Quarter 3 - Week 3

We had classes on Christmas.

I mean, seriously! We're taking this 'passion, drive and motivation' a little too far! While all your friends, Christian or not, get to party the night away and drink to glory, we sit hunched under a lamp trying to prepare for a test on Saturday and a "possible surprise test" on Saturday! Wont all my team members be happy to see me now, gleefully tittering at my predicament while they gallivant somewhere. Should give them more work.

We didnt have Law this week since the prof's out till Jan 19th. A part of me thinks he's tripping on all the wining and dining somewhere in Goa arguing relentlessly about where the justice is in today's service oriented corporate structure and plans to do so till New Year and beyond, the saner part of me thinks he's got some urgent lawyering/judging to do.

Marketing was just about ok on day 1. We were discussing what Infosys was trying to do around 2004 with a Blue Sky team (?) to figure out how they can be more a part of the software pie offering. "Making their pie and eating it too" types. Everyone had made presentations and when the prof calls for volunteers to present their case, after quite a bit of fidgeting and studious concentration on an empty whiteboard by most of the class, one brave lady volunteered and dragged her team with her. They confidently gave their view on what Infy should have done and why. Not too exciting. The second session was awesome! We had Prof. Harish Bijoor (look him up), who gave us the deal on Rural India. Ex-HLL senior product manager, VP of Tata Coffee, and now has his own consulting firm. While I wouldnt say that he shone some brilliant gyaan on us, he definitely shattered some myths about the rural aadmi, and made us look at him with new found respect. 75% of India's population lives and breathes in rural India. That's a lot of people. So many little tidbits which we devoured hungrily, all put to us in a funny manner but with a great deal of serious information in it. Did you know that while 22% of urban women use lipstick (yes, only that much), 11% of rural women use it too. 11% less than 22%, so rural juntas suck? try seeing it this way, 11% of 75% of india's women is more than 22% of the rest. Especially when they use more lipstick than that 22% sophistikat. He came up with so much fundas JUST ON LIPSTICK. It was so cool! So you'd think the most popular brand is Lakme? Hell no, it's Raja lipstick! How rural women apply lipstick is apparently quite different from how urban women apply it... all this and much more, on the day after Christmas. A good gift, and a fitting way to end 2009! :)

Quant Meth 2 - Yes, its Operations Research but I seem to think QuantMeth is a nice think to call it now. Quite heady, u see a lot of stars, and when it's over you wake up with a splitting headache. Naah, its not so bad, our prof's trying to make sure we get the fundas right. So we continue to study Duality and then move into Integer Programming from Linear Programming.

And then we have Saturday's test.

Man, what's with us and not understanding that these profs arent teaching us nursery rhymes. All he gave us was simple funda-applicable problems requiring us to draw on common sense, and all we do is draw on our paper. We'll find out which of our folks were whining even after having done well, many of us anxiously await our marks to find the posers who think they're cool by acting like they've done bad like the majority. Wait for it, ur time will come!!

Managerial Accounting - Blearrggh! I dont like this subject. It's ok. We were learning how to decide costs of our offerings, what is a cost driver, job order costing, normal costing, actual costing.. blah blah blah. I'm sorry, but if you want to know more about this, get this book we're using "Managerial Accounting" by Hilton, Ramesh and Jayadev - TMH publication. The prof's trying hard to make sure we understand the goodness in the subject, but it's being so much of a pain in the bag, and seems to have an acquired test. Like beer. Yuck.

Still, Marketing saved the day with the cool insights into the rural market. A good way to end 2009. Ready to walk bleary-eyed into 2010!

Quarter 3 - Week 2

Aah, the anticipation of being "impressed" by newly acquainted professors mixes with the stench of dread from the promised pressure in this quarter, to provide a very heady mixture that helps you daydream in class about what you would do if you were fighting a case where due to a marketing research goof up based on some operations research data it was claimed that managerial accounting had completely disfigured the revenues reported and hence disrupted the forecast.

The far fetched thoughts always ended up with me, being the judge, being given a bonus and thrown in jail. Before I could retrospect, I would be back in the classroom in a jolt because the prof would have noticed me dreaming and walk towards me. I might be being paranoid, but feeling guilty does that to you.

In Law, (yes, I dont remember the name of the course anymore, and I'm too lazy to find out. Read my previous post.) we began to study the concepts of Civil Law and Criminal Law. Apparently in the former, once you draw up a complaint, you could withdraw it if you want, but if it is a case of the latter type, once you open a case, there's NO way you can close it! This is because in a civil case, the court's objective is to clear the matter quickly as it's not really worth too much time, and they'll more often than not try to move in for compensation as a trophy of well-deserved justice, rather than go the length to fix the problem. A case in example - you buy a plot of size 30*40, and when you go there to build you see the neighbour has encroached by 10 feet. Enraged as you are, you demand justice and cry belligerently at the doors of the court, which lazily opens an eye and prefers to get you the compensation from the other guy, instead of asking him to break down HIS building and give you back your ten feet. In a criminal scenario however, once you complain, that same sleepy peace-loving behemoth charges into action (or it atleast tries to in the Indian scenario). You dont even have to pay lawyer fees, apparently the government takes up the "victim"'s case on its own head, and does what is required to get the truth out and prove the accused as guilty. That's where things have changed, see, now that the government has taken up your case, you've just been pushed out of the action to sit back and ride. That obviously means you're no longer in control, ergo when you say "Stop!" the case does not stop. It's simple physics really.

In Marketing, we learnt quite a few more fundas about how to arrive at a delicate balance of performance, process and people. We got to know how it's important that you believe in your idea with a passion that doesnt crumble, and if it does, it only does so due to hard facts and evidence. If you have a real good idea, instead of doing armchair research (you, your mind and your chair. No one else.) you should get your lazy butt out on the field to really see whether your hunch and observations about what the market really wants still stands. Then you get your people to believe in that vision, because only then will they really work as effectively as ever. And then he proceeded to give us a surprise test which as usual I wasnt prepared for. Next time, sigh.

The second class we had a guest lecture by Prof. Shombit Sengupta. And he gave us some insight into how you bring a brand into a person's mindset.... was good stuff. Our prof tried to request him to share some details on his current works, some of which was not confidential and which was insightful he shared... but for most of the part, he politely declined only giving us vague hints about what we might expect. Nice chap, one thing I really liked was how he keeps his mind occupied with various activities like painting, playing the piano, EVEN ARCHITECTING HIS OWN HOUSE! Apparently, that's how you keep your mind fresh and full of creative thought. Hmm..

QM2 - OR was a little slower than last week. Either our prof thinks we're really dumb or he thinks that these fundas are so important as a basis that it deserves the detailed focus and concentration he's giving towards it. I'm hoping it came across like that because I'm too smart for this stuff. It's not often I get to feel that, so when I'm learning what A,B,C is, I enjoy it even though this is nothing. The second class was excruciatingly slow. At this point I began to get scared that there was something REALLY important about this section, even though we appeared to be doing the same thing that we'd done in the first 15 minutes. Good thing I paid attention. I now know A, B, C. Thank God he realized we're going too slow, he says he'll buck up the pace next time. We've heard some horror stories about him from the last batch, that he's way too fast at teaching and thinks way too fast... but he's making a real good effort to get through to us, so I trust him. A little green around the edges, but a sincere effort is worthy enough to command the student's attention I think.

