Friday 22 January 2016

31/12/2015





When you haven’t written in so long, there’s this voice somewhere that tells you that it’s over- there will be no more writing, no more posts. Then this other inner urge wakes up and lets you know that there is hope, and you finally get writing!

5 & 6th of December saw Utkarsha- the Social Fest held on campus. It included a series of interesting events including a Social B-Plan competition, a CSR Strategy design event and a Photography Competition.
Classes began again on the 7th of December, after a week-long RIP break. Everyone had varied experiences, depending on the district they were assigned to but, everyone was happy. The plan this year was to check whether certain districts were truly ODF (Open Defecation Free) - teams would set out early, as early as 4 a.m. to survey the villages in the districts. The rest of the time was spent in compiling reports, enjoying local sights and food, and spending time with nature in its various forms.
Our professors decided to stage a nice welcome for us in the form of some surprise, some semi-surprise in-class quizzes. We had one in our SM class right at 8:45 and then one in the OM class right after too! And then we began learning how to draw decision trees in the QT class.
The PGP Office then announced their latest decision- all quizzes for the remainder of this term and the next will no longer be announced in advance. All quizzes without exception will be ‘surprise’ quizzes and we will get an hour’s notice before they happen- the notice board outside the classrooms will finally be put to some good use with this announcement.
Later in the evening, we headed to play Table Tennis since section wars were in progress. After a rather unsuccessful attempt at Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles and even Mixed Doubles, we lost to section F. Meanwhile Acad Comm sent out an email asking us to fill in our preferences for electives to be studied in the next term.
8th morning began with a few classes. The Marketing Class was spent in learning about the Marketing Simulation that was to happen in a few days. We were given a briefing as to how the system works and what we are expected to do. At 4:50 p.m., we had a MAC quiz- the quiz was fairly simple and was about 40 minutes long.
We got an e-mail from the Academic Associate, detailing the syllabus for a MacroEconomics quiz. While we wondered what that meant, we got yet another e-mail, with apologies and an announcement of a quiz on the 11th.
This year, there has been a change in the PGP-1 Course Curriculum. While electives were typically offered only in the second year of PGP, this year, Term-III shall see some electives on offer. We were asked to fill in our preferences- you ought to pick two subjects out of four possible options, including Corporate & Retail Banking, Supply Chain Management, Sales & Distribution Management and Market Research. The major aim of this change is to equip students with relevant knowledge before we head out for our internships over the summer. We had to state our preferences and a form was sent to this effect.
We had a VolleyBall match at 1 a.m. - it was a tie-breaker against Section F, to decide who goes on to play in the semi-finals. It was a well-fought game that we managed to win. We now had a semi-final to look forward to.

We had another Industry Visit on 9th December, like most Wednesdays. For some reason, no one from the other group or ours, other than the group leader turned up- turns out that Jaideep Ispat was busy that day too, so everything worked out! Later in the evening, Subway was on campus- they alternate between getting pre-prepared subs all wrapped up and getting their whole set-up here, to make the subs to order! At night (for some reason, perhaps because this place is most active only post 11 p.m.) some sports began as part of the section wars. There was a three-way tie for a semi-final place in both Cricket and Volleyball and three matches – a superover decider for cricket and a single-set decider for Volleyball were thus conducted accordingly.
Early on the 10th of December, someone forwarded a mail to the batch. A couple of people from Section H and gotten together, added everyone’s subject-wise scores and curated an entire batch rank-list!
We had a few classes in the morning and a Simulation Exercise as part of the Marketing course scheduled in the evening. At around 7 p.m., all of us collected in the designated team member’s room, ready to win the Marketing Simulation Exercise. It was a group activity, as per our assignment groups for the term. Each group was a laptop manufacturer, the market had 5 different target groups who had different desires and had varying willingness to pay as well. Each group had the same 2 existing laptop models and could choose to launch new products or modify existing ones to best meet consumer need. The game was played over 4 time periods, of an hour and a half each which were about a year in the game. New product development took one year and modification did too. We added one new product in the first time period which was then launched in the next period. We then added a second and third product too. By end of Round 2, we were the leading player in the market, aka Rank 1 as calculated by a composite score which took into account market share, market awareness, profits and more. We managed to get the trick right- our profits were the lowest of all players but the weightage given to profits in the final score was very little; the weightage to market share and other factors was much higher- our larger spending on advertising and our competitive prices ensured that our leading position was maintained until the end of the game.

