First day in class

Preterm sessions really helped in getting adjusted to sitting in a class for 2 hrs listening to someone while attempting not to fall asleep.

But the first day in Term 1 has been quite a good experience. It was amazing to see how a prof explained what maximization is using the example of reaching the top of a mountain. In the process he also explaing what a derivative is. The other class was not that simple and most of the class spent at least thirty min in explaining to each other after the class got over.

Sitting in the last row is certainly has a very good advantage - you can see everyone in the class without bending your neck. Certain people seem to have the knack of catching the attention of prof and asking questions after questions. I am really lagging behind. I don't know if I am able to understand everything right away or I am so confused that I can't clearly state what question I have.

Heard from others that there has been lot of arbit CP and there are already couple of mails in our section requesting people not to do so in our class. I have to wait and see how many would stick to that. But our section seems to be focused on studies and I feel I am in good company.

The most boring world cup ends in the most boring way

It was no where near any of the previous world cup finals. It rained even on the day of final and the match was reduced to 38 overs a side and then later bad light was offered to batsmen, batsmen accepted and Australians started celebrating. Mcgrath had to put back the stump that he might have pulled out to keep as a souvenir of the last match he played. After that I didn't see the ending as it was too obvious.

Australia did what they planned to do - shatter Srilanka bowling and put on a great score. Srilanka did have a decent start until both Jayasurya and Sangakkara got out in quick succession.

But yesterday was not all that depressing. We had an excellent party on the campus. Nidhi Reddy organized the party and I think 80% of the Class turned up. Lots of music and lots of dancing for me. After the party I had spent almost two hrs with Mr. R discussing various topics. After a long time I had an open discussion with a new person. My complex way of thinking is getting more and more clear to me. I really don't know how to deal with it. Is it good, is it OK or is it not so?

Anyway have loads of reading to catch up. See you in a short while

Music, books, problems, party, pre-reading, calendar

That's the sequence my mind is following. Music is running while pages are being flipped, problems are discussed but the party schedule is on the calendar, pre-reading looks ok but the calendar looks completely choked.

I think my mind is following the Markov's chain, none of these states are transient. Sleep and food are the ony ones that are recurrent. Only absorbent states are whether I canreach my goal or not.

Term 1 begins

Last year around the same time I started my journey towards ISB. The first step was to figure out what is GMAT, can I manage to get a good score in it, how much preparation is needed and can someone reliable help me and so on.

And now again I am trying to figure out what kind of effort is needed from me, would I be able to cope with it, what do I do to be prepared and is there someone who can help me and so on. I have started feeling that may be getting in was easy, getting out wouldn't be. But hope prevails considering that so many others have gone through similar thing and succeeded.

Was browsing through the term one books and found them very interesting. Hope I will have enough time to go through all of them in detail.

When I was doing my diploma, I always dreamt of being an entreprenuer but offlate I was thinking about ideas that can impact society in a positive while being profitabe. Today in one of the briefings the same thing came out in a different form called Social Venture. This is one area I would like to spend some time on during this valuable one year.

Tomorrow is the world cup final. Never has been another world cup that has been so boring and predictable. I predicted right at the beginning that Australia, New zealand, Srilanka and South Africa would reach semis and that Australia and Srilanka would reach the final. And a day before the final I predict that Srilanka is going to take the cup

Muralidharan is going to play a great part and the way Jayawardene played in semis makes me feel that he is peaking at the right time. But overall the world cup has been a big flop. Even Mandira looks bored, the excitement on her face is gone and she appears like a DD news reader.

It's time for me to grab a bite and get immersed into the books. Bye for now

Midnight dunking begins

Till now lots of dunking has already happened but the first midnight dunking for the class of 2008 happened yesterday. It was A's Birthday and a mail was sent by N to all the Hyderabadi gang. After circulating about 15 mails it was confirmed that we would meet at G's place, which is below A's birthday. About 15 of us reached there, rang the bell and took A in dunking procession. A was very graceful, though he was not comfortable he never resisted. After A it was the turn of his spouse Ch.

Along with the B'day boy three others got arbit dunked. Most hilarious was that of KC. AN is more or less the official photographer of sec E and Hyderabad gang. He has a nice camera. Some pics:

Preterm starts

I have taken two preterm courses. The first sessions happened yesterday and it took me about 4 hrs of reading and referncing to make some sense out of what happened.

Before coming to ISB I was reading Jared Diamond's book - Collapse. It mainly dealt with ecosystem, economy and human adaptation. After reading that I was a little worried as I don't see any ecology except human dwellings near the place I live. But after coming to ISB that concern is gone as I got to see lots of sparrows, lizards, many other birds, Peacocks and peahens, wild rabbits and so on.

