Saturday, December 24, 2011

Day 366 - 21st December 2011

Last day of the term today. The EBM exam began at 10 in the morning. People started walking out 20 minutes into the exam, yours truly took about 30 minutes to complete the paper. I still remember the joy of completing the last paper of a term in the first year, there would always be huge sense of relief associated with it. However, by the time one comes to the second year, examinations fail to have that effect on you. Had to take Apu to the hospital in the afternoon for a checkup of her fracture and also to get the cast changed. Got back to campus by 130 in the afternoon. Came back and finished off the pending packing. Had to leave campus by 5 in the evening.

Its a good year overall, now to head back home for a 2 week break before we come back for our last term as MICAns! Until then, here's wishing you a merry christmas and a happy new year!

Day 365 - 20th December 2011

Last day of classes for the term. Had 3 CIM sessions in the morning. Could sit for only 2 of them since there was some MCSA work that had to be taken care of. There was a meeting with the director followed by a meeting with some of the faculty members regarding assignment submissions that are lined up. With placement week being held earlier this year, all assignment deadlines have been pushed into the term break and some of them into the next year! Needed to get those sorted out before leaving.

There is an end term tomorrow for EBM. The slides for the subject were circulated in the afternoon. After a siesta, decided to go through the slides but ended up watching some videos of old cricket matches on youtube instead. For every 3 videos I saw, would take a break and read 15 slides :P That went on for a couple of hours. Also had to start packing for tomorrow. In the night ended up doing a lot of tp with Kalkar and Buds. They have their econometrics paper tomorrow and under the guise of taking a break we headed to chota for a midnight buffet - parathas, pakodas and chicken chilly! All hoped of coming back to the room and studying were crushed after the heavy meal. The exam is at 10 tomorrow morning and will be for an hour, lets see how soon people start walking out!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Day 364 - 19th December 2011

The cough and cold pretty much ensured that I was bedridden for most of the day. Had to work on the semiotics assignment, major part of it was done with Sania's help. This is a really short post, cant write much about a day where most of the time was spent either sleeping or coughing :P

Monday, December 19, 2011

Day 363 - 18th December 2011

Had a full day of classes on Entertainment Media today. The sessions dealt with the business of music in India. There were two visiting faculty members, both of whom had experience in the music industry from two different  perspectives - one was an artiste who was part of India's first all boy band and the other worked for record labels. The revenue distribution models of companies alongwith the different types of royalty paid were covered. The problem of piracy was also discussed and how some bands were actually using it to their advantage. The lecture ended with a live performance of one of this song :D Dinner was at Havmor with Sania, though the place serves only vegetarian, the food is really good. Tried the chinese cuisine out there which was unexpectedly good. Got back to campus and had another round of sweatshirt distribution to take care of. Satya's birthday was celebrated in Chinar at midnight, luckily there was no dunking involved! Spent a good two hours just chit chatting with Apu, Manu, Jayati, Sania, Satya and Kore. The topics of discussion ranged from ragging in engineering colleges to campus gossip! Was up till 3 in the morning. Have 3 assignment submissions and 1 end term exam over the next couple of days, but will get down to tackling them from tomorrow :P

Day 362 - 17th December 2011

As expected, woke up with a cough and cold today. Had lectures only in the second half of the day. The BFSI lecture had a visiting faculty from the insurance industry who took us through the industry as a whole and the various products available. The second half of his lecture dealt with marketing and communication ideas for those products. The MICA sweatshirts arrived in the night and the MCSA alongwith the junior MCSA got down to the task of separating and distributing the sweatshirts among the student community. This was something we were doing for the first time, so it took us sometime to figure out the best possible way to go about it. Within an hour though we got into the groove of things and quite a few sweatshirts were distributed. At around midnight, Apu had a fall on her way out from the community center and in the process she got a crack in her ankle. She came back from the hospital with a plastered leg. Spent about an hour, chatting with her and pulling her leg (pun intended) before calling it a day.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Day 361 - 16th December 2011

Played tennis in the morning with Kalkar. Didn't have any classes in the morning but there was a company presentation to attend which went on for a couple of hours. Caught up on some sleep post lunch, well it was a lot of sleep actually, slept for a good 3 hours and was woken up because the CIM class got advanced by an hour from 530 to 430. The class dealt with an analysis of the FGD that was conducted a couple of weeks back. Class got done by 8 in the night. Dinner was with Sania, Kalkar, Kore, Apu, Buds, Dua and Shibani at Masti. It was Sania's treat for receiving her offer letter. As is always the case, the food lived up to our expectations and nobody went back with an empty stomach. Got back and hitting the sack now, I think I am heading for a cold and cough, which is quite prevalent on campus right now.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Day 360 - 15th December 2011