By this point, Section Wars had managed to progress to the Semi-Final stage. We had one Basketball and another Volleyball match one after another. We managed to lose both despite putting in our best efforts.

We had classes on 11th morning and then a MacroEconomics quiz at 2:30 p.m. The quiz was fairly simple and was, like all Economics Quizzes, MCQ-type with negative marking. After the quiz, an ECSR session was scheduled in the New Auditorium, for four sections at a time. Our director, Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan took this lecture which focused on the importance of Corporate Governance in an era where Corporate Scandals are wide-spread.
At night, the third-place matches were held. We got to play two 3rd place matches; we won one, lost one and then headed to watch the Football Semi-finals.

On 12th morning, we had our last Marketing session where we discussed the aforementioned Marketing Simulation Game. The Cola Wars: Pepsi v/s Coke was the topic of discussion in our Strategy class, carried over from the last class. Faasos was on campus; they seem to take over campus, every weekend now.
We watched a very interesting Volleyball final and cheered loudly at the Football final, hoping that our section would win at least one game. It was a very close match and we finally lost to section C on penalties. A celebration still followed, everyone was just happy to be playing/watching some good football action.
The Pi Shop remained closed for a few days at this point, citing inventory issues. Someone kindly replied to their e-mail, keeping the entire mailing list in CC, offering some help with inventory management. They even attached a pdf file containing some relevant concepts from our OM course.
Sunday was restful, like every other Sunday, a much-needed break from the hectic week gone by and of course, a chance to recharge and take on the new week with all its challenges- classes, pre-reads and quizzes.

14th December aka Monday morning began a little late, with our last MacroEco session for the term. In the Entrepreneurship class, we discussed the hindrances people face when planning to become entrepreneurs and decided that the main reason was the judgmental society that we live in, where a steady job is valued much higher than it should be. Finally though, everyone agreed that if one really had an idea that promised to solve a real problem, nothing could stop such an enterprise from succeeding.
An e-mail querying the whereabouts of a lost cap was sent out in the middle of the night. Said cap apparently had a picture of Homer Simpson and understandably had great sentimental value for the owner. No one ever sends out a ‘Thank You’ e-mail or any other follow-up e-mails with updates on the lost items, so we’ll never know if the cap was found. It’s about time all ‘Lost’ e-mails have periodic updates to follow so everyone knows when to stop looking for a particular item. This will also allow for determining the probability of finding a certain type of item and help owners who lose items make good judgment about whether to send out an institute-wide e-mail or not.
We had our last MAC session on the 15th, slow but sure signs that the term was coming to an end. In the EO class, each group presented a set of 5 business ideas for businesses that could be set-up on campus. Lots of different ideas surfaced, including ‘Nap-Pods’- a room in the Academic Building furnished with comfortable beds or bean-bags where students can go catch up on sleep in the breaks between classes or any other free time when heading down to the hostel and then back up doesn’t appeal too much and a Complaint Redressal System where the person submitting the grievance is paid a portion of the fine levied on the wrongdoer as a ‘reward’. Common ideas included a Café where students can spend time, studying, surfing the internet or talking; and an online or physical retail store for used books or photocopies of class-notes.
We then had a QT Quiz at 3:30 p.m. The quiz was very interesting- at the start of the term, our professor had promised us that he would attempt to make the course as non-mathematical as possible and the quiz definitely reflected that spirit. We weren’t asked to solve any numerical problems, instead a problem along with its solution was given to us and we had to interpret the solution. This often proves much harder than simply solving the problem using a set pattern as it requires a lot more detailed understanding of both the subject and the problem at hand.
We received an e-mail from a concerned student who decided that everyone on campus should get an easy shot at doing their little bit for the environment. He has apparently arranged for both grown plants as well seeds and urged each one to plant at least one. I should follow up on the success of his endeavour.

