:: Sense - The Way I Sense ::

aah….second year ain’t on me….still!! Regular classes set to start from 2nd aug as quite a few guys are still unclear what to take up as electives, and if they already have, why have they so taken?? :p basically that translates to classes where attendance ain’t all that mandatory and that translates to folks like me doin stuff like this (bloggin!!) ….had a talk from the placement folks the other day….seems close to 140 companies turned up for the previous batch!!rest of the stats….err…national secrets :p Have so far attended hardly a coupla lectures and man…..by the looks of it, I have some gr8 company the Business Strategy class today saw some royal BSing (err…strategising) by loadsa my “future manager” colleagues :p …sure is gonna rock bigtime for last-benchers like me
in case ye guys still wondering what FRCS is……..’tis F#$@%#^ round the country side …guess a lotta friends would feel quite @ home with that designation :p

Back to the rigmarole :D…..classes for second year commence from monday and am leaving home tomorrow for the same…..remains to be seen how productively i can make use of those classes…..And another important question to be resolved too… what to major in :p For this term have decided on a coupla papers from mktng, one from systems and one from entrepreneurial development Need atleast 4 papers from a stream to major in that, and from the current looks of it, I have my own doubts on my remaining choices :p

Second year is usually supposed to be very light in terms of academic rigour….Now as far as IBS is concerned, dont really believe I faced too stiff a load in the first year too :p….err, but my grades, in no manner whatsoever, reflect that ’tis been a decent experience in the first year…..Gotta c how the upcoming second shapes up……

Aah….this is something on which I have loads to tell me n ya… my Summer Internship Project, or SIP as it is referred to here. Like most fachchas, I was wondering where I’d land up for my SIP. For no less reason than that all-holy word called PPO ;). Naturally, was making efforts to land a decent project, irrespective of the organization. Had an opportunity to do it at a few places, but one thing led to another, and I finally decided on a quasi-Governmental consultancy to spend the next 16weeks (yes, rub ur eyes, its 16!!) of my internship.

The project revolved around a cluster formation for small scale industries in the precision engineering segment in hyderabad. And boy, what an eye-opener has the project been to me, in ways more than one. Sure,I’ve learnt a lotta things, after all those swot, supply chain analyses, all those cluster mapping sessions, all those days under the sun talkin to entrepreneurs in India’s crucial manufacturing sector (remember, b-school lingo ). But more than all these, a few things that I observed about how the Government doles out funds for such consultancies or for many of those sector-specific institutes can really make one shudder!! For one, it would be a huge under-statement if I say that the project proposals that I’d observed were pathetic. Prime importance is attached to the presentation rather than content. And being from a digital age where most of us grew up believing “content is king”, that was something that was really hard for me to digest. And no, those proposals weren’t the junk kind. Those were those which actually landed projects worth crores of rupees for the organizations concerned. Sample this- a “comprehensive” SWOT analysis that an organization did after appointing an expert panel is an ad verbatim lift from Kotler!!! And we were expected to work on similar lines!!! What i did?? your guess is as good as mine :p anyways, we( it was a team of 6) had a real ball of a time during the project an quite a learning experience towards the end Hopefully I learn a thing or two out of these past 16weeks…..

Couldn’t resist commenting on a thread that i noticed on the forums ;). Hacking sure has become a much maligned word, one that immediately generates negative connotations. This actually led to a few funny situations for me in the past. Now, to start off, me ain’t any hacker. Hell, I cant get into my own account in case i forget a password :p, but usually, to most people, a few lines on IP spoofing or packet sniffers is enough for them to come to the conclusion that I’m a “hardcore hacker”, if there ever was such a term. Come to think of it, I believe a lot of it has to do with the absymal levels of tech awareness that one finds amongst most aam junta (including a LOT of comp sci grads). Hell, the first reaction i usually get when i say I’m a techie is “so u can code in C++,perl,python, etc etc??”. Now how in holy heavens has coding anything to do with being a techie or keeping yourself abreast of tech happenings!! Flummoxes me everytime

To pick up where i left my previous entry, or rather to carry forward succesful strategies by concentrating on core competencies :p,lemme add on a few more lines to that initial xp which left me wondering more and more about who/what is an MBA. I’m a firm believer of the line of thought that an MBA, per se, is highly glorified in India. People see it as the ultimate recognition of their leadership/managerial/administrative skills. Naturally, the hype sorrounding it has, more or less, effectively obfuscated the fact that, at the end of the day, it still is, and will remain, a degree/diploma. My asociation with the pg forums might have clouded my judgement to a certain extent over this issue but, sadly, has done little to prove me wrong. On the other hand, it sure has reinforced this thought to no small extent. Seeing some of the posts and/or some of the interactions that I have with MBA wannabes of various hues and colors, I keep wondering whether the world is really looking to an MBA for deliverance from all the ills that plague itself!! And to reassure this feeling of mine, I dont have to look very far. Having interacted with a few people who really have the potential to change the face of quite a few millions with their work, and their down-to-earth humility, one thing that I’ve realised - loadsa people are yet to come out of the “money can work wonders!!” mould. Staunch capitalists, irrespective of the fact that they might be unaware of it. Now wth did i mention capitalism, of all things?? Anyways, now that I have, lemme tell ye, prolly during my first month at my college here, i wrote an article on capitalism and what i felt about the direction it was going in. Need i say the outcome? :p

