Senthil’s Page
This is not just another bloody WordPress.com weblog!! What were you thinking eh?Archive for MBA Days
Done being a student!
With the end of this month, I would no longer be a student anymore. (Well, lets assume I don’t get crazy enough to go ahead and do my PhD or something like that!). Now you might be curious to know how I feel about the whole thing. Well, I myself cannot figure out how I feel about the whole thing. I mean, I just woke up the day after my last presentation we made for CAPSIM like it was just another day. It didn’t somehow hit me that I can no longer be a student. Strange.
But when I look back at how I felt when I was done with school, I felt the same – Nothing!. But years later, every time I think about school, I always get nostalgic and never fail to smile. ‘School days are the best’, I’d tell myself. And again, I somehow feel this is exactly how I’m going to feel about college years from now, when I hang my laptop on my shoulder, carry files in hand and fake a smile for a foreign client from whom I expect to fetch my company millions in dollars. I just hope those days aren’t any day near. Yearning to go back in time can be killing! Let that feeling take its own sweet time to reach me.
Having said I have done classroom-studying, I’ll never let my need to keep learning leave me ever. What’s there to outside one’s classroom far outnumbers what one learnt in class. And as I prepare myself to jump across frames that will transform me from being a student to an employee (a businessman later in life), there are things to be done, habits to be changed and people to be thanked. Since the list can get long, please bear with me!
I cannot but start thanking some of the most nicest teachers I have studied under in Christ School, Bangalore. Starting with Sr. Sagaya Mary (Taught me maths in Standard Two), Mr. Baby Philip, Mrs. Shashikala, Mrs. Amita Chaturvedi, Mrs. Latha Renji and Mr. Pandey. I guess if not for them, I would be less competent in one way or another. And then I must thank Mrs. Mariyamma, my accounting lecturer in Christ Junior College. My professors at Alliance Business Academy, where I did my BBM, always believed in me and have played a key role in my academic life. I cannot, but thank Prof. Ray Titus for his wonderful lectures in Services Management and Strategy, that I remember until today. The list is absurdly long when it comes to my Ohio University Christ College MBA professors whom I love and respect. Thanks to Dr. Raghu Iyer, Dr. Amalendu Jyotishi, Dr. Venkatesha Bhagavat, Dr. John Schermerhorn, Dr. Felicia Morgan, Dr. Dinesh Iyer, Dr. Jayanta Sen and Mrs. Gayathri (Placement Officer). I am really going to miss the office staff in Ohio Christ.
I met some of my best friends while being a student. Though I’ve lost contact with a lot of these people, they still mean a lot to me – Fijo Paulson, Dhanush Jose, Derrin Joseph, Asma Rafeeq, Sharan Sridhar, Soumya Madhavan Soumya R, Ninal Joseph, Nandini Narayan, Jiji John, Sachin R, Ammar Khan, Krishna Murthy, Vinay Chetan, Nimisha Saha, Nayanshi Shaw, Preethi Paul, Shalini Kashinath and Salma Raheem. I am so sure I’ve missed out a lot of names. If you are among them, my apologies. I really wish I could throw you all a party for being such good friends of mine!
As I start my career, in an not-so-awesome fashion in a not-so-good recession ridden economy, I am nervous and excited. Years from now, as I look back to tomorrow, I just hope I can say to myself – ‘I’ve come a long way!’
Love
Sen
Last day of my MBA Program
Its 8.42 am to be precise. On a Wednesday morning, as I type this post, my team members are preparing for the last presentation we would be making as MBA students scheduled at 9.00 am. Since we are the first team to go to the podium, we reached college early and began rehearsing. Now all we have to do is wait till Ershad, our senior from Batch 11 and someone else (who we still not sure) is going to be here to judge our presentation. Since we are going to be called in any minute. I’ll stop here. More to come in less than 90 minutes. Stay tuned. Since its my last day in college, I have a lot to rant and cry about! Lol
Love
Sen
MBA Placements
Some of our worst fears are coming true lately. We are completing our MBA program in a couple of days and a large number of us are yet to get a job. We have been two trends in the job market this year – Companies are outright not hiring or are willing to hire one or two students at half of what they used to previously pay. Thanks the global economic crisis and reduced demand that most of the companies are now suffering from.
Very few students have been lucky enough to get jobs. Currently, as I write this, 4 students out of 100 have been placed with less than 3 weeks left before we complete our MBA program. We, as students are pretty much stuck in the middle. We have to decide between accepting meagre salaries in not-so-good companies or wait for bigger companies. You can successfully argue for both.
In the time to come, I guess each one of us need to work and have a lot of patience. The best thing for us to do now is to do our best to get employed in the first place. A time will come (shortly!) when we can get choosy again. Until then, we should keep our expectations a bit low!
Wish us luck!
Love
Sen
Working With Teams
Like I always keep telling people who ask me about one of the biggest challenges of pursuing an MBA program, “There’s no bigger challenge than working in groups” Now I don’t want to be sounding like its a big pain to be working with people. But at the same time, I don’t want to paint a rosy picture. I’ve had my own share of fun & problems, but at times the scales might tilt slightly towards the problems side.
In almost all MBA programs, you are given plenty of assignments that require you to work in a group. And most of the times, you don’t get to choose with whom you would want to work with. Professors generally choose whom you work with which gives you an equal chance to work with the best and the worst of the lot. The following is my list of the best and worst things to happen while working with teams -
The Good
- During the initial days of your program, its a great way to know new people and make some really good friends
- You get to learn how to work with different people, being patient and being a team worker
- You start appreciating the work others bring to the table
- Its a great feeling when your team excels and receives appreciation from faculty members
- A chance to learn things that you previously didn’t know.
