Day 385 - 23rd January 2012

Played tennis in the morning with Anuja for about an hour. This term so far has felt like a holiday, have a strange feeling that its all going to be come back and bite me soon. Came back to Kachnar and did the weekly washing of clothes - its always a game of chance with one washing machine at the disposal of 32 people. You've got to pray that nobody has left their clothes in. Have been lucky the past two times. The second round of MCL games began today, umpired the second innings. Was a relatively one sided match. Had Indian Cinema class post lunch. The session was a case study on Bombay Talkies - how it gave rise to the film industry. Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, the founders of Bombay Talkies were true pioneers in the film industry with the kind of steps they took. They were the ones who started the concept of summer internships. Ashok Kumar, Kamal Amrohi and Dev Anand were some of the products of Bombay Talkies. We were also shown a documentary on Wagah which took a dig at nationalism.

Today was also the deadline for the CIM group assignment submission. This was one group assignment in which people just could not free ride. Was sitting with my group in the library for most of the evening working on the assignment. Got done with it by midnight, just in time for Apu's birthday celebrations in Chinar. She had bought pizzas from Domino's (I had prior intimation and had skipped dinner in the mess for it :P). Was in Chinar till about 245, came back to the room continued the daily tradition

Day 376 - 14th January 2012

Was woken up with some MCSA work in the morning. That took about a couple of hours. Went to Bopal for a haircut before lunch. Post lunch saw Die Hard 3. The first movie of the series seems to have a corrupted file, need to look for another version to complete watching the series. Worked a bit on the CCRM assignment (read as 1 page) before playing tennis in the evening. Dinner in the mess was Palak soup and Parathas. Post dinner came back to the room and started watching American History x, a movie about racism in America. Pretty thought provoking stuff. On that note decided to call it a day. Have to finish the CCRM assignment tomorrow and start transcribing the interview I had taken for the CIM group assignment.

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!

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.

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!

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 343 - 28th November 2011

Got back to campus by 2 in the morning and slept for a good 8 hours. Had a late start to the day with a CIM lecture post lunch. The lecture covered the various sampling techniques used in qualitative research and how it is different from sampling in quantitative research. Also had a session on various the current scenario of various types of industries as a build up to the placement week. The industries discussed were retail and IT. The session went on till 9 in the night. Dinner in the mess was south indian food, which meant there was a huge exodus of people to Chota. Decided to go out to a chinese place nearby called crazy noodles, a very 'hatke' restaurant which serves decent food. Got back to campus by 11 in the night. Placecomm had a batch meet at midnight regarding the placement week. Spent the next couple of hours discussing the placement scenario with quite a few people at aamchair. Before I could realise it was nearly 4 in the morning. Have an early morning start tomorrow, hope to wake up on time!

Day 339 -23rd November 2011

Had a late start to the day with a CIM lecture at 2 in the afternoon. The prof go us to do a role play where we were the research agency and he was the client who had come to us with a marketing problem. We had to ask relevant questions and come up with a research proposal which had to be OK with the client. The learning that came out was that while developing a  qualitative research we have to be as imaginative as possible. Had film studies class in the evening which had two film screenings - The Return a russian movie about how two brothers deal with the return of their father who deserted them 12 years back and The Barbarian Invasions a canadian french movie which shows how a man spends his last few days with his near and dear ones. The screenings got done by 1 in the morning after which came back to the room and surfed the net before calling it a day. 

Day 337 - 21st November 2011

Had a 930 start today with a double session on CIM which was about a qualitative research is designed. The prof. gave a few cases that had the problems faced by clients and he took us through how the research question and the accompanying methodology could be formulated. Didnt have any classes after CIM, which meant I came back to the room and slept off for a good 2 hours. By the time I woke up, lunch time at the mess was over so had to settle for lunch at Chota. Started reading a book which I had ordered last week and was delivered today. Its called Sacred Hoops and is written by Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Chicago Bulls in which he writes about the techniques he used to get the Chicago Bulls together during their purple patch in the early 90's. He also speaks about how spirituality helped him in some of the techniques he used. Read the book for a good 3-4 hours.