My initial few days at college made me realise something that I quite did not expect. Having grown up in an environment where anybody older to you is an engineer and anybody younger to you is slogging his/her a$$ off to get into an engineering course, I found it pretty odd when people (mostly from Northern India) found that I’m an engineer and decided that I’m already well-off in terms of potential “placeability” ;). Add to the fact that I’m the only one amongst my huge peer group of cousins et al who’s still in India, and not on a techie line, a huge mind barrier exists amongst my clan on my “placeability”, albeit on the other side of the spectrum!!! Anyways, the fact that I chose to stay in India and more so in a line that is alien to most of my PhD wielding folks has sure made lot of ‘em people wonder on my sanity levels. And imagine their discomfort in case i were to talk something on, of all things sane, PaGaLGuY.com Their strong belief in MBA being something for the purely “timepass” sorta guys is strengthened to no small extent :p

I keep getting queries, with alarming regularity, on the state of affairs at the school where I’m doing my MBA. And i usually try to answer them as objectively (if such a concept ever existed ) as i can. While some are genuine queries, what does put me off though is the attitude of some of the people who believe that anything one says about such schools, in general, is compromised!! While I can understand the fact that some people do take issues such as placements et al very seriously (not that i dont ), however trying to evaluate an educational experience through such a narrow lens is, in a large number of cases, gonna give misleading results.

Having said that, I’ve been asked by a lot of people about my experience @ IBS. so here goes a few words of what I could make out an year at a B-school
The initial few days @ IBS have been an eye-opener of galactic proportions.Fact that expectations were a bit on the lower side being a given, what really surprised me was the crowd. Having experienced the admissions process myself, I had discounted a lot of factors that could be expected in a B-school student. But, neverthless, somethings just did not gel. Here were some people who could barely converse; forget them speaking in english, am talking of someone’s ability to hold a conversation together!! I had taken such things for a given in my engg days, but to find that in a B-school, and one that is in a city was something that I found highly unacceptable. If not for anything else, atleast to prove the adage that MBA is all local gyaan and global fart, one needs to talk!! Next came the all important thing called CP in most schools and which isn’t really given a formal structure here. Boy o boy, that was something that sent me into fits of laughter. You could find people going all out to get noticed, both among other students as well as the profs. To most, a b-school was about “exhibiting” their “managerial” skills…whoa!! what an oxymoron And here I was, trying to find a set of people with whom I could “gel”. Add the fact that anything that is tech was an anathema. My initial intro session also made sure that people thought twice before even approaching me….nah, did not do any strip dance…just gave a coupla lines on my interests (spanning /. , gmag et al)!! A few of our forumites prolly know a few things about my life back then. Not that such stuff was a major putoff or anything; it helped put a lot of things in perspective….

Now that I’ve used that holy grail of words, perspective, lemme initiate some of ye uninititated souls into the order of the “MBA”. A cardinal principle in these parts of the woods (i.e. the “MBAs in the making” clan) is, No sentence is complete unless you use some B-school lingo so you sound likeone of those know-all types that can give i-banks a run for their money from their equity market analyses. And same goes for other markets too And like in any demographic spread, we have the haves and have-nots in this case too; with the have-nots desperately trying to move into the haves club. And mind ye, access to the haves club can do wonders to your acceptance levels!! In literal terms, the effect is very close to that credit card advert that depicts all open doors. Why am I telling you all these?? well, so that you have a better “perspective” when reading through this blog. And in case you are not able to understand any specific instance of a word’s usage, then rejoice pal. You are on your baby steps to becoming a “manager”

Well……..So blog I !!!!

yea….and so i blog…..who am i? I’m Subrahmanyam and what would follow on this blog are my thoughts and reflections on things innate and mundane. Things that have made me think. Events that leave an impact on me in ways more than one… i intend to digitise my thoughts so i could have a good laugh sometime in the future when i re-read what all i had to endure and what all i made others endure….but then again, this blog might just remain like any of the countless blogs that start off flamboyantly and vanish without a trace
For people not familiar with me on PaGaLGuY.com, I’m in the second year of the MBA program at ICFAI B-school, Hyderabad…. I was a very active member at a lot of tech sites/forums. PaGaLGuY.com spoiled me Interests range from everything to nothing of anything……