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...

Flashback - The Orientation

I still remember the day we got the results, that morning everyone was gung-ho about the results being put out but nothing was visible yet. It was around 4 in the evening, when a small popup came up on the lower right end of my screen saying "Mail from PGSEM". I was ready for anything, I was mentally preparing myself that I might not have gotten through, and that anyway I could try again next year if I wanted.

I opened the mail, and saw the "You've been selected...". I stopped right there. Sitting in office, a grin just came up on my face... and I couldnt stop it! I hadn't told anyone that I had been applying to the PGSEM, and now here I was with a piece of news I just wanted to yell out! (Yea, my manager knew since I was required to fill out a "company-acceptance" form, where the company says they have no objection to me studying while working. Everyone's into liability insurance and all nowadays, yeesh). So, when my neighbour at work realized that I was showing all my pearly whites, and that no one had sent us a funny forward since morning... he began to look worried. Then I told him, and he was like "Congratulations!!!", and I said "Thank you, thank you!" and then it just spread. Everyone got to know, and they were all like.. you're a techie, why the hell u doing a management course?! I told them all the same thing, I want to study further, I dont want to quit my job, this seemed like the best option for me.

Told my friends from college, and they all were like "Wow!" and "Huh?!" and "What-ay fool, it's a part time course!". Mainly the first one, though I got a few of the others too. Anyway, everyone thought it was a good decision, what with the recession and all that...

Orientation was scheduled for the 30-31st of May, and when I did reach there, I was back to "prim and proper". Took me all of 25 minutes to undo all that. Didn't act like a complete idiot, but sure was no complete elegance either. Spent some time mixing with a few of the folks, got to know a few names, met some of the guys from the time of the Open House, and we all enjoyed our flashback to feeling like students. I'd never stayed in a hostel before, now for three days that was what I'd be doing. The seniors did an awesome job of getting us to mix, and then giving us a feel of what it'd be like when we studied there. We had a case study, for which we were all awake till 2 AM that day... and then we had some ice breakers, a talk by Sanjay Anandaram, an entrepreneur-turned-VC. At the end of three days, we even had a sports competition!

When I left the place, I felt like I had known most of those guys for quite a while, those seniors really knew what they were doing. I didnt realize it just then, but that is one of the reasons it's so easy to talk to all my classmates now. There's just no more ice left... :)

Flashback - The Interview

The interview was spread across two days - the first being the Alumni Interview and the next was the Faculty Interview. When asked why we had two interviews, we were given to understand that since the applicants had a strong technical background, most being Senior Tech Leads or architects, it was possible that they could use technical jargon to appear like they had accomplished more than they really had, and the faculty would typically have to take them at their word for it.

Going by the adage, it takes a coder to analyse another, the alumni felt that they could help with a "first-round-analysis" and figure out if the candidate really did accomplish what he had said, and if he was genuine. However, they do not filter anyone out at this stage, they only make recommendations to the faculty and give feedback on the candidate. It was also felt that this could help the candidate to be more at ease for the final interview, sort of acting like an orientation(?) interview.

My alumni interview was pretty simple. Even though everyone had done their best to convince us that this would be a walk in the park, I guess it didn't really sink in till the interview was over. They started off by asking me "So, are you nervous?" and when I said I was, they went ahead and repeated the same thing I'd been hearing on the PGSEMInfo group and at the Open House, "Dont worry, it's nothing... Just be yourself." They asked simple questions like "What do you do?", "How will you manage your time between work and study?", "Why are you doing this course?", "What plans do you have for your future? What do you want to do? How will this course help you". And finally, they followed it up with "Any questions for us?". Yea, was a breeze. I dont remember anyone coming out saying "Oh God! Things didnt go well at all!!"

The faculty interview, I sure wont forget that one. I've always left stuff for the last minute, but this was just unforgivable. Please note, DO NOT leave anything for the last minute. DO NOT leave anything for the last minute. Double effect!

I was supposed to make copies of all my certificates for the faculty interview, and I thought I'd do it on the way to the college. My interview was at 2 PM, and yours truly left at 1 PM with his certificates in tow. Only to find out that there was a power cut from 10 AM - 5 PM on that day, in a 3 kilometre radius. Awesome huh? Luckily for me, some internet cafe very close to IIMB had a xerox machine and I got my docs copied and then thankfully remembered that they might ask me something from my SOP too. So took a printout of it, and rushed to IIMB. I reached the interview hall by 1.55 PM. Second Note: When you're screwed, do not panic.