Managerial Accounting - Ahaah! I wasn't sleeping. Ergo, it's not the subject that's boring!! We spoke about what comes under a period cost, and a [some other] cost. We even looked at some of Infy's digits (publicly declared, mind it!) and took up "the challenge" of understanding three lines out of it. There were quite a few questions on what comes under what, how do you decide whether an expense should come under product cost, or general & administration costs or selling & distribution costs. What is direct material, labour, manufacturing overheads... yea, not too inspiring to talk about. A whole bunch of overheads actually. Saw so many OHs on the board, it kept making me think that there was a song in the back of my mind which had that in it. Anyway, classes over, weekend shuru!

P.S. Somebody said something about a surprise test next week, so we're back into that mood again! :)

Quarter 3 - Week 1

OMG! Vacation's already up? That last weekend just went by so fast, I cant believe I've already jumped into the next quarter. It almost seems like it only lasted two days... sigh...

Warning: This post is long, I'll keep it short next time. But it really tells you about our profs. Read it.

This week we had an introduction to the four (yes four! not three!) subjects we're studying this quarter:

Law: Indian and International Systems - The prof is young, I'd put him around 35? He's studied Law at NLSIU here in Bangalore. Went on to a Judges college (?). I didnt really get that, but at the end of it, let's just say he's now equipped to make decisions if there's a dispute and give his opinion on it, wanted or otherwise? The difference between him and us... is that he's got a degree to prove that his rants are grounded, while we dont!

A very grounded prof, he had the class in splits with his deadpan expressions and timely wisecrack delivery. Confident, authoritative and yet we catch a glimpse of the lighter side of him every ten minutes or so. So he began with a very simple and yet vexing case of a mother approaching the court for abortion in her 21st week (look it up, you cant abort after 20 weeks), and how this dragged on for long, and what would we have decided - abort or not. Looks like a simple "problem statement", had us discussing the merits and demerits for over an hour and a half! His point being that it's not easy out there to decide stuff, so watch out for the rest of the course.

Principles of Marketing - Woah! so you'd think that "marketing" is it! The M in the MBA..! Well, seeing how we did Strategic Management(WOAAHH!) in quarter 1, these high profile topics do give you a rush when you say it out loud... and this one had the same effect. You'd also think that the prof of this is someone young.. fresh in the field. Imagine our surprise when this old man walks in, bald shiny head and all... and the whole class hushes up while we wait for him to sit down, or cough or murmur(I dont want to say "croak", touch wood). You almost feel like you're in front of ur grandpa, and that you should touch his feet or something.

And then he spoke.

That first class of his, pin drop silence. You know when you hear confidence in a voice, you know when you hear experience in a voice, you know when you hear raw power in a voice. A voice filled with "I've seen it all." without the ego, the calmness of a powerful beast as it's ready to pounce. It was just... awesome. To say it was impressive... doesnt do justice to that class. The way he calls on the students with a "You Suhhh!" (slightly faarin accent, but adds class bigtime.), the way he shakes with mirth at a couple of his funny real life anecdotes with one finger on his lips and a wide contained smile at some joke which only he truly understands. Make no mistake, those funny lines arent duh! or something. It's like as if there's some comedy or irony in some event, and only he has heard it in all its form and understood the underlying basic funda. The voice of a man who's still seeing it all, and walks the hallowed corridors that are shrouded with secrecy, amongst the marketing giants of today.

He started off with Steve Jobs' Commencement Address to Stanford (2005) . Read it. Full of fundas, but sometimes that's the only way these giants can share their experience with you. He told us to expect a surprise quiz anytime, to read up Kotler even though it's a dictionary, and to come to class with a six-slide presentation before cases. For the second day itself. He's serious, and in a way that you DO want to come prepared. The next day we studied about Tata Steel, and how it turned itself post liberalization, and how 2001 was a key point in that turnaround.

Management Accounting - This professor was quite good too. She started off with trying to tell us what keeps Management Accounting different from Financial Accounting (we did this in Q1). Her's was the last session of the week. I cant really give you a proper introduction to her, since I was so tired by now, that I was sleeping. Last night none of us got a good night's sleep after the marketing prof's announcement of preparing for today. And that man didnt even give us that promised surprise test! (I am thankful for that though!!) Three hours is all I got. So I just kept slipping in and out of reality through her class. But she tried valiantly to keep us active. Maybe next week I'll give you a better insight into this teacher.

Quantitative Methods 2 - This prof is young too! Probably around 34? Honestly, he does look like the pundits out of our 11th-12th grade classes.. the one who mugs bigtime. There's a rumour in class that he's an All India Rank of 3 in IITJEE! He talks with confidence about the subject, but he's also trying his hardest to make it appealing to us. So there's a couple of jokes he cracks to get us laughing... but sometimes these are some real PJs. Got to give him one thing though, he's sincerely trying to get through to us. And that gets our attention. Put all that funny fluff away, and see the man trying to make us see what he can see... and you know why such a young man commands the attention of 80 odd people year after year, to explain to them the science and math of Operations Research.

Apparently after the feedback of the last year's batch, he is trying a newer technique... of giving an example first and then teaching the underlying theory. He seems the kind of prof who's really willing to take in your feedback, all so that he can get through to us better. So we studied some part of Linear Programming, and he's going quite slow for us... but maybe the raftaar will increase after all.

Say anything you want, but this is why we understand at times the real value of the Indian Institutes of Management. These teachers arent run-of-the-mill people who've failed to get a career in the world of practice, they've CONSCIOUSLY chosen to share their knowledge even when they're amongst the brightest and can make a helluva lot more money out there in the corporate world. They shine in their classrooms so we can shine outside. They sacrifice their exposure to the corporate world, so that hundreds more can make their mark. And yet, from within the halls of IIMB, their brilliance shines through for all of the corporates to see.

That's also probably why they get paid big fat bucks to come out and give talks to global corporations every once in a while. They are in control of their life, unlike many others out there! ;)

Quarter 2 - Week of Exams

The one thing I like about the exams at IIMB is that they want to test your concepts and not how much you mugged. There's no chance to hold in as much as you can, and vomit it all out on the paper... and then conveniently forget it.

The questions all looked simple, but they tested all your fundamentals very well. Makes you sit and ask yourself questions in the exam hall that you probably didnt ask earlier. Depending on what you've read and how strong your basics are, you either do really well in the exam, or... well, you just drift along.

Macro Economics was a fun paper with a few multiple choice questions and a set of descriptive ones later.

Managing Organizations was in a completely Multiple Choice Questions format. We must have finished it within an hour or so... then we just had to sit and read for the QM1 (Quantitative Methods 1) exam for that afternoon.

QM1 - Biz Stats was interesting as we had a very good mix of MCQs and descriptive problems. Was really nice to actually mix all our basics and extract fundas out of it.

I just hope my basics are right. The marks dont matter to us, we aren't anyway going to get placed at the end. That's either a good thing or a bad thing, based on your outlook. To me, it's the basics that matter... because that means tomorrow I wont screw up someone else's life just because my formula was right, but for the wrong problem altogether. And I think that's important. :)

Quarter 2 - Week 10

The last week of the second quarter... phew, almost 20% of our course is now over! I really don't know how the time's flying!

We had a couple of tests this week... here I was thinking "These profs are crazy!". I mean some of us have our presentations coming up, and we had to study most of the portions for the test?? And why not, let's have both the tests on the same day... we seem to look like suckers for punishment!! Either that, or I felt the profs had mutated overnight into crazy theorists who were trying to try their evil experiments on an unsuspecting crowd.