Played tennis in the morning for an hour or so. Had the first half of the day free so saw the highlights of the 2001 India Australia Kolkata test match. Was reminded of it courtesy Rahul Dravid's talk at the Bradman Oration in Australia. It was a brilliant speech, his knowledge about the business of sport is a rich as his understanding of the game. Some of the anecdotes he shared must have been eye openers for the Aussie audiences. Managed to squeeze in a pre lunch siesta since there were BFSI classes after lunch. Today's sessions were on mutual funds and we also had 2 tests in between classes. Got done with classes by 7 in the evening. Dinner in the mess was Thai (which also included pasta :P) Post dinner decided to watch a movie, found Horrible Bosses on myzone, so decided to see that. Its a decent movie, worth a one time watch. The weather has been inducing a lot of sleep off late, will continue the trend and call it a day early!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Day 359 - 14th December 2011

Played tennis in the morning for about an hour. Didnt have classes in the morning but had a company presentation at 1030 which went on for a couple of hours. Post lunch, managed to squeeze in a disturbed siesta. In the course of 2 hours, was woken up at least 4 times for different reasons. Played cricket in the Kachnar courtyard in the evening, following which had planned to start working on the semiotics assignment which was originally die tomorrow. Got a mail that the deadline got postponed to 19th of the month which meant the evening was relatively free. In continuation of going out for dinner over the past couple of weeks, went to Mainland China for dinner. The soup and starters itself were quite filling, so skipped the main course and went to Chocolate Room for desserts, the dutch truffle shake was a nice way to end a sumptuous meal! Got back to campus and did general tp on the net. Will make the most of the weather and call it a day early again!  

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Day 358 - 13th December 2011

Another day of no classes. Woke up at around 1030. The weather has changed over the past couple of days with the nights becoming extremely cold and waking up in the morning becoming difficult day by day. Spent most of the day working on the B2B marketing group assignment. Also had to submit the B2B marketing individual assignment. Had to meet my dissertation guide in the evening. Have planned to conduct a few interviews during the upcoming term break. The discussion then moved on to the placement scenario and the kind of things the institute needs to consider during the admission procedure. Had planned to play tennis under lights in the evening, but that couldn't happen due to a 'technical' snag as the floodlights couldn't be switched on.  Mess food was really boring, but had no choice since the number of outings for meals has been awefully high for the past week. Post dinner, did general tp on the net. With the soporific weather its very difficult to stay up until late in the night, calling it a day early by MICA standards, going to sleep at midnight!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Day 357 - 12th December 2011

Didn't have any classes today, nonetheless woke up at 730 in the morning and played tennis for about an hour. Had breakfast in the mess (which is quite abnormal for a holiday) and then headed to the library to work on the B2B individual assignment. Now that placement week is over, there is a barrage of assignments lined up, with submission dates even going into the term break. The B2B assignment required us to analyse 2 cases and make appropriate recommendations for the business problems that were being faced. Managed to squeeze in a half an hour siesta following which there was a company presentation. Also met up with my dissertation guide to decide how to take things forward for the research that needs to be conducted. We will be having a more detailed meeting tomorrow.  Went back to the library post the presentation to continue work on the assignment. Got done with it by around 7 in the evening. During the alumni meet we had got these coupons from Subway which entitled us to one free sub on buying a normal sub. The coupon expires in a couple of days so Sania and I decided to head to Subway for dinner. Got back to campus by 10 in the night and have been doing random tp since then. Had to start work on the B2B group assignment which is due tomorrow evening, have just about started work on it, will continue the rest of it tomorrow since its another day of no classes. For now, will call it a day!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Day 356 - 11th December 2011

Had a full day of classes after quite some time. Today's sessions on entertainment media dealt with mobile marketing and the different strategies involved while devising a mobile marketing campaign. Classes got done by 4. Played tennis for a good hour and a half in the evening. Kore, Kalkar and I made a plan to watch a movie in the evening at City Gold. We saw Dirty Picture - and it turned out to be really dirty, with no storyline, songs just being squeezed in for the heck of it and random twists in the story. Got back to campus by 11 and grabbed a bite at Chota before coming back to Kachnar. Will surf the net a bit before calling it a day.