Sankalp's annual performance at Natrani is scheduled to happen this weekend and in an effort to creating buzz around the play they got the mess decorated during dinner time in tune with the name of the play 'The Party' with the actors performing one of the scenes from the play. Post dinner continued reading and took a break for a 'C-9' session ;-) More about C-9 in a later post. Have an early morning start tomorrow so but the afternoon sleep will ensure that I dont sleep before 4 in the night/morning.

Day 332 - 16th November 2011

Had a late start to the day which meant it was one of the few days of the term when I could wake up at 1030. The course on Electronic Broadcast Media (EBM) started today. A visting faculty from mindshare came to take the course. She focused mainly on television and took us through the evolution of the television broadcast industry in India. Upcoming technologies and services like DTH and HD were also discussed with some interesting data about adopting these trends. Organization structures in a television broadcast company were also discussed. Towards the end of the class we were taken through two distinct marketing campaigns for the launch of 2 channels, one which succeeded and the other didn't. At the end of the day it all comes down to the cliche, content is king!

Had our first pre-placement talk of the season which was a video conference which went on for an hour. That was followed by a CIM class which picked up from yesterday's class on FGDs. Mess food was avoidable for the third consecutive day which again meant that Chota did brisk business. Spent the rest of the night taking care of some MCSA work and watching Futurama. Have a 930 class tomorrow, hope to wake up on time.

Day 331 - 15th November 2011

Had a pretty relaxed day today with only 2 classes to attended. So decided to make the most of the free time by getting the bike repaired, that was on the to do list for way too long. Went to Bopal for a haircut as well. The CIM lecture was supposed to take place at 12 which got pushed back to 2 in the afternoon. The session was about ethnographic research, it also dealt with the ethical issues that arise from ethnographic research. Had a class on B2B marketing after that which dealt with market entry strategies. Not too great a class, mos of what was discussed seemed pretty obvious. 

The mess food was quite sad tonight as well, but have been having too many meals at Chota so had to settle for dal chawal. Since the bike is in working condition now, went to Bopal for an ice cream post dinner. Came back by 1030 following which there was some MCSA work that had to be done. Will see a couple of episodes of Futurama before calling it a night!

Day 315 - 12th October 2011

Made it a hatrick of having breakfast in the mess today! Had a lecture at 12, spent some time working on the dissertation proposal before that in the library. Had our first class of Consumer Insight Mining (CIM) today, its one of the more popular courses on campus and is taken by the same prof who taught us consumer behavior. It deals more with qualitative research and looks at finding consumer insights which are derived from research findings.  A brief introduction to the course was given after which the prof discussed a couple of cases in which consumer insights were generated. The brands discussed were Moov and Anacin. For Moov, the insight on which it was launched in the market was discussed and for Anacin the case revolved on how it needed an insight to realize why its competitors were performing better. Post lunch headed back to the library to work on the dissertation proposal. Had a meeting with my dissertation guide in the evening to freeze the topic and discuss the next steps. During the course of the meeting realized that there is a lot of work that needs to be done wrt the literature review. Got back to the library and started working on it though could do that only for half an hour so, was just able to search for research papers through our online database. MCSA duties required us to be present in the audi for a talent hunt organized by Ahmedabad Times. That went on for about an hour and a half post which there was a meeting with the Junior MCSA. Post dinner came back to the library and continued working on the dissertation proposal. Also had the MCL auctions tonight, wasn’t as much fun as last time though. The theme for team names this year is Indian superheroes – Naughty Nagraj, Shikari Shambus, Chatur Chacha’s etc. you get the drift. Yours truly is a Chatur Chacha, if only by brain actually worked faster than a computer I wouldn’t be up until 4 in the library working on the dissertation proposal. As another non Indian superhero would say “That’s all I can stands cos I can stands no more!”