It's a nice thing to have a peacock or peahen roaming behind your studio and you can sit there watching it quietly through the glass door.

The heat is catching up in Hyderabad and yesterday I felt that the summer has actually got started. It was hot and the sun was blazing. It's almost 8:30 and I need to close this post here.

It's a great feeling

When some put in so much of effort for others whom they even don't know well, I don't know why, I feel the touch of humanity. The unselfish, no motive work evokes a great emotion.

That's what I felt about the effort put in by the Class of 2007 in the orientation week for us, Class of 2008. All of these alums have been placed and would have had a so many other things to catch after the hectic year at ISB, but they instead chose to be here with us and help us to get inducted into ISB.

It was also great to see all the talent ISB has recruited this year. There are great artists who can sing, dance, play instruments and write and direct creative skits.

ISB also has been very successful in attracting more experienced people. This year there are about 70 students with more than 8 years while there were about 40 of them last year. In the general management club informal session the whole discussed around two topics - Leadership Programs and Executive Placement.

I have more or less made up my mind that I will join just two clubs - General Management club and the consulting club. I would like to invite as many senior people as possible for the speaker series. That way it would add value to the students and also would give a glimpse of ISB to the external world.

I am pretty happy with my decision to join ISB, in fact I would say thrilled, after meeting my batchmates. But as usual there are some studs and I hope they stick to the extra curricular activities. Lots of parties have been happening around but I have decided to get my complete sleep as the preterms are about to start from Monday.

It's really difficult to remember what is decriptive statistics and what is inferential statistics but I'm slowly getting in to the grove. Wish me best of Luck people.

The journey begins

One of the goals that I have identified before joining at ISB is to play whatever is possible. Today I started that. As a part of the orientation we had played football and frisbie tournament. I am in E section and I think I have got fantastic section mates. We reached the semis in Football and we woun outright over the other two sections in the frisbie matches.

We had an alum who did a quick coaching and strategy in the middle when we are appearing to be loosing the lead. It worked wonders and after that we never looked back. I contributed my part by plying in both the matches and scoring one point in each. Overall it was a hectic day calling for both mental and physical attention and there is more now.

Also the dunking ritual has started with three guys from Sec E getting dunked. It included Arun from our Hyderabad gang.

I am slowly settling in and getting adjusted to hectic schedule. The day here is atleast three times more hectic than what it was at work.

I met Abhishek from 07 batch who is joining Mercer Management Consulting. He offered to support me in getting more details about Mercer HR consulting in India.

Team Building

Finally I had an opportunity to be a participant in a Team Building program. The program has been organized by the Alum from Co 2007 and was very well done. We had Jam, Ashraf and Dipti facilitating the activities for 36 of us. We had lots of fun, lots of physical activities and some gyan.

I have uploaded few pics on flickr. Check them out.

The internet speed here is very good and the HP nx 7300 is very good. Another hectic day awaits me tomorrow and I need to figure out some time to post about couple of topics that I mentioned earlier.

Orientation blues

3 days of orientation and lots of muscles and bones paining in the body. First it was the amount of information that is needed to be absorbed after the relocation adjustments, second the going through the physical grill of searching the treasure hunt clues by running around the campus in about an hour.

But all in all it was quite exciting. Finally I could meet my study group mates - 5 of them, quite enthusiastic and with lots of energy levels. There is one doctor in the group too, seems to be lot of diversity.

The nominations for the GSB core group are to be submitted by tomorrow and I already saw about 5 of them with papers in hand pleading everyone else to sign in support of them. Good for them and good for me. I don't think I would have the mindspace to get into any full time resposibility keeping in mind the goals that I have set for myself.

That's all for now, need to get ready for the full day team building program planned for today, hope it will be cloudy.

Reporting from ISB Hyderabad computer Lab

Finally the wait is over. I landed at ISB at 9:00 AM, checked in Student Village 1. Managed to finish the registration process by 12 noon, had lunch at Goel Dining Hall, received the laptop from the vendor and handed over the same to IT dept for configuration. Managed to find the computer lab and the first thing I've decided to do is write this post.

Lots of things happened in the last few weeks. Let me list down the titles of the two posts that I wanted to write based on what happened in the last few days, so that I don't forget them:

1. Right drivers for right performance and behavior - Indian Cricket as a case

2. Why most of my classmates from IT background crib about HR department? My experience and insights from a HR point of view.

That's all for now. Need to catch up with some sleep. Experience here till now has been very good but I can see that those who came late are standing in queue and waiting for their turn. I'm sure they wouldn't be delighted, but it's a part of the game.

The class size this year has been increased to 450 from last year's 418 and I'm in section-E. That's all for now.

