Day 241 - 25th March 2011

Todays SCM paper was pretty decent, no major surprises. Caught up with some sleep in the afternoon. Once people got to know that tomorrow's CSMM paper is a case study it was as if the vacation mode had already set in. Have been doing general tp for most of the day and without even realising it, it is 3 in the morning! Will call it a day now, tomorrow is the last exam for the first year!

Day 231 - 15th March 2011

• Attend DM class
• Submit the CSMM assignment amidst chaos at the printing centre where a virus had affected the PCs
• Congratulate Maushi and Kaushik on making it to the finals of Tata Crucible
• Submit the IM assignment before the deadline(timestamp was going to be recorded)
• Study a bit of SCM
• Get back to the room by 4. Zzzzz

Day 229 - 13th March 2011

For some reason was feeling very drowsy throughout the day today. Had only two lectures of ME which were also the last two lectures of the subject. People made presentations on the economics f social media and the audio visual trade within the GATS framework. The prof. ended the course by proving that there is no such thing as media economics :P

Slept for almost 3 hours in the afternoon! Woke up and started working on the IM assignment. Had to an analysis of the internet marketing campaign of any brand of our choice. My analysis was on the IPL. Had to prepare a 2000 word report and a 10 slide ppt summarizing it. After that had to work on the CSMM group assignment, came to the library for that. Have been here for the past couple of hours. Its 430 now and I think I'll head back to the room. Luckily classes start at 1 o'clock for us tomorrow :-)

Day 221 - 3rd March 2011

Was feeling extremely drowsy throughout the lectures today. However there were some interesting things that happened that kept me awake. In the CSMM class we had a Stanford alumnus to speak to us about marketing strategies in the digital era. He left us with some really good insights. ME was about the print industry in the country and had some major class participation.

The MCL final took place in the afternoon. It was between Phantoms and Lucky Strike. Unfortunately it turned out to be a pretty one sided affair with the strikes winning it quite easily in the end. They played some really good cricket and were helped by some poor fielding on our side. Anyways that brings this years MCL journey to an end for us. It was good fun while it lasted. Slept for a bit in the evening before we had to start working on the RM group assignment. Distributed work amongst ourselves and that got done by about midnight. After that had to go the audi for the Sankalp directors elections.

Have been clearing up my room for the past hour or so on account of Samar-the sports fest at MICA. All rooms in Palaash have to be vacated for the participants from other colleges. Have a long day tomorrow, there is a NZ Zim game in Ahmedabad and I need to be at the stadium by 830 since its a day game!

Day 219 - 1st March 2011

Had 2 MDA lectures in the morning for which I managed to wake up with great difficulty. The lecture was pretty interesting though and it managed to hold my attention inspite of the fact that I was sleep deprived. Had a CSMM test in the afternoon, it was based on a case study which we were allowed to carry to class. The case was about LG's internationalization strategy. Evening was packed with MCSA work again. Also met a few of the people in the administration department whom we will be interacting with on a regular basis from now on. Sankalp staged thier first night of showcase, this will be used to select the directors for next year's play at Natrani. That went on till around 1230.Luckily tomorrow is a rest day so I can catch up on some sleep!

Days 214 to 215 - 24th to 25th February 2011

Dont know how I managed to stay up for the classes on 24th, had hardly slept the previous night. But then in the IMC class we discussed a real life case where an agency where the prof. had worked at before had to come up with an IMC campaign for a cancer drug. A very unconventional case, after discussing the possible solutions amongst ourselves in class the prof. shared with us as to what was exactly done by the agency and it turned out to be a huge success. The biggest learning from the case was that in any marketing problem if there is a marketing problem that seems to be have no solution then the next possible step should be 'observational research' wherein you should spend time observing your TG and you are bound to find some really good insights in there. Had the CSMM group presentation in the evening after which I had to leave for Bombay for an internship interview.

Got back to campus on 25th night. Will know the result of the interview in the next 3-4 days. Right now I am extremely tired and need to catch up on some sleep! Tomorrow is a rest day for most of us courtesy TEDx.

Day 205 - 15th February 2011

In today's SCM we studied forecasting, a term which I had a lot of times at work. Good to know now what it means :P After lunch decided to take a 10 min power nap before the RM lecture but it became a powerful 1 hour nap! Made it to the second lecture of RM only to see that the prof left the class half an hour early.