But it's only after both the tests, that I realized that those profs knew what they were doing (I'm almost beginning to think the institute now has mad scientist tests, to weed out the evil ones to stop their plans of world domination [What?!?] ). I now actually know what we did in all the subjects, it was like a simple dry run for the main exams! I'm almost done with the preparations, now it's just a matter of brushing through and reading up this week's portions. Sure, the answers for the test came out on Saturday itself, and I got everything wrong, but still I was atleast in a far better position now than before the test! So let's just get on with our understanding of this week's sessions, because I actually understood it this time!

In Macro Economics, we've finally reached the last section of Net Exports, and how the global players bring in their weight. So we understood exchange rates, how they can be manipulated in keeping the exports and imports at acceptable levels. We understood how for a small economy which has no control over its own interest rate purely because it's too small to make a difference, how the exchange rate becomes important for their GDP. It was interesting to see how all the different attributes came together and make a final picture. And the IS LM curve, FINALLY, makes sense! I'm so proud I can now draw an X mark and say which of the lines is an LM curve and tell what it stands for (It stands for how money supply and demand can affect interest rates and output, ahaaah!). The classes ended with some pretty loud applause. That prof was just way too passionate about the subject and just way too cool.

In Managing Organizations, the last of our batches finished their presentations, the prof gave usa little gyaan about how it is important that we provide a presentation which helps everyone imbibe the lessons straight away. Sure, you can pack in data into 20 slides, and add in three-four org charts, but except for making everyone nod like they understand (when they really dont!) it's not going to help. So he said, that keep in mind the next time u make a presentation, that you highlight the underlying learning from your assignment, so that lay men can figure out what you're saying. Just because you spent two weeks talking to the top management of an org, and know it so well, doesnt mean everyone else does too. Simple, good advice from the prof. A round of applause for him at the end too!

Biz Stats! Finally! People answered many questions, not too many deer-staring-at-car-headlights-in-middle-of-highways looks... people were more enthu in the last class (maybe because it was the last class, maybe because they now understand what the prof is talking about after the quiz... the point is up for debate). We tried to understand regression, which basically states that points tend to move towards the mean. In a very effective example, we saw data on how people who were quite tall tended to have more kids who were shorter, and people who were quite short tended to have more kids who were tall... all drifting towards the mean (Average height). Very cool when you actually have the stats in front of you, and can you believe it... it's almost 100 years old! He got a quite a bit of applause too... this prof especially knows how to keep a class on its toes, and keep them attentive.

If there's one thing this techie understands from the journey so far, it's not the subject itself that is so important, it's the way it's presented and whether people want to understand it in the first place. The whole story of someone to give the bread, and someone who wants to eat it. I cant believe 1/5 is already over... just a couple of months back it was just 10%...!

Well, not yet 20% anyway... the main exams are next week. Off I go to cram! :)

Quarter 2 - Week 9

* Sounds of impending doom*.

Do you hear that? I do. It's the guffaw of the learned ones... as they mock those amongst us who are not prepared for the oncoming exams. in two weeks. That's right.

For one thing, all but one assignment has now been completed. The last one is due two days before our final exams. Like a playful tantalizing chance, that maybe you can avoid doing it till a day before the submission date. Like hell you can! So good students that my batch and I are, we've already begun.. take that you cunning prof!

Anyhoo, this week was far far free-er compared to the horrors of the past few weeks... maybe the proverbial calm before the storm. In macro economics, I think we studied how monetary policy can affect the environment. There's a lot to read, and I'm waaaaaaay behind. Two weeks, that's all I have. All that stuff about how you increase money supply, how banks maintain balances with each other, the smart things that banks do to make sure they maintain their minimum balance with the Godfather of them all, the Reserve Bank of India. Fun stories. Hope I'll remember them.

Managing organizations was a lot more easy-going. We had a few teams from our class present the companies they studied for the quarter. Was ooook. Too many slides, too much strategy and "what they've done", some structure information here and there. Will give a 5/10. Liked the Honeywell presentation though. From the reactions of the prof, looks like he did too.

Business Statistics. We continued to study ANOVA. It stands for Analysis of Variance. Does that mean we analyse variance? Prof says a vehement no. So did the rest of the class. Beats me. Where's that book again? Then we studied how to fit a distribution, how do we know its a good fit. In lay man's terms... when we're predicting something from a sample, we need to make sure we are using the right formulae for the right type of graph. So this process tells us if the wool we're putting on the wolf makes it like pretty much like a sheep, or a wolf with a wool hat. and wool gloves. and some wool stretched across its chest. Like a Baywatch model. (What??!)

That's pretty much it. Tried to study on the weekend, and slept most of Sunday. Time to hit the books!

P.S. This post was much easier to write. Small. simple. nothing. Wonder if this is better than rambling on and on like a Duracell battery. (Thinks........ )

Quarter 2 - Week 8

Ahaah! I see the "My time's more important than blogging" a.k.a "I'm lazy" is raising it head yet again... Gentlemen! It's time to roll that mouse, scroll it and keep the keyboard at the ready, we've got a long fight ahead of us...!

WTF? Who writes such stuff, this is a PGSEM diary, not a rant spot (It's not?). On to what we're here to talk about, Week 8. This means we have just two more weeks left of classes in this quarter after this (Awesome!!!! Cant wait!), and then we'll have exams (SHITTT!!!!). Now anyway, why would this quarter be any different from any of the others?

Well, to begin with, we had a project (that's like fourteen times bigger than an assignment) to submit by Friday, and as fate would have it, nobody was done (or started) with the assignment... so someone asks the prof a week ago - "Sir, when's the last date to submit the project", and the prof says "The next Friday", and the whole class went "Whaaaaa??? Sirrr!!! No time!! Pleeeeeeeease Sir...!". The prof cut everything short by saying "I expected this, ok, I wont stretch the deadline... next week is our last week of sessions, we will be doing presentations after this, so those of you who submit on Friday, I'll take your assignments. Those who dont, have to get a hard copy to the PGSEM Office by the Thursday after that. I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY SUBMISSIONS ON THE FRIDAY AFTER THAT!" Glad that we got an extra five days, we went "phew!". But our bag isn't complete yet, we also had a QM assignment set for Sunday, a QM quiz that was on Saturday, and trust me when I say this "The QM assignment is like two normal projects." What, an assignment bigger than a project? That's right, it is... you'll find out when you come here.

So a couple of week nights, half of Saturday and the whole of Sunday was spent at IIMB while we tried to figure out what questions to ask to make our data fit the question, er, i mean get the right answers. I think we finished by Sunday 6 PM, and immediately got started on our Managing Organizations project. That's right! ON A SUNDAY! That's family time! (In fact as we speak, in the mid of the next week, I have just sent out a draft of our latest doc for review). So junta, rest assured, if you plan to do this course, and you wanted to be on the IIMB campus, you'll BE on the IIMB campus, even if you'd rather be elsewhere. No doubts of that.

This week in Macro Economics, we had another prof come in, since our actual prof was away on leave. She spoke to us about fiscal policy and what the government can do to influence spending. Maybe I was stuck on the impending QM quiz the next day, or the couple of assignments, that I was unable to pay much attention to what was being said. I mean, I was listening, but I wasnt really listening. Like a block between the short term and long term divisions of my brain. Divisionalized form, anyone?