The Bad
- Some people are inherently lazy and don’t turn up for work
- Few of them don’t work on weekends, either don’t respond to phone calls or switch off mobile phones
- Working with bossy people can only makes things worse when you want to contribute your ideas but don’t get a chance to be heard.
- You might be put in a team where your worst enemy is a member! Lol
- If you are the lazy person in the team, fingers would be pointing in your direction.
So can you think of any?
Love
Sen
Photo Shoot!
As part of placement efforts, our college releases a placement brochure every year. Its like a neatly printed book with each page dedicated for one student, with a nicely taken picture of each student along with his/her academic and work credentials.
Here’s a page from the placement brochure printed last year. Featured is one the brightest minds I’ve met in a long time.
This year is no different. Our college is bringing out a placement brochure this year as well. And on last Wednesday, we had our photo shoot scheduled. With around 100 students to be shot (Photos I mean), it took quite a while before each of us got our chances to be photographed.
When my chance finally came, I was nervous like never before. The room where the camera and lights were set had over 15 people. And when I sat around the round table, the room was uncomfortably silent and to add to my uneasiness were 15 people staring at me. Not able to take all this, it didn’t take me much time before I started to sweat profusely.
The photographer seemed so heartless. In spite of all this, he still wanted me to smile. Now that is too much ask out of me. I took great pains to conceal my nervousness and did my best to smile. The result of which is this -
The placement brochure is going to have this picture of mine on my page along with few other pictures of mine. Will surely post my page here when its ready. Hope recruited don’t frown when they look at me! Wish me luck!
Love
Senthil
Bengalooru to Ohio
For those who don’t know me that much, and those who were confused what my previous blog was all about, I am one among those millions called ‘An MBA Grad’. I have felt proud and pissed at the same time about my decision to pursue MBA program.
Almost 18 months ago, I had just completed my BBM program, from one of the world’s leading university. No, not Harvard or Stanford. I was talking about Bangalore University! (Now why did you make that face? Eh?) For three years, all I did was read books and magazines, watch movies in PVR, lunch in restaurants and spend one week each semester to diligently go through Neeraj Semester Scanner (this book deserves a Booker Prize) that neatly give you everything ever needed to clear the tough to crack Bangalore University Exam. While I loved those three years for all the friends I made and fun I had, I passed out of the program dumber than I got in. To a large extent, I think we have options to work hard. But we don’t take it. The environment doesn’t support geniuses! (Lol, I was talking about me!)
After my BBM, I could choose between working or continue splurging my dad’s money on a MBA program. I had cleared my BBM with good scores (Thanks to Neeraj Scanner again!) and was full of confidence. My dad largely made my decision when it comes to this MBA program. He asked me to continue studying. And that’s what i did and still doing and would continue doing for the next three months.
I’ve learnt and unlearnt a lot of things since the time I joined Ohio University Christ College AME. Coming from Bangalore University background to this place was nightmarish. To start with, there is no Neeraj Scanner. Everything is so organized here. To just survive, you need to have 75% marks and 90% attendance. These are unheard of figures in the wonderland of Bangalore Univ.
I learnt how to be patient and dynamic at the same time, how to (and how not to) work with teams, value of being punctual (I mean you can loose grades and attendance if you don’t be punctual), participating in class discussions (10 Marks!) and what it takes to reach great heights (Its atleast 4 floors upwards). But I think the most important thing an MBA program in our institution does to you is to REFINE you.
And its this refinement, I feel, that is priceless. Now I am more confident than ever to work for an organization, I make make better presentations and write good reports. I understand businesses better. I am more efficient in managing time and being professional. As we step off to work for corporations in some time, I cannot but thank all that I’ve taken from this institution, while giving back so little in return.
Thanks!
Love
Sen
MBA Woes!
We are at the fag end of the MBA program and like many, we all are paranoid as well about where we would get to work (or will we ever to work at all, given India’s current macro economic conditions!) after our program. For weeks now, professors have been visiting us, more regularly than ever, to scare us about how we could perish in the job market if we don’t prepare well.
But the faculty here at Ohio University Christ College (my institution) came up with a program called Management Competency Program, or ‘MCP’ as we like to call it. Its a series of activities run everyday for two hours as part of our academic learning. We get our CVs fixed, attend mock interviews, participate in Group Discussions and help each other to prepare us for the forthcoming judgement day – Placement Season! At the core of this ambitious, life-saving, career-structuring, brand-building program is the ideology that students who take this seriously would get a job, and those who don’t will not even be given a chance to sit for placements.
While in spirit it sure does look good as a well thought out process, not many of us have taken it seriously yet. Maybe we are immune to warnings of forthcoming trouble. Like just after every exam, we crib about how we couldn’t answer a simple exam paper and had we only studies for a few good hours, we could have fared better.
Dr. Raghu Iyer, our director must be having nightmares each time he reads an article on MINT about how this year’s job market is horrible. He so neatly prints these articles and strangely picks me every time to read it to the whole class. Maybe he’s sending out a message to me. Lol. Mrs. Gayathri Nandakumar is putting in extra hours and I am sure she’s wondering how she’ll place nuts like us into good organizations. Prof. Amalendu Jyotishi is equally worried. I haven’t checked his blog in a long time now. Maybe he might write a poem about how we are hopeless at times. By the way, I love few of his poems. He’s a genius when it comes to writing good lines.
The situation in college right now is so gloomy. Just like in movies, where thirty minutes before the movie ends everyone is crying their hearts out about how life is treating them so badly(Indian heroes cry so shamelessly at times. People say, if you don’t cry, you are not a man! Wonder where that came from). If a movie was ever made on our MBA Woes, our campus would be the setting, Dr. Raghu and Mrs. Gayathri would be the lead actors and the movie would have 100 villains!
And the movie would be called ‘Dr. Raghu and the 100 thieves!’
Love
Sen