We had an Industrial Visit on 16th i.e. Wednesday. This time, perhaps because no one had turned up the last time, everyone other than our group leader was there. We headed to the industry and got a lot of our work done.

On 16th, 17th & 18th December, IIM-Indore hosted the 3rd PAN IIM World Conference. The theme for the conference this year was ‘India: The Next Decade’. Over three days, multiple guest lectures, panel discussions and paper presentation sessions were held. In preparation for the Conference, the entrance to the Old Audi had been done up, Hindi Lettering had been put up on all buildings and sign boards were everywhere. As a respite from all the dialogue through the day, magic shows and food stalls had been arranged in the Central Lawn.

We had an EO class, on 17th afternoon where each group had to run an evaluation of the top business idea of all the other groups. One group went ahead and started the show- they’d given our great idea very little points and our group proceeded to have a detailed argument with them. Before any other groups could begin to continue to trash our ideas, we took over the classroom and did a detailed analysis of everyone’s ideas for over 30 minutes before the professor finally stopped us to make some concluding remarks. That was one enjoyable session. Let’s see if some of the ideas that came out of the Entrepreneurship course can be put into practice!

Meanwhile, Sports Comm. managed to collate the points of the Section Wars. Section F won by a good margin while someone from our section decided to send out an e-mail asking for a survey to be filled, promising an hour’s worth of Finance lectures in return.

We had some classes on 18th morning that were held in NC-3 instead of our usual classroom which was being used for the conference. The change in setting was nice, and so was our last finance lecture- sir compiled all the learnings over the course of the course into an interactive presentation that had PGP1 students discussing things just the way they do!

During the lunch break, the PGP Office had a surprise in store for us- not a quiz this time around, but the End Term Examination Time-Table. There was an exam scheduled for Christmas day and one on the morning of New Year’s Eve.

We then had our first Finance Quiz at 4:50 p.m. – all other sections had managed to have 5 quizzes by this point in time; somehow the PGP Office had forgotten all about us and it was only now, when the Finance course had actually ended that our first quiz was held.
Meanwhile Express-o-mat, the campus laundromat announced a couple of New Year Offers, valid for six weeks, including free pick-up and drop facility at a different series of hostel blocks, each day of the week and free use of fabric softener on all clothes washed on some particular days.

We had a few classes before lunch, on Saturday- it was the last week of classes before the end terms were to begin and most courses were either over or coming to a close. Meanwhile, Faasos continued to be on campus in the evening, like they are, on most weekends.

Sunday was off for most people while Section G & H got to attend class! Pi-Shop had arranged in advance for food from KFC to be made available for lunch on Sunday. Of course, the chance to exercise that option is only available to people who are actually awake at lunch-time on a Sunday (which I most definitely never am!)
A report critically analysing the CSR activities of one company needed to be submitted in the evening, as part of our ECSR course. I decided to write my report about Cargill India- they’re in the Agri/Food business and accordingly, so it their CSR.

One session of each of the still to be finished courses was held on 21st i.e. Monday, a great start to a week whose second half had only end term exams in store. While we sat wrapping up the concept of Decision Trees, in the QT Class, the PGP Office was planning to make our day even more interesting- we had a second Finance Quiz in the Lunch Break!
After class, we had an OB Quiz at 4:50 p.m. The quiz was pretty interesting and the second part of the quiz was a crossword that needed to be filled in with lots of OB terms, according to the given clues.
Another plan was hatched, this time by the IT Department, to stop the large number of e-mails that are sent out on a daily basis about competitions, lost items and surveys. A new mail ID has been added, ‘batchmail’- all e-mails that need to be sent out to the student community can be sent to this mail ID, and all e-mails on a particular day will be collated and sent out as a single e-mail.