Managing Organizations went neatly, we were supposed to look into the working of organizations that go from "Good to Great" and how they ensure their employees are driven, and how a common vision goes a long way for everyone. It pretty much said that for an organization to succeed, your primary resource is your people. Keep them happy, keep them motivated, and give them direction... they'll be efficient inherently. Yea, yea, common sense you say, but this had pictures! and nice bold headlines, and even had the not-so-unimportant distinction of possessing DATA! It had stats in it! Hah, in your wildest dreams you couldnt come up with numbers to match your common sense, so there! (Come to think, all our articles have had the exact same attributes, some of them have gone further to lend credibility by appearing in the Harvard Business Review. Guess someone thought it would be a good idea to have this stuff published, so people can refer to a one stop spot for how to "Manage an Organization"). We studied Aravind Eye Hospital again, and saw how they went on to become a highly efficient and successful hospital. All with minimal donations/funding by "badde bhaiyas"! The next day, we studied "Why transformation efforts fail", which I think everyone really wanted to know, as in why can an org not maintain the changes it proposes... So we saw the 8 reasons for it (yes, there are eight. I'd show you the article, it's bold and black, and highlighted on another chart as well!). In brief, it said that you need to stress the urgency of it across the org, make sure your employees GET it! and then purposefully put in small successes along the way to keep morale up, and maintain it for 5-8 years, that's when it gets into the actual org psyche. Useful pointers here are there...

QM, well, remember I said if you read and come, you'd get everything the prof said? Well, with the coming quiz, couldnt read the stuff... so a lot of nodding here, shaking there, sleeping everywhere. The first day was pretty much a recap of the portions for the next day's quiz.. so that was ok. The next day we did "ANOVA - Analysis of Variance". Even the name sounds important enough, so I can say without hesitation that I've not understood one of the most important fundas of all time in statistics. So need to read up (atleast now) and come prepared for the next class. The quiz was, well, let's just say... well, it was easy to read for certain! Interesting problem and all that, my analysis may have gotten a *little* derailed... I think I reached Chennai instead of Bangalore, when I started at Madurai. Yep, a little derailed.

Oh, totally forgot! We were supposed to have a surprise quiz in Managing Orgs on Saturday. Only, everyone knew it was the last week of "actual classes", so EVERYONE read the article of the day. The prof comes in grinning with a bunch of test papers, to find all the students grinning back! And he knew, for the first time, that the class was ready for the surprise quiz. And hence came the line I'd remember for quite a while "I take it the surprise quiz is no longer a surprise quiz.". Our classmates sure are a fun lot, I'd never thought I'd be playing hookey, throwing tantrums and pleading the hell out of a prof, trying to convince them to postpone a test/cancel it/give out the answers anyway (wait, the last hasnt happened... yet). It's good to be back in school.

Quarter 2 - Week 7

Results for the tests are now out... got around 7/10 in the BizStats quiz, a 56/100 on the MicroEconomics and a 14/25 on the Managing Org paper. Respectable, atleast at class average! ;) (Note to self: Study a little harder, everyone else seems to be doing so!)

This week seemed a whole lot easier than the last week, probably due to the absence of three tests! But the classes have picked up pace, and I mean PACE! I think we hurtled through topics in MacroEcon just because we now know the IS-LM curve, we discussed how the markets reacted the way they did during the dot-com bust, the recent realty bust, then we spoke about how a credit-card fraud can affect markets... man, and I thought you need to be intuitive to manage money, it's all science and formulae here!

Managing Organizations now seems to have gone down a little "gyaan" route... We read up an article which spoke about how organizations can be "learning organizations", basically by making mistakes and REALLY learning from them, not just putting into a MS Word doc, and leaving it there. We saw how you can disseminate this learning across all parts of the organization, which in theory is difficult. Why would a engineering division bother to know why the finance division failed? Apparently, there's a lot of common learning. You just have to pass your experience around, that's how ABB's doing it. Those guys have 5000 "mini-companies" which keep communicating, and acting on some points. The next day, we learnt about how good organizations become great, and it's apparently when the leader is humble and yet iron-willed. Humble and iron-willed? What is this, moral science class? Be the lion and the rabbit?! Seriously! But, grudgingly, you have to admit that guys who gets to smell clouds (a.k.a. stuck-up nose) tend to stop focussing on the ground, while the guys that look at the grass, tend to see the pace of movement while looking at the horizon to ensure they're going in the right path. But seriously, I came to a management school to hear "Be humble"? Me finds the air to be cool and scented at this scintillating height... (Note to self: Shut up, stuckup!)

BizStats, I finally understand SOMETHING of what's going on!! Credits to the prof, he posted on a thread that 'you're no longer in nursery, so stop expecting golden words to drop out of my mouth and fit itself in your head'. Not exactly. He said, you're now studying post-grad, read up the topic BEFORE you come to class... I aint spoonfeeding your lazy butts! Well maybe not the second part verbatim, but in spirit. He's right, pulled up my socks, went to class and actually understood something! So we studied Confidence Intervals (what confidence I had I say, too much!) and Hypothesis Testing (Yea, I didnt read for this one, so didn't understand much). Anyway, his style of teaching has changed a bit, we now do more probs in class.. so that's more of looking at each other in dismay and then smirking at ourselves and the nerds in class. But was able to do the Confidence Interval probs... looks like I'm a half nerd, a herd? Summarizing the two, Confidence Intervals is about how confident you are when you claim that your sample statistic represents something very close to the actual population parameter. For e.g., how sure am I that the toothpaste I use is used by a majority of India's population? To put it better, if by taking a sample, I find 74 out of 100 people use my toothpaste brand, then with what confidence can I say that 74% of India's population uses the same. So it comes to be sometihng like "With 95% confidence I can say that 70.4% to 78.6% use my toothpaste". Something like that.

Hypothesis testing is more like coming up with some funda, and because people don't believe you, you have to prove it to them. So to do that, you have to prove that whatever current funda is there, is not responsible for the output of your sample, and that only your funda can explain your sample's output. As prof said, let's say there's a normal battery brand (Nimboo) and a sooper battery brand (SuperNimboo), and SuperNimboo is claiming it gives 20% more charge. So you have to assume that "SuperNimboo can't give it" and prove that if you take SuperNimboo batteries, it doesnt fall within the standard deviation of Nimboo's output. If you find SuperNimboo's sample lies outside of Nimboo's output, THEN you can claim that yes, ok, maybe SuperNimboo is actually a way more awesome battery.

Saturday went off in a blur, since after class we had (no time for lunch and) a talk with the Director, and this was followed by another class of Quant, and then some project discussion till 7 PM. Wait, roll back, a talk with the Director?? Yeah, he wanted to speak to us mano-i-multimano about what we thought of the programme, what was on our minds... the usual stuff of placements and internships came up, and the Director said that this course was more meant to enhance our skills, we have access to all the facilities the other courses have, and it's upto us to use it... if our company allows us to go do an internship elsewhere (like hell it will), then by all means, go for it! But placements is another thing altogether. The other courses here come with a huge opportunity cost, they lose that salary when they're studying here, the PGSEMers keep their salary. We are here for two very different reasons, the full-timers to actually make a major orthogonal shift in their careers, and the PGSEM-ers to enhance their skills. He pretty nicely told us you cant have your cake, manage it AND eat it too! I thought he did make sense, I mean, we did know that the course offered no placements before we came here. And besides, with over 8 years of experience, who'll just drop a senior position in my lap just because I have a PGSEM degree? Even the full-timers dont have chocolates dropped on them like that!! And I sure as hell dont plan to take a cut in my salary just so that I can start at the lower rungs of management, like hell no!

