgin Mobile case in the last class was amazing.
There have been few soap-boxes, where people who are running for various student body posts put forth their views and vision, which is followed by a Q & A session. I haven’t really been impressed by any of them. Most of it sound like empty talk, with hardly any concrete ground. Maybe I am overly skeptical, maybe these people do make a difference. I guess I will find out during the course of the year.
One more thing I have noticed is that some people are so over opinionated. They have to put forth their opinions, whether it is relevant or not. But, at times, when it really matters, they don’t. I mean, it is easy to reply on a mail which is condemning something / someone and further condemn the same thing / person. But when it comes to a particular individual in a group who might be disturbing smooth working of the group, people generally take the easy way out of just letting be. Maybe, again, just my opinion and maybe I would be proved wrong. Or maybe, I have a different way of acting/ reacting. To each his own. At the end of one year, I am sure I will come out as a much tolerant person. That’s one good thing about working on group projects. Speaking of which, we have another one due this Friday and one more (last for the term) due Monday.

I was reading a blog sometime back, where the blogger said something about the rest of her life beginning right now. Makes so much sense. The rest of my life starts now, and am I excited or what!!!