The CSR reports that we’d compiled and sent in were to be presented to the class in the last ECSR session on Tuesday. Since there wasn’t enough time for everyone to make a presentation, the professor had decided to call upon people by way of a lottery- all the roll numbers were duly written on chits and one was drawn out at a time. As luck would have it, my roll number was the first to be called. Luckily, I had even made a PowerPoint Presentation to support my report and I harped on about Cargill India’s good doings. Most people just scrolled through their reports, highlighting activities as they found necessary. Someone had picked Airtel as their company of choice and made a PowerPoint Presentation that was at least a hundred slides long, replete with pictures and animation!

The last class of Term-II, an OM session was held on 23rd morning. We received an e-mail from the director, forwarded from the Commissioner of Indore. A new initiative has been started in the city- it is called ‘Vidya Daan’ and, as the name suggests, it allows young professionals, students and all residents of the city to contribute a few hours each week, teaching at a government school. The website is rather user-friendly and I was able to easily sign-up, although I still haven’t been able to find a close-by school whose timings match mine given the erratic schedule we have (where mornings are for sleeping and nights are for eating and the afternoons are for classes and everything else in between!)
An ECSR Quiz was held at 3:30 p.m. post which everyone headed off to begin studying for the End Terms.

The Exams began with Macro Economics on the morning of Thursday, 24th December. The paper was in two parts- one objective section followed by a subjective section. Later in the day, we tried to arrange a visit to attend the MidNight mass at a church in the city. We spoke to the hostel office and curated a list of interested students. Unfortunately, the plan had to be called off at the last minute.

We gathered outside Mess 1 close to 11 p.m. A Christmas Tree had been set up in front of the mess and Carol Singing was in order, followed by a cake-cutting. We procured a large knife from the mess, well in advance, ready to cut the cake as soon as it was time, and before the designated cutter could get to work (and before the Cultural Committee members spotted us of course!). Our plan was working well until Santa Claus descended on the scene, throwing toffees as he entered. Our knife was spotted and handed over to Santa who then cut the cake! Later, we collected outside the hostel to cut our own Christmas cake- a delicious chocolate-strawberry flavoured one!
We then set-up a Christmas tree in one of our rooms- this was the same tree that we’d collectively bought during our second year- complete with baubles, lights and stars! We even had some snowflakes that we’d cut out earlier left over and added those too!

Christmas Carols were blaring at a decent volume and we cut a second cake. We then took lots of pictures before someone suddenly seemed to remember the exam the next day and one by one, everyone dispersed.

The MAC paper on Christmas day was 3-hours long but fairly simple. Under the ‘date’ coloumn on the answer sheet, I thought for a moment and promptly put down ‘Christmas’.

A case-study based OB paper was held on 26th morning. It was a very interesting paper. The first question talked of an organization that was looking to expand and restructure accordingly. Our task was to design a suitable organization structure for the company. The second question talked about an HR Manager facing a dilemma- a plant needed to be either closed down, have employees laid off or wages cut since it was loss-making. The HR Manager had a strong, unrelenting Union to deal with and come up with an agreeable solution.

27th morning began with the Marketing End Term. There was an interesting case given to us, along with some questions to be answered. A team of young B-School graduates had invented a solar-powered lamp and were looking to launch the product in rural India. Questions pertained to break-even market penetration and Sales & Distribution planning.

The QT End term was on the same afternoon. It was a very challenging paper (the questions had hints!), and only 90 minutes long.

28th and 29th December were a break from the End Terms, mostly owing to our IGNOU exams. Nearly everyone had an exam on one or both of the days; some people even had two papers on a single day.

The last two exams were OM and SM, on the 30th and 31st respectively. The SM paper was very interesting and had both case-based questions and an objective section that tested our understanding of the major concepts in Strategy. The OM paper was positively difficult but at least the term was at a close!




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