But anyhoo, everyone's entitled to an opinion (placements shouldnt be there!! SHOULDNT!!), and the day got over and I went home to study. Why? Cos we had a tute the next day, on the BizStats course, and I for one definitely wanted to understand the fundas of sampling and confidence intervals, like, pukka! The class was good, got a couple of probs solved (out of what looked like fifteen! #@$@$!!!!) and our teacher kept telling us to pay attention! I felt like I was in pre-school, good ol' days... Good thing I understood something in this class, else would have been a major waste. Rest of the day, I spent at home... dreading the fact that I have a whole load of work and assignments/projects to submit the coming week! Sigh.

Quarter 2 - Week 6

After a good long holiday last week, I rolled up my sleeves and blew the dust off my books. Caught up with everything that was covered until now, since we had our MacroEconomics midterm coming up. Oh, did I mention we had a retest also sheduled this week for our QM1 disaster? (We seem to be making this re-test thing a habit, no wonder I'm studying all the time!)

The week passed by like a bad English movie in theaters. And then began our classes. In Macro Economics, we studied a little more about the IS-LM curve, and how they dance together. For those who don't know, the fiscal policy and monetary policy are handled by the government and Federal Bank respectively. And as two distinct bodies (or however distinct they can be), they need to ensure that balance is maintained in the economy. IS talks about the investment behaviour, LM talks about money supply and demand (The amount of ready cash, or liquid cash and the bonds). For now, just think of the IS-LM thing as an X mark. As and when one of the curve shifts, a change is made to the other to modify the position of equilibrium (the centre point).

Managing Organizations took an interesting turn this week. First, we discussed how an organizations lifecycle is. We learnt how it starts off as a dream, and an entrepreneur takes it on and brings it to life. Then it has to be "disciplined" and you need to look into the finer details, and that's something entrepreneurs are not good at. They know how to dream, the bird's-eye-view they got down pat, but on the ground they're... vulnerable. So you need to bring in a professional manager with an eye for detail, who'll get down into the nitty gritties and hammer processes and rules in place. He's the one who tweaks the company to bring it to an efficient body. Once this is done, another crisis hits the org. People begin to ask for more responsibility, they resent the one-man-tell-us-what-to-do approach. So then you need to give way to "divisionalism", give the sub-teams more responsibility for their domain. Once that phase gets over, the next crisis is how to bring these divisions that are too far apart, to the same vision. Once you've managed to again bring all these teams under control, after a while it becomes a little looser, and then you see your firm become a place where all the teams collaborate, and share information. And this is so far the last stage of the org's growth.

I think I just understood why we need to differentiate, and then integrate. It sounds stupid to an engineer, but it makes the parts stronger. In many ways, this seems to show how we grow up from kids to adults. You start as a baby with infinite possibilities, you're the most flexible thing, and you zip around in every direction stopping to sleep,eat or poop. And then begins our "education", where it's hammered into us that 2+2 = 4, not 5. We're taught that 42 is the answer to everything. At one point, we begin to question this 42. Why's it not 43? With our new-found knowledge of how the world works, the me-teenager goes out and rebels against everything, and asks for some control of my own life. Once we go and make all those mistakes that our parents kept protecting us from (Dont put your finger in the fire, kid..), and come back wiser (Ouch, mom, where's that balm?), then slowly our parents now getting a little wiser treat us like adults and involve us in family decisions. Differentiation and integration right there. So, does this mean that apply human life to org life and you dont need to do an MBA? Sounds far easier, can tell you that. And that was just the first session!

In the second session, we got to know of a bunch of organizations that did things in a completely different way from what our ancestors/wisemen/leaders/writers told us. And they succeeded! Stuff like letting people decide their own work-timings, giving all information on the company (including everyone's salaries) to the employees, letting the employees decide what other companies should be bought over! How was it even possible, how did it even work?! And life seems much more nicer for the guys who work in those companies!! And then we began to wonder, wtf?! What was all the last half-quarter (octer?) all about?! Our prof expected this, he's most probably been seeing this reaction for ages now. He just calmly tells us that this worked for these companies, doesnt mean it will work for everyone. FYI, the companies are SEMCO, ABB, Imagination and some company in Copenhagen, Denmark (dont remember the name, will get back on this). Try seeing how things happen there!

BizStats, wow. After an octer, ok, half a quarter, we get to *really* hear the word statistics. I dont know how we didnt wonder about that before? We NOW got to see how you take a sample from a population, and how you make sure it's a RANDOM sample. Not haphazard, but random. This word is apparently taken very seriously by people who poll (pollers?). And then we got to see how every possible random distribution will ultimately get mapped onto a Normal Distribution using their means. Basically, just think that there is one curve called a Normal Distribution, and that EVERY possible random chart that you have can tend to move towards this. The rest of the class was a blur in some math calcs, need to read up and get back, nothing specific to summarize here right now.

Finally, to talk about the exams. Sigh.

How is it possible that you study so much for a subject (Macro Economics), and then when you're just about to write the paper, you forget the basics of the IS-LM curve. For God's sakes, I just read it yesterday!! And I totally understood it!! The paper was awesome, like last time it tested the basics. And unlike last time, I was lost. That's all I want to say about that. So, just to remember, reading for 20 hours for a topic does not necessarily mean u understood it.

BizStats was easy-peasy. I'm just hoping our prof doesnt think we're not worth his time, and just wants to get it over with. Hang in there prof, we're not dumasses, we'll get better! :) In any case, this paper was very easy to do, an almost no-brainer.

And the surprise entrant! We had a Managing Organizations surprise test on Sat! He asked us to describe what made SEMCO do well. If only most of us knew what the hell SEMCO was. Apparently, a surprise test covers not just every reading meant until that day, it also includes the reading FOR the day!! I just wrote something, came back and read the SEMCO material. I couldn't have been farther off from the truth. But that's what happens when you try to act like you know something, when you dont. And you get caught with your pants down. On fire.

One thing for sure though. That SEMCO process, it stands against everything we've learnt so far, and yet, I still want to experience it. Sounds like a real fun place to work. Look it up, here's a link on it:

http://www.schneede.se/assets/files/Ricardo_Semler.pdf

Here's one of the CEO's talks:

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/308/

Quarter 2 - Week 5.5

A weekend with nothing to do. Bliss.

Now, back to hit the books for the upcoming exams next week. Sigh.

Quarter 2 - Week 5

Funny how when you have exams coming up, every topic seems to make sense.

I must have spent quite a lot of time trying to read the Managing Organizations class binder AND the book, or even BizStats (Complete Business Statistics, ahem!) for that matter... I would invariably (and very bizarrely) fall asleep after 4 minutes and 22 seconds.. either that, or my mind would wander and I'd end up thinking of horses(wtf?!). Weeks would just pass by, and my book would be open on page 3. everyday.

But when midterms come up (like the ManOrg one this week, or the BizStats quiz on the very same day), suddenly the book opens up to you, and you actually understand the stuff that's in it. Remember I was cribbing about how I wasn't understanding jack about Random Variables in the BizStats class? One look at the book, and the two and 2 came together.. :). I was on a roll, in two days I had managed to read up the portions for the BizStats test. On Thursday, good ol' me started reading up for the test on Managing Organizations. THE mid-term I might add. The exam was on Saturday. *The mission impossible tune was running through my mind the whole evening, with a horse galloping for good effect*. In any case, I managed to cross 3 pages and reached the end of two articles... TWO! Unfortunately, it was 1 AM that night (or morning), so nobody came by to give me an award.