Worked on the BM assignment in the evening. Completed it by around 9 in the night. The book on Beckham helped quite a lot. Also did the pre read for tomorrow's CSMM tutorial which is on BMW Films, a really interesting case.After that ended up doing some tp in Kalkar's room. We all were watching the MTV Roadies audition and getting sadistic pleasure out of it. Before I knew it, it was 23o, so for a change deciding to sleep early!

Day 198 - 8th February 2011

These 9 to 5 days are really energy sapping. In the 4 lectures before lunch we had MDA, IMC, SDM and CSMM. The first one was all about number crunching, the second about how to make an IMC strategy and then implement it, the third one on different types of salesforce categorizations and the last one on Corporate Social Responsibility. Post lunch had RM which was about how a research is formulated and then the data is organized. Couldn't fight the impending stupor in the evening so ended up sleeping for about an hour. Went to the gym after that, didnt have the time to go to Bopal in the evening since the ARC and MCSA had a meeting with the director in the evening. The meeting was quite productive and hopefully some positive changes should be implemented soon.

Post dinner have been in the library going through the pre reads for tomorrow and also started working on the Culture studies assignment. Will wrap up now and try catching up on some sleep.

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 194 - 3rd February 2011

Had a very weird time table today. After the morning 915 lecture had a class directly at 1 in the afternoon. In the break that we got tried to study a bit of NVC since we had a mid term at 3 in the afternoon. Went through a couple of slide decks. The test was OK, though I really dont understand why we have exams in subjects like these, research projects or assignments seem to be better options. Came back and slept because of which I missed the dissertation workshop, now I hadn't asked anyone but some noble souls had put a proxy for me and as my luck would have it, they checked for proxies at the end of the lecture. The only positive thing is that there are a lot of people on that list :D

In the evening had a presentation from TOI regarding a competition where we have to pitch to UNESCO for Ahmedabad to be granted heritage city status. Got to know some interesting things about the city in the process. After that had went to Bopal for a long overdue haircut. Got back to campus by around 9. Had to do read the case study for tomorrow's CSMM tutorial and take a print out of the article that needed an critique to be written for the media economics assignment. After that had to figure out how to work with SPSS for the MDA assignment. Have got some idea about the software, now need to solve the assignment problem, which I think I'll do tomorrow. Cant stay up any longer. Over and out!

Day 193 - 2nd February 2011

Slept for 10 hours last night!! :D Woke up at 9 in the morning, only to realise that the first class was at 1030, made the most of waking up early by having breakfast at the mess. Had only one lecture today, EB continued discussions on whether advertising is ethical or not. Post lunch had a CSMM tutorial, have another 9 tutorials lined up all of which will be case based. Since the tutorial got done by 6 couldn't go to Bopal so played a little basketball. 15 minutes of basketball can be pretty tiring!

Dinner in the mess was biryani - which ensured that not too many people would have had dinner at Chota :P After dinner had to work on this competition with Cheryl which required us to come with a b plan for an eco tourism project. The deadline was at midnight and we submitted the plan at around 1 in the night, hope they accept it. In the middle scripted content for Micavaani on India Pakistan world cup matches, which was really good fun! A 1000 word assignment takes days but a 700 word article took me 15 mins :D Have been doing random tp since then. Will try and catch some shut eye now, don't want to continue my trend of waking up late for the 915 class.

Day 192 - 1st February 2011

Had a full day of lectures today. IM was pretty interesting, today's discussion was about google analytics and how companies use search engine optimisation. Ended up missing the SDM lecture cos I never realised how time flew at Chota. Was having this discussion about how things are changing in college and whether its for better or worse. After that had our first lecture on contemporary strategic marketing management (CSMM) in the audi which was taken by the director. Discussed how the strategies of some global companies that worked and some that didn't/

In the afternoon we finally had the last game of the league stages of the MCL. Indian Kings took on Smokin Joes. If Indian Kings won then they would do Navy Sqaure Cut a huge favour and send them through to the next round with 2 points however if Smokin Joes won then they would go through to the next round. Unfortunately for the Joes, Aashish Dua chose this match to justify his tag as the most expensive player of the MCL. He scores an unbeaten 72 of 50 deliveries and took the Kings to a score of 119. Chasing at 6 an over from the beginning of the innings is never an easy task on this ground. The Joes were never really in the chase and kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Eventually the Kings pulled off what could be termed as an upset victory.

After the match went to Bopal for a jog/run. Looks like 2 days of going to Bopal has taken its toll on me, after that had dinner and then never realised when I went off to sleep :P