Day 204 - 14th February 2010

Had our first set of sessions on Supply Chain Management (SCM) today. It's being taken by a Prof. from Spain. Was quite interesting, laid out the basics of the course and then gave a case study to discuss. Lectures got done 4 today after which I read a bit of the book on how the Brand David Beckham was built.

In the evening went to Bopal and the city with Maushi for some work. Had to go to the mobile shop to exchange my phone cover and though it was open today (unlike yesterday), they didn't have any new covers in stock! Looks like getting a cover for this phone is jinxed! Came back to campus by around 8, just in time for the Valentine's day festivities organised by Culcomm. They had arranged for some couple games in Palaash, not necessarily official couples, it could have been even friends and room mates. Even the people at the mess got into the mood with candlelight dinners and a special menu to go with it. Talk about a complete 360 degree Valentine's day campaign, no place better than a marketing school to do it ;-)

Post dinner came to the library to work on the BM assignment. The book on Beckham has been quite useful, it also helped me increase my knowledge about football (which is miniscule to say the least) Have completed some part of the assignment, posting this one from the library, will head back to the room now for some shut eye.

Day 203 - 13th February 2010

Rest days after a grueling week are always good. Woke up in time for lunch. After that headed to the library to work on the CSW final paper. That went on till about 530, it was interspersed with some youtube videos. In the evening had to go to the city, had bought a phone cover yesterday which I realised was faulty today. Rode half way across the city to get it exchanged only to see that the store was shut! Will go sometime during the week now. Started reading a book on Brand David Beckham which is also my topic for the upcoming BM assignment. It's a really nice read, almost halfway through with the book now.

Its strange how I've celebrated stuff which I never would have before coming to MICA. At midnight all the guys from Palaash went to the Parijat courtyard with a bouquet of roses and candles arranged in a heart shape, to celebrate Valentine's day :D The theme was Palaash loves Parijat :P Enthu people started singing all corny love songs with the guys in the courtyard and the girls on the first floor. Good fun it was. Have been doing random tp since then. Will listen to some music and then crash in a bit.

Day 195 - 4th February 2011

Woke up at 815 with great difficulty today. For a change didn't wake up 15 mins before the lecture :P Had 2 BM classes in the morning. Some pretty interesting concepts were discussed with some really good examples. The one I liked the most was the brand portfolio of Apple. NVC was about how music is used as a mode of communication. We heard two different versions of Imagine, one by John Lennon and another by perfect circle. Both had the exact same lyrics but diametrically opposite contexts just because of the kind of music that was used. There were many other applications of music discussed, sports advertising uses music extensively. We were shown a Chicago Bulls introduction video and how it is used to build up expectation among the crowd. A very interesting class, its a pity that we had only one session on music.

In the afternoon had CSMM tutorials which was based on a case. The entire discussion was pretty fruitful and an indication of a good case discussion is that it left you with more questions than answers ;-) Went to Bopal for a jog/walk in the evening, I cannot stress on how good the road has become! Post dinner (which was Parathas at Chota) Geeko and I worked on the MDA assignment which was based on SPSS. I'm not a huge fan of number crunching but this exercise was quite interesting. Have been in the library for the past 3 hours working on it. More or less done with it now, will try and sleep early tonight for a change ;-) Have a long night ahead tomorrow with what might probably be the last party in first year!

Day 190 - 30th January 2011

We had our first lecture of Media Economics today. It's being taken by Prof. Panda, the same guy who took Eco for us in the first sem. This seems to be a pretty interesting subject as well, its the first time its being taught out here. Apart from that had 2 lectures on brand management which were quite good, it is that kind of a subject which can be best explained with examples. Today we analysed brands like FedEx and L'Oreal.

Wasn't feeling too well, so had some Benadryl before I slept in the afternoon. Slept for four and a half hours straight! Worked a bit on the IPL article in the night. Been a pretty lazy evening/night. Have a late start tomorrow, will crash now and try to get more than 4 hours of sleep for a change :P

Days 176 to 183 - 17th to 23rd January 2011

Back after a looong break. Wasn't exactly a break though. Placement week for the seniors was on the whole of last week, so we didn't have classes and some of us volunteered for the process. I was in charge of batch handling, had to make sure that all the seniors were there in the designated classrooms before the process for any company started. That involved spending long periods of time in the class with them and sending people for GD's and interviews. It was a case study in human behaviour - how people handle stress, how do they react when their friends get job offers and they dont make the cut, especially if your boyfriend/girlfriend gets a job and you are still jobless. Essentially this was the week for which they took the CAT and MICAT two years back. It all boiled down to how well they did in the GD's, also there is no denying the element of luck that is involved. It's an emotional roller coaster ride for most of the people and people from my batch ahve already begun dreading our placement week next year. Volunteering took up most of my time last week. Though I did get time to go to the McDonalds at Bopal for a midnight snack (it's open till 1 in the night) and also to the coffee shop at Mariott for a late night coffee.