The next morning, I groggily woke up at 6(the alarm rang at 6, but the bed was really glued to me and wouldnt let me go, so I somehow fought it and got out by 6.45... The Battle of the Bed, every Friday and Saturday at 6 AM, watch it to believe it), and rushed to class by 7.45. In the Macro Economics class, we got the results of our last quiz, I'd got a 5 on 10. Whoopee, I thought! And then the prof says "Anyone with 6 and below, please come by and meet me, we need to go over your fundamentals.. If you have any doubts, we can clear them up". Whaaa?!?! I thought 5 was good..! We then proceeded to discuss our quiz, and we watched as all our defenses went out the window (or were unceremoniously thrown out the window, is more like it). That quiz was just too cool, tested all our fundamentals with the most basic of questions! Damn. And some guys had the audacity to get 10 on 10 in it. The nerve!

In Managing Organizations, we tried to fish for the type of questions he'd give us... there were constant questions about "Sir, what should we read for tomorrow? The binder or the book?" and the prof, time and again, said "See, whatever is covered till today is coming tomorrow. I cant say that nothing will come from the binder, but you definitely have to read from the book." After all these questions had been answered, one student asked "Sir, what should we read for tomorrow? The binder or the book?". I think the prof got pissed. His voice seemed just a leeeetle more menacing than usual. After he STRONGLY addressed this question for the last time, we got down to the day's case. It was about a company which had quite a few divisions, and they were struggling with coming up with new innovative products because of their horizontal/differentiated structure (Ahaah! Article 2!! It's useful! For those who dont know, when work is broken down into specific areas/tasks, then those particular areas/divisions kinda get divided from the others, so they're distinct. They can then focus on that area and get a whole lot better at it. Unfortunately, that tends to bring communication down by quite a few notches due to inter-team alienation).

So we discussed and decided it would be a good idea, to pluck one guy out of each division, get them together to build and innovate, and once they're done send the prototype to the normal divisions to efficiently build it. That way communication is not an issue, since they're in a temporary team and you overcome the issue of working together. Apparently, this is called integration (bringing these different teams together). So when you do both differentiation and integration, that's when you are being ambidextrous, since you can be efficient and innovate at the same time. The engineer in me kept yelling all the time, which idiot would first differentiate and then integrate, you could have left it as it was in the first place! Stupid engineer should have read Article 9. (I wasn't there yet.... yet!). I remember something about complexity, formalization and centralization being thrown around (All from article 2!! Looks like I wasnt the only guy reading the articles for the first time!), the best thing was the prof was agreeing with us. Looks like we were doing something right after all!

In BizStats, we discussed the Continuous (Uniform and Exponential - distributed over time), Normal Distribution. I had read this because it was coming for the quiz, so yeah, I already knew the stuff he was going to talk about. That was till he started talking. That jackrabbit can still hop around randomly, even when you've read the random stuff in advance! Goes to prove, you can't predict random, even if you've read random. Aaargghhh! Anyway, he was talking about how we can map these variables, and proceeded to give us some pretty cool live examples.

When class was done, the newborn manager in me began calculating. You have another 7 articles to read. Around 6 chapters in the book too... which everyone was saying was an irritating book in the first place, apparently the articles were way better. On top of that, my facebook horoscope had very plainly said that I was supposed to focus on the task at hand, and not worry about distractions, not now. Taking the advice of a virtual fake, I ended up not going to work so I could study at home. I had taken the horses into account, so according to my calculations... I would be done by 7 AM on Sunday(Wait, what??!). I didnt have the time, so me-manager decided that I should skip the book, and only read the articles. I was finally done by 11 PM. Then the me-engineer who was happily sleeping all along, woke up and said, you've read the articles, you can read the book till 1 AM. At 20 pages per chapter, you only have to read 80 pages, skip the first two chapters. Stoopid logical me-engineer. But very tempting advice, so I did it. And promptly kept falling asleep, even the four horses that were galloping around were not able to wake me up. Once I was done (or had given up), I fell asleep and thankfully, didnt have any nightmares about the two oncoming tests. Funny, how the horses always ride without the mares and vice-versa.

The next morning in Macro Economics, we studied the IS part of the IS-LF model, honestly, I was thinking about the two tests, so I only remember the part where we talked about how the GDP will rise only if the investors WANT to invest and the banks want to lend. That's why we kept seeing articles like "RBI prods State Banks to lower interest rates". There were some math formulae which linked all this stuff, and other blah blah. It was interesting, but my mind was elsewhere.

In the Managing organizations test, I wasn't lost.. but I wasn't found either. Some of the terms were alien to what we read in the articles OR the book. Even the me-engineer remembered that some terms weren't there in the book for sure! Anyway, the prof had been smart in ensuring that there were negative marks. Since half the course was full fundas, he didn't want us coming up with our own.. so he said for every wrong answer, minus one mark. That hopefully deterred some of us from guessing. Didn't deter me though, so I look forward to one big egg when the results come out.

The BizStats quiz was even better. Two very simple looking questions. And I didn't know how to solve them. I was cursing me-engineer because I was awake till 2 AM that morning, but he was the guy solving those numericals then, so I didnt have the heart to tell him anything. 20 minutes passed by in a flash! I was still scratching my head at the end of it, me thinks that this was some kind of googly, and required the application of binomial distribution TWICE in each question. Grumbling at my great preparation, I left the college, never looking back ( I was driving, and didnt want to meet with an accident. If I looked back, then the hospital would have needed to be internet-enabled for me to write this article with a different ending).

I think I've digressed quite a bit in this post, what with the horses and all... but you now have an idea as to how a person who's deriliously studying for an exam is like, after the exam. With 5 hours of sleep everyday over the entire week, this is what you'd have to go through to. And I dont have kids, imagine the poor souls who do! Looking forward to the free week this week, since we have no classes on account of Diwali! Whoopeee!!

Quarter 2 - Week 4

When you dont have an assignment to complete, it's such bliss! :) And when you have two holidays in the week, it's bliss-squared..! Monday being one of those 2 holidays, I spent it trying to read Macro Economics.. we had a test/quiz the coming Saturday. I must have read 25 pages in 4 hours? No, dont get it wrong.. the book's easy to follow, I just kept getting distracted. That must be the most dangerous thing ever, it's very easy to get distracted, there's always something that is just a little more important. I'd come home early the entire week and try to read Macro Economics, and it was quite tough to trudge along. But I kept at it! Persistence... thy name is my name! Friday also was a holiday, and I managed to read up the sections for the test. Anyway, October 2(Friday) was a holiday at IIMB, so we'd catch up with the expected class schedule by coming in on Sunday. Sigh.

On Saturday, we started off with Macro Economics. We discussed what the government can do in times of recessions. How they can give "antibiotics" to keep the economy sustainable. We then began a discussion on the Great Depression, what caused it, what could have been done to avoid the difficult period at least to the extent we could take it to. The quiz was held in the last 20 minutes of the class. Man, I really liked those questions. Yes, they were simple, but they were crafted in such a way that we would have gone over all our fundamentals within 20 questions. What googlies! We're eagerly awaiting our results. The next day, Sunday, we continued speaking about the Great Depression and what were the mistakes we could have avoided and how this affected the majority of the western world. A question was raised, why should the government bail out the people who caused the mess in the first place, what message are we sending out. The words of our teacher ranked true - When a doctor has a patient who may have, let's say, a drinking problem. If the patient is in the ICU, struggling between life and death due to some liver-issue, the doc won't say 'I wont operate on you because you didnt listen to me, and you didnt heed my warnings'. He'll do his best to save the patient, and give the bhaashan later. Seemed sensible enough..