Days 347 to 355 - 2nd to 10th December 2011

During our seniors placement week last year I always used to wonder how our placement week would be. There are somethings that never change - the anxiety while a shortlist is being announced, the disappointment of  not being able to clear a GD after being shortlisted and the greater disappointment of not clearing an interview after clearing the GD. Placement week takes its physically and more importantly emotionally on all people involved. Sitting through endless company presentations from as early as 7 in the morning to as late as midnight. Giving interviews at 4 in the morning and the anxiety of waiting for the result. There were just way too many things that were common between last year and this year, which leads to me guess that its pretty much the same story every year. There are some fundamental changed that I think need to be brought about in the whole concept of placement weeks across B-schools. Will share my thoughts on that later though.

Coming to the placement week - apart from the hectic schedule it was an emotional roller coaster for a lot of people. There were a lot of good jobs on offer. Kore made to an analytics firm, Kalkar got into a gaming company, SIR will be working with a pre IPO startup firm, Sania had a PPO from a leading telecom company and yours truly made it to the leading spirits company in the world which is associated with a lot of sporting events and teams through both sponsorship and ownership. It was the only company I applied for and I consider myself extremely lucky for getting through - for starters they didn't conduct GDs which was something I was dreading. They shortlisted candidates and were conducting interviews for everyone, though the interview was a rapid fire round of questions. My interview started with my internship, moved onto my career goals and some suggestions for the company in their existing marketing strategy. Got to know in sometime that they had made me a spot offer, which was a huge relief! Got my offer letter the same evening.

All in all, it was a roller coaster ride and I'm glad that now its over. Regular classes start from tomorrow!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Day 346 - 1st December 2011

CIM lectures began at 12 today. The prof. did a mock FGD with students being panelists and the role of the moderator kept switching between the prof and another student. The purpose of the FGD was to bring out the differences perceived between motorcycles and scooters. The major learning was how to moderate a FGD by using subtle techniques to get emotional answers rather than probing questions which could panelists back into a shell. Post lunch had some MCSA work which kept me busy for a couple of hours. Had a meeting with the director regarding assignment submission deadlines over the next couple of weeks. Went to ISCON in the evening to collect my trousers which I had given for alteration. Most of the shops in the city were closed but luckily the stores in ISCON were open. With placement week starting from tomorrow, the sale of formals must have seen quite a spike! Got back to campus by 6 and got down to getting some clothes washed (yes placement week makes you more efficient w.r.t housekeeping responsibilities!). Dinner was at Honey9 with Sania, Kore, Kalkar, SIR (who has now been rebranded to Buds) and Ishan. Had some pretty interesting dinner conversations over Shikari chicken and Thums Up! Got back by 11 and decided to call it a day early.

With placement week starting from tomorrow, will now be able to post only once its done (as has always been the norm). I will be following the same approach that I took for the summers, though there might be a company which I might just apply to during the week. Until then, adios!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Day 345 - 30th November 2011

Had a late start today with a CIM lecture at 12 in the afternoon. The session continued with the different approaches towards qualitative research. Post lunch was busy with MCSA work, with 450 sweatshirts that needed to be ordered for the students and management. Had to go to the old city to place the order for the sweatshirts. Two members each from the junior and senior MCSA went to meet the vendor. On our way back we stopped at Bangs Fried Chicken on Judges Bungalow Road. It is a desi version of KFC and they make some pretty decent burgers. Got back to campus by 11. Did a little tp at the Gulmohar courtyard in the night, with a beach umbrella in the center and chairs all around it. A couple of guys had packed some fried chicken from KFC which opened its first outlet in Ahmedabad. The discussions mainly revolved around placements and what can be expected over the next ten days. Slept off at around 2 and then got woken up at 4 for an emergency MCSA meeting which went on for about half an hour. Going back to sleep at 530, luckily dont have any classes tomorrow morning!

Day 344 - 29th November 2011

Woke up late today and spent 5 hours non stop on MCSA work. It required data collection and sorting in excel which took a really long time. Skipped lunch and breakfast. Finally went to Chota at 4 in the evening to make up for both meals! Had a BFSI class in the evening which dealt with advertisements for financial institutions and how different approaches are used for communicating about financial products. Didnt have much work in the night, its been a relatively boring day. Will watch a couple of episodes of Futurama before calling it a day.