Day 400 - 17th February 2012

400 days at MICA! :-) Started off the day by attending the last few sessions on Ad research which dealt with the pre and post testing of advertisements. This was followed by the group presentations that we had to make based on the reading material the professor had provided. The prof posed some tough questions for all the groups and has asked to make some modifications to them and resend them to her. In our defence we really werent in a postion to devote as much time as we could have on account of the dissertation submission. Post lunch met my guide and discussed how I would be doing the data analysis and proceeding with the presentation of my results, she is OK with it, which is a huge relief at this point of time. The rest of the afternoon was consumed by MCSA work which involved meetings with the executive registrar, chairman of the dissertation committee and the associate director. Got done with all the work by around 5 in the evening.

Went to the gym for a bit, after which I headed to the tennis courts where we played under floodlights. Played for a good hour and a half. Dinner was at Chota courtesy the third straight meal the mess with Aloo in it :P Post dinner gave an interview to a batchmate for his dissertation which was on Sachin Tendulkar. Felt good talking about him and cricket after so long! Also had a batch meet with pgp-1 to explain the process of the MCSA elections that would be taking place day after tomorrow. Came back to the room and continued working on the dissertation. A couple of juniors have been approaching me to get their speech and agenda in order for the MCSA election. Reminded me of the agenda I had prepared for my speech last year, it is still stored on my phone :-)

For tomorrow's class on International Marketing there is a pre read from Malcolm Gladwell's book called Outliers on the ethnic history of plane crashes. Started reading it and found it quite interesting. It dealt with how hierarchy in the cockpit had led to many crashes in Korean Airlines and more than anything the problem was rooted in their culture. The article elaborated how it was dealt with. Slept off halfway through the article (it is not an indicator of how interesting/boring it is, was just too sleepy :P )

Day 399 - 16th February 2012

Today was an unusually long and tiring day and reminded me of first year when we used have classes for the entire day :P Woke up at 11 and had brunch at Chota (Misal Pav). Had advertising research class from 12 to 8. Just before the class started we got to know that the presentations have to be presented tomorrow! The course as such is quite interesting. The first 2-3 hours dealt with topics that we had already learnt before but the visiting faculty for this course works in a market research agency so she was giving us the agency perspective for all the theory we had learnt in MR, got to learn some pretty interesting stuff. The part on ad testing brought in the concept of efficiency (media plan) and effectiveness (content) of an advertisement. She gave us various examples along the way as to how agencies actually do pre testing for ad effectiveness. Was sitting for a long stretch of lectures after quite some time and by the end of it was completely sapped out!

Went to the gym for some time pre dinner. Post dinner sat with Kore to take his inputs on how to proceed for the data analysis part for my dissertation. What I had thought of initally may not necessarily work out, so worked out an alternate plan. Will present it to my guide tomorrow and take her point of view, hope she approves it! Generally at this time of the year almost everyone from pgp-2 will be sending out surveys to be filled or conducting interviews/ focus group discussions on campus for their dissertations. Have come across some really interesting research tools this time around being used by my batchmates. One guy is conducting a poker championship to study hoe people react under stress :D Dua is doing his dissertation on facial coding and its marketing implications. I was a guinea pig for his research with Kore trying to sell me a phone and my facial expressions being recorded. After the first sales pitch Kore was told what my expressions meant and he was asked to make a pitch once again, this time modifying it spontaneously based on my facial expressions.

Had planned to finish a certain part of the dissertation report but I just realised that it is too much to finish for today, plus saturation is settting in. Also a lot  depends on what my guide says tomorrow! On that note, will call it a day and hopefully wake up in time for class tomorrow which is at 830!

Day 398 - 15th February 2012

Had planned to wake up at 730 and play tennis, but I guess it will take some time before I cn get back to my earlier routine. Woke up at 1130! Had lots of work lined up for the day. Called up my dissertation guide and briefed her on the status of the research. Sent out the survey links to be filled. There was a huge lot of laundry to be given to Paras Bhai. Post lunch met up with the advertising research group for our presentation which is due tomorrow. Divided the work and decided to send our parts in by night. After that the MCSA had a meeting with the head of estate and the executive registrar. The meeting was regarding deciding on a roadmap for next year for students activities based on the learnings from this year. Got back to the room and started work on the advt research assignment. There was this article that had to be read which dealt with various types of advertising models. It was quite lengthy but came across some pretty useful stuff. Prepared my part of the presentation and sent it across by evening. Went to the gym in the evening (in an attempt to make up for missing out on tennis).

Dinner in the mess was quite sad. Guess it had to even out after the valentine's day special dinner yesterday which even included chocolate pudding! Got back to the room and surfed the net. Have been doing general tp. Class begins at 1215 tomorrow so I can afford to sleep in and that is a good thought to go to sleep with :P