Will be off for few days

I am shifting all my stuff my relatives place and from tomorrow I will not have internet access till 14th April, which is the date of joining at ISB.

Till then bye and Cheers to you all

Last working day at office

Today will be my last working day at office. Officially I will be relieved on 9th but I don't think I will be doing any work on that day.

I started working way back in 1994 and since then it has been a tireless tirade. The first job as Sales officer with a publication company ended unceremoniously but after that every job change had been a very well thought and planned one.

I could manage all those changes with relative ease as the change was only for me. It feels a little odd to think that will not be working from 10th and also that I will not get paid. For the first time, I am full time into studies again after my Diploma. I really look forward for this college experience, something I have definitely missed.

ISB would be a interesting place with so many types of people. One of my learning goal is to understand so many diverse individuals and their motives.

Some of my goals at ISB are:
1. Know as many great people as possible
2. Establish a global network. Increase size and scope of my planet.
3. Reinvent myself
4. Develop and implement a Health Management Plan- Physical, Mental and Spiritual, as defined by WHO
5. Write papers/articles
6. Decide what exactly I'm going to do - immediately after ISB and long-term, both
7. Relax and Enjoy. Though a lot has ben said about the schedules and the pressure at ISB, I personally feel I am going to enjoy as I would be doing something I love - Learn, learn and learn
8. Play - whatever is possible at ISB
and I'm sure I would find few more.

BPO experience - How would ISB view it?

One of my former colleague at Ivy (Party Gaming) posed me a question, which is:

"Quality work experience is the operative word used by ISB to judge you AND that working in a BPO industry would not cut much ice on ur application. Your comments please!!

My response:
I wouldn't agree at all with that statement. It's not where you've worked and how long you've worked. Management education would benefit all those who have a Business view about everything. In that light BPO is an emerging business with lot of new opportunities to innovate. It has its own advantages and challenges. If one understands them clearly and contributes in an innovative manner not only at the level and department they are working but also to the overall organization based on a sound Business perspective, it would be a great qualification for them to get selected for any good B-school.

Some different type of questions you can ask yourself to check if you are making a difference:

1. If you leave your current job and want to join the same company again, say after 6 months, would they rehire you?
2. Does your boss give you additional responsibilities regularly?
3. Does your team ask you for your perspective?
4. How well do you know about your organization? Do you how one of the support department runs and what could be their challenges?
5. If you can change one thing that would impact your Business in a big way and in a sustained manner, what would it be?
6. If you don't turn up to office one day, would others miss you? What would they miss you for?

These only some questions I keep asking myself to check if I am adding value to my employer.

ISB Hyderabad Alum meet

We, Hyderabad ISB admits for 07-08 have got into a habit of regular meets and this time for a change we have been invited by the alumni to ISB for an Alum meet. The whole thing is organized by Sagar Agrawal, Co2006.

As expected most of Hyderabad admits turned up sharp at 5 PM. Initially there were only few alum but slowly they trickled in. We had a round of intros. We had one alum from the founding batch and most of the others were from 2005 and 2006 batch. Surprisingly some of them could remember me and even recalled ongo-pongo. While I was with Middle Earth Consultants, Hyderabad, for three years consecutively, from year 2003, we had conducted some team building activities for the incoming batches and I was a coordinator cum facilitator for one group. It always happened in April and in blazing sun.

Nitin, principal consultant, Middle Earth is regularly in Newspaper articles these days. Last Sunday it was in Times of India, it even carried my picture (read my previous pot - http://meyouandwe.blogspot.com/2007/03/two-more-weekends.html) and this Saturday it was in the local daily - Eenadu. Both of them were about outbound and adventure based training.

From what I know there will be about 425 students this time at ISB. Last year it was 418. I also had a look at the studio apartment. Couple of others who accompanied me were not so thrilled but I found it good enough. I can understand their feeling after listening to so much praise for the ISB infrastructure.

The Andhra Bank loan process is completed. I was little happy to note that the interest rate is hiked only by 0.25% this year despite a lot of increase in rates for other loans including home loans. ISB's tie-ups are pretty good and I'm sure ISB must have assured all these banks so that they can provide loan without collateral, which makes life very easy.

I'm expecting that the average GMAT scores of admits this year may increase a little from last year's 705 or may be to 710 or stat at 705. Nevertheless the competition this year was much more than last year. As one of the current batch student blogged, every incoming batch is becoming better than the previous batch. The alum from the founding batch, Mr. Kamal Narang who runs Capmark in Hyderabad, was mentioning that people had even doubts whether there was at least a building existent and some of them managed to sneak in wearing safety helmets pretending as site engineers.

Another I have done is creating a flickr account to upload all the pics. The link is http://flickr.com/photos/7618008@N06/441571903/