Managing Organizations was theoritical this week. Bugger, we were pretty sure that we'd have a surprise quiz on Saturday, and when our prof came in with this ghost of a smile on his face, there was such a rush for the books and readings so people would cram as much as they could. Amidst yelps, howls and pleas for "postponement by a day", he was quite sure-footed when he told us that the surprise quizzes were meant to test our readings. If you are unable to spend a little time reading the articles, then you wont get much out of the class. Dont share your worldly knowledge about the questions posed in the test he said, he was more bothered about whether we got the right idea. We must have grumbled for a minute or so, and then we got into the groove. I am learning to write loads of crap, and I must say I'm getting pretty good at it! We are still talking about Org Structure, and the reasonings behind wanting to restructure. We had a case to study for Sunday, but I was unable to read it up properly. Anyway, I paid attention to the discussion hoping to gleam something out of it atleast... Next week, the midterm examination. The horror!

Business Statistics. (Note to self: Why do I bother?) Waste of my time, and the prof's time... He's still talking about random variables and I'm getting zilch. No matter how many times he says "practice, practice", I seem gung-ho on testing the limits and not doing anything. We spoke about Binomial distributions, Poisson distribution, Normal distribution, Chebyshev made an appearance somewhere, Turing also said hi. I fell asleep in the class! Asleep!! Tell you what, when I'm studying for the coming quiz next week (yes, that's another nightmare I have to prepare for), I'll go over the discrete random variables chapter properly and then let you know what it was that he was trying to hammer into our brains.

Quarter 2 - Week 3

Last week, our Business Statistics prof gave us an interesting assignment. Given a bug database (I dont know how he got it, the source remains a mystery) he asked us to find out all the information that we could, given this database. As an example, we could find out how long people took to fix bugs, whether the developers were working effectively etc. etc. The techie in me wondered "What the hell?! People are fixing bugs, and you're not happy with that?" The answer to my own question dawned pretty soon, "It might be loathesome to sit and look at all this, but you probably want to find out if they can do something better or faster. Or you can find out if someone needs some help, but is probably too proud to ask for it. Or in the worst case, probably isnt even aware that he needs help". The manager talk has already begun... is it a good sign?

So this "fun" assignment comes with a catch... use open source database and all from Open Office. AND run some queries using SQL. Apparently, we have all the time in the world to learn up SQL and figure our way around Open Office for the first time. A part of me thinks he's doing it to keep the pressure up on us, to add those inherent capabilities that these IIM products are famous for - time management, prioritization, the works. Another part of me says he's doing it because he believes open source is a good thing, and he can spread the word in one way - bringing it to his work, i.e. us. And probably we can spread the word in our own way.

Right, so this was last week when this assignment was given to us, and I've spent almost 20 hours just figuring out how to use this damned software. Staying awake late, working on it in office (and feeling suitably guilty about it), waking up early, I'm slowly getting used to it (Question to self: Why am i here again?). Still, when Friday came along, I was feeling reasonably good. I had gotten a chart or two out, and my partner and I were ready to do some serious sifting.

The classes started off with Macro economics, we have now entered the realm of Aggregate Demand. This is basically the total demand for goods and services within an economy. We're going through the Keynesian(pronounced keen-see-yun) model, made up by the guy who brought the US out of the Great Depression. Fancy accomplishment, that. How did he do it? He told everyone that to build the GDP of a country, you need to spend-spend-spend!! To all of us techies, when the formula was shown on the board, it made sense. If you spent, you got a whole lot of GDP since that extra spending keeps circulating in the economy. If you save too much, then nobody buys stuff, and if no one buys stuff, then jobs are not there, and if jobs are not there, then nobody buys stuff. Vicious circle!! We understood how the US is a consumer-spending driven economy, China is an export driven company, India is an investment and services driven economy... if even one external factor is affected, everyone dances! We slowly have begun to appreciate the roles played by the consumers, the investors/corporates, and we had just begun understanding the role the government plays. What gets me, is that we dont seem to be noticing anything other than monetary stuff that can be valued. The implicit advantages/disadvantages, the stuff that can not be quantified or rather we dont want to quantify is nowhere in the picture. It's all about the money... well, it is Macro Economics after all.

Managing Organizations was pretty cool this week. On the first day, we studied a case of two companies - one very process oriented, good, cheap and effective, though it treated its employees like "horses" with blinders as one of our classmates remarked in a light vein. The other company had people who mixed with each other, spent enough time understanding every one's work and not just specializing in their own. Communication was awesome in this company, yet they were slower than the first company. During the discussion, we noticed that when presented with the chance of building a new design, the second company did better as they were more flexible and communicated well, while when it ultimately came down to production, at the end of the day, the first company got the contract. A sad story, in my opinion, where in the second company did quite well in getting their act together and thrived on the uncertainty of the project, but lost it in the end because they didnt have the cost effectiveness of the first company. And here, I learnt my first real lesson about organization structure. While an employee would love to work in the second company, a person would want to be the CEO of the first, where everything was clear and streamlined. I learnt that a company should be structured based on the industry it is in, so that it can thrive. Hurts to know that you cant have a fair and fun company, if you're in an industry which requires cost-effective measures and extremely high quality. It doesnt let you experiment with new ideas, or concepts purely because it puts your current system at risk. Sigh.

Business Statistics - what can I say? We had a quiz on day 1, and yours truly got battered! I dont know where my brain went for a walk at that moment, because it sure as hell wasnt in my head when the quiz was going on. Must have fallen asleep, due to the lack of sleep from the last week. We started studying random variables. These aren't really "variables" in the terms we use it in comp sci lingo. These are functions. Basically, we try to figure out our payouts(what we can get) considering the different results that can occur due to probability. The example given was simple - consider there's a fraud happening in a company, and you've been called in. Would you analyse each and every transaction to see where the fraud is? What if the cost of the investigation is so much that to check each and every fraud, you'd probably have to shut down the company as that would be far cheaper. So, this somewhat talked about how you "hedge your bets" carefully. I wont say I totally understood what the guy was talking about. Two days went by in a blur of formulae, and examples that seemed to make sense when he was talking about it. Man, that guy is a jack rabbit. I dont know how he manages to move around so fast, it's really difficult keeping pace with him. I must grudgingly admit - he's brilliant, seems well read... it's difficult to point fingers at inspiring figures like that. He can actually get away with taunting us, which he does, just because we're in awe of him. Awesome! Anyway, we've finished our assignment, somehow, let's just hope that he finds our queries enough. BTW, the results for that quiz on Friday came on Saturday - did pretty bad. The prof told us not to worry, it's apparently legacy. All his first tests, no matter how easy it is, people suck at it. Make me feel a little better.

Good thing the tests are best three out of four! :P

Quarter 2 - Week 2

Why am I taking this casually? I cant just read 10 pages of one of the subjects and walk in thinking I'm well prepared! Good thing, the momentum hasnt been built in class yet, I have got a lot to catch up with!!