The past 2 days have been pretty action packed. Had to go to CEPT, which is an architecture college in Ahmedabad, to play a cricket match against their team. Their ground is huge!! Only two boundaries in the entire match and I got run out because I had never run so many runs in my life :P We ended up winning the match though, so it was all worth it :-) Today (23rd) there was a PGP1 v/s PGP2 match which we lost by 10 runs. By the end of it I realised that my legs still hadn't recovered from yesterday!

Apart from that on the academics front, we had a BM assignment to be submitted. The assignment was about tracking the brand communication of any product through various stages of its life cycle. I chose to work on Cinthol and while researching realised that we have an amazing collection of ads in the online library and that is just one part of the library. Need to start using the library more often! ;-) Also have a pre read for tomorrow's EB class which I started reading in the night and dozed off :D Will try reading it in sometime. Right now need to work on some content for Micavaani, they are doing a biweekly cricket show. Will get down to working on that and then come back to EB. It's back to the grind tomorrow, 9 to 5 classes for the first time - hope we make it to the other side!

Day 171 - 12th January 2011

Had 2 lectures of BM today which were about brand personality and how brands like Nike and Adidas have competed over the past couple of decades. Pretty interesting, how they took different approaches to reach where they are now. EB was again filled with real life examples, especially about Ahmedabad based textile companies. At one point of time there were about 110 companies but now only one big name has survived and one of the prime reasons for that is it never adopted any unethical practices. The last lecture was MDA which covered the theory aspects of linear regression, tomorrow we have a practical session on the same concept, it'll make more sense then.

In the afternoon was again caught up with some ARC work. That went on till around 5 in the evening, so now that makes it 2 days in a row where I have been deprived of my much valued siesta :P In the evening had to start working on the OD assignment, this is something that needs to be looked into, we have 4 assignments from last term to be subjected this week! Apart from OD there is CR, CB and QT. Anyways it pays to have the same project group for most of the assignments, so we've split up the assignments amongst ourselves, parallel processing ;-) In the night extebned family went out with Rajat and Samyuktha for dinner to Ikobo sizzlers. I was quite surprised that I was able to eat a complete sizzler, maybe skipping snacks in the evening was one of the reasons. Got back to campus by 1030 for a placecomm meet, we were given our duties for next week. Continued working on the OD assignment after that, have produced nearly 2000 words before passing on the baton to the next person :P Shall call it a day now.

Day 169 - 10th January 2011

The last term of the first term begins, how time flies! 6 months back when I was coming to this place I did not know what to expect, and today when I came back to Palaash it felt like I was back home. It's also going to be my last 3 months in Palaash, and now I know why all the seniors and alumni have such a special bond with this place. Lots to look forward to in this term, placements for seniors, committee elections for our batch, new hostel allocations and of course the 2011 Cricket World Cup :D

Back to today, reached campus at around 745 in the morning. Was amongst the first few people to get back on campus. People slowly started trickling into campus before the first lecture. Had 2 lectures of Brand Management (BM) and one each in Ethics in Business (EB) and Mutivariate Data Analysis (MDA). All were taken by visiting faculty. The EB prof. is pretty experienced he is a Harvard MBA pass out and was one of the founding members of IIM-A alongwith Dr. Sarabhai. He was also on the panel that interviewed CK Prahlad! He had a lot of examples to share on ethics and it was really interesting hearing him out. BM is being taken by a relatively young prof. who is from the advertising industry, he had a very structured approach in today's class, hope he continues the same way for other classes as well. MDA is basically QT III , just had an overview of the subject and what to expect over the next 3 months.

After lectures and lunch went to the office to pay off the term fees. Came back to the room and slept for a while. In the evening Maushi and I went to Gulmohar Mall to buy a gift for Jayati who is turning 21 tomorrow. Also went to TGB to buy cakes, yes we always buy 2 cakes, one to smear on the face and the other to eat :D Got back to campus by around 830 and I started off setting my room in order. That took about an hour so. Coming to campus after such a long break means there a lot of goodies brought from home. Since afternoon have been feasting on Gajar Halwa, Sandesh, Chocolates and many other goodies. Am pretty stuffed now!!