Easy for me to give gyaan after doing the interview huh? Anyway, I just had time to give my docs and then was immediately called for the interview. The profs saw me in a not-so-calm state, and asked me to rest a minute (God bless those profs!). They then proceeded to ask me about the domain in which I worked, and tried to figure out if I knew enough about the domain. Thankfully, not many people are aware of what goes on in my domain, they only know that it's popular, but not many really understand what goes on in there. So that turned out well for me. They then proceeded to ask me about my family, and when I told them I was single, they asked if I planned to get married anytime soon, and that this course doesnt leave me time for anything else.

It wasn't a stress interview, and I must have chatted with them for around 15 minutes. I remember that I wasn't nervous, I had visited this campus almost five times till now, and I had already prepared well in my mind that I was going to be honest about everything. A senior who had met us had mentioned that it's very important to be truthful and sincere. There's nothing the profs hate more than fakers, they definitely have much more things to do with their valuable time. So since I didnt have to lie about anything, and the surroundings were familiar, I must say I was in pretty good shape at the end of it. But I still remember thinking that they hadnt asked me enough questions, and they hadnt grilled me at all.. maybe I had lost the interview even before I had gotten out of that chair.

Unfortunately, it's been almost 6-8 months since I had those interviews, so I just remember the gist of it. To see "close-to-verbatim" interviews, refer to my earlier post (http://thepgsemdiary.blogspot.com/2009/09/flashback-wait.html). Anyway, after that I just walked out, heaving a sigh of relief thinking the worst was over.

In hind sight, I remember that all the questions, both by the alumni and faculty were more aimed at seeing if I'd make it through the course. About whether I had pressures on my time already, or if I'd be travelling often or even when they asked about why I want to do this course. It all seemed to zero in on ensuring that applicants weren't being filtered out, it was more like they were saving those of us who wouldnt be able to manage it, almost like they wanted to save us the effort if they felt we werent going to make it.

They knew what was in store for us, and they only wanted those who had a fighting chance to even try it. It wasn't our past performance they were looking at, it was our future commitments.

Flashback - The Wait

While waiting for the results, I spent more time trying to get information on the PGSEM. Of course, the PGSEMInfo group helped quite a bit - the current students were more than helpful. On top of that, I tried to find a few sites which probably spoke about the interview experience of students for the PGSEM. The following helped quite a bit:

http://ajithprasadb.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-pgsem-interview-iimb.html

http://ashuonnet.blogspot.com/2007/04/pgsem-2007-interview.html

http://piyushkrsrivastava.blogspot.com/2007/05/way.html

http://shamitb.blogspot.com/2008/04/iimb-pgsem-faculty-interview.html

The following page does have all of the interview links posted about, plus some more info:

http://kansal.gaurav.googlepages.com/pgsem@iimb

A couple of my classmates have updated their blogs too:

http://supreethamave.blogspot.com/2009/04/pgsem-2009-iim-bangalore.html

http://sidvishmba.blogspot.com/2009/04/pgsem-faculty-interview.html

Anyway, I went for a couple of events organized at the PGSEM fests, the PGSEM Open House and asked a few questions. Looking back on it now, I think it was quite helpful. The first time I entered IIMB, I was quite overwhelmed by the place. I must have tried really hard to act and sound smart, not make a fool of myself (which I am perfectly capable of doing, thank you), and generally kept to myself since I dont know anyone else there.

But by the time the Open House happened, there was already some activity by students applying this year, we must have met up a few times to discuss our Strategy for the interview (Oh yea, by now I had gotten my CAT results and had applied for the PGSEM. Got shortlisted too, must have been March at this time, sure was a long wait). So, along with the other aspirants, we had gotten together, joshed around a bit, and finally at the Open House, I knew almost 15-20 people there. Not being a fish out of water really helps, I can say that much.

So, when my interview finally came around at the end of March, and I walked onto the campus, it wasn't a person who was trying to put his best foot and impression forward. It was a guy who realized that this place is as tough as it looks, but it's not unfamiliar, you can make it here. And glimpses of the fool came shining through...

Flashback - The CAT

Woke up at 6 AM. Wasn't able to sleep beyond that, the last time I wrote an exam was almost four years ago! Luckily for me, my life didnt depend on this one. At least I could continue working even if things didn't work out fine. In any case, the butterflies in my stomach were happy at being freed after so long and flitted all around keeping me sufficiently nervous. Against