We already seem to have finished Binder 1 in MacroEcon, I dont even know how that happened.. I havent even seen the first article! She's warned us to put a little more back into it, she's not going to the extent of making and discussing these binders if we're going to be slacking off. She also doesnt like us falling asleep and biting nails, so remember, NONE of that. But all in all, she's a fun prof, she is very passionate about this subject and finely maintains the balance between care and no-nonsense. The subject is beginning to seem interesting too... we're studying GDP and how we attribute the National Income to that. It appears that we can even determine the standard of living in a country, though not very accurately through these numbers. We've begun to understand that the government really DOES play a role in helping the country out. Apparently, they come up with this thingy called a fiscal policy that describes how they plan to implement taxes and build up on infrastructure. We understand how the GDP of a country depends on the way its consumers spend, the government spends, capital investments that take place and the net exports of the country. China is exports driven, US is consumer-spending driven... man, the techie in me is really getting impressed with all this stuff!

In ManOrg, we finally seem to have come to the point of emotion. All this time, everyone's telling us that quantify, substantiate, be logical... now we seem to come to intrinsic organization behaviour. Through a case study, we debated what we could do to help modify the company's structure keeping its current spirit and identity alive. The prof's reminded us to read the articles before coming to class. So gotta do that!

BizStats was unique. We studied probability, but interestingly, not by theorems. Our prof actually got us a bunch of dice, and packs of cards. He actually made us roll those dice and pick cards, and used it to explain probability to us. We already knew the basic fundas (first week of probability after all), but have it explained to us this way..? Man!! True, he's still jumping too fast for me... but I really need to build my pace. I sure didnt read anything for his class!

Moral of this rant, read.. read!! Now that I'm done with my blog backlog.. or rather bloglog, I'm goin to sleep, wake up tomorrow (holiday, whoopee!) and ahem, read up! Wish me luck!

Quarter 2 - Week 1

We had a one week vacation. That's it. We dont get any time off for another three months! Our schedules have been made available to us. We have Macro economics, Managing Organizations, and Business Statistics - 1 this quarter.

Our MacroEconomics prof has been really kind to us by giving us 2 phat books, and a bunch of binders to read from. Here I was, struggling to read half the book in a subject in our last quarter, she's handed us two! The binders will be given to us periodically. It's been made abundantly clear to us that if we dont put our backs into reading these books and coming prepared for class, we'd be lost in our later sessions. She's quick to tell us that no dumb/deviating questions will be entertained, I'm really suspecting she's spoken with our previous profs about our mentality. We sure are interactive, but we tend to go insane with our questions!

Our ManOrg prof is the cool calm types... he's mixing theory with case studies. We started off with studying the structure of organizations, the apex, the operating core and the middle levels. The additional sections that support this structure were also mentioned, I dont remember the names now. He's given us a book, and a binder. Sure is a lot to read this term, methinks!

Our BizStats prof means business. He's extremely fun and energetic in class. He makes up for it by being a total terror in terms of expectations. A no-nonsense guy, he's told us in politically correct terms that he wont listen to our bullshit. Deadline means deadline. Practice means practice. He is not going to hold our hands and lead us along the beaten path. He's clearly told us to read the book, and that in his class we get to see how it gets applied. He also seems to be a fan of open source software, he's getting us to install and experience some cool apps. Let's see how that goes. He is really well read, and makes a lot of references in his jokes to things I fail to catch half the time. Sure keeps us awake, I'll give him that! Who else could probably makes statistics seem like an interesting subject?!

Quarter 1 - Micro Economics, Financial Accounting and Strategic Management

Ok, I'm going to avoid a weekly update since I dont remember anything from each week. Things just pass by so fast, I didnt even realize that three months had passed. I'm only going to write down a summary of the course, so we can get down to Quarter 2.

Micro economics deals with the basics of consumer and supplier behaviour. We learnt about what affects supply and demand, how changes in price and income can affect both demand and supply. It was fascinating to note the variations that can occur depending on what type of good you have. For example, a normal good would show an increase in demand if incomes rose, but inferior goods (low quality, or even out-of-date) tend to show a decrease in demand when incomes rose, primarily because people chose better goods. We saw how people tend to make a tradeoff between two goods depending on their income, so that they can get maximum satisfaction by spending their money optimally. We then also saw how companies can increase production in the short run, but cant beyond a limit... and how they can build more capacity by making capital investments. Was fascinating to see the basics behind how consumers and firms think and act. The prof was also really passionate about the subject. He had such vast experience and seemed to have anecdotes on just about anything! Yea, he was a little impatient, but hey, first-year students are always dumasses in the beginning arent they, we deserved it! :)

Financial Accounting taught us how to read annual reports of companies - balance sheets, profit and loss accounts, cash flow statements. The nitty gritties into understanding the health of a company, all by looking at the annual report... wow, that was just too much. As a pure techie, I remember screwing up my nose at all things financial. Now I understood what it meant when someone spoke about assets and liabilities. I understood how you recognize revenue and the different types of doing so. It's so cool that FinAcc is like another language all together, half math, half English, it truly felt like I could look at a company's report and intelligently mutter something about it!

Strategy Management was what I enjoyed the most. I had slept through atleast a couple of classes in the other two, but this one... this one was just awesome. Understanding why a company does the way it does, or behaves the way it does. I learnt that a company is not just successful due to the way it is run, it is also dependent on the industry. Apparently, there's this thing call Porter's Five Forces that shape industry. It helps determine if an industry is worth getting into in the first place. Another is the resources of the company that follow a VRIN funda (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Non-substitutable). I know that Maadus and Gujjus claim that business is in their blood, here was that knowledge quantified and brought down to a science! To understand what makes a company tick, how people shape strategies, was surely the coolest insight into corporate behaviour. Not to mention that we understood how different industries worked, their quirks and their activities. I sure hope I dont forget the learning out of this subject.

One thing that these subjects seemed to implicitly mention, was that if you had a hunch about something, dont just go out and yell about it. Look for hard facts, and numbers that will help u substantiate it. Anyone can go out and yell from their soap-boxes, but it's when a person looks for evidence and you provide it without him especially asking for it, that you become effective. One of the many steps to becoming a manager.

The exams were a disaster, but since I am not that bothered about marks (as long as I pass), I guess I'm ok. If you havent yet heard, there's no placement for this course. The only time your marks come in handy is when you decide to apply as an exchange student. I havent yet decided if I want to try for that, but you never know, stay flexible.

The ME professor seemed to have all but given up on us in terms of the actual papers, he knew that we had understood the fundas he taught us, just that we didnt write it down. So he gave us open book exams, and experimented with whether that'd help us apply better. The FinAcc professor must have thought that unfair, and to balance it out he gave us a pretty tough paper for our end term. It wasnt really difficult, lengthy was more like it... but if we had bothered to practice, then we wouldnt have had an issue. Note to self: Practice more. The Strategy prof was cool, open book exams (what would we have to mug and vomit anyway, everything needs to be applied!) and simple interesting cases. He even made sure that we had coffee and biscuits made available to us since his exams were 3-4 hours in duration!

The projects were simple, it was more of a challenge for our teams to get together than it was to actually work on the projects. We managed. I'll leave it at that. That's pretty much our first quarter. We had also had the opportunity of putting up the first fest of the PGSEM, Pehel '09. Hilarious! The things that went wrong, the things that we did impromptu... it was just an experience to go through. I'm sure we'll do better next time, that's one thing about our batch, we look to the future and stop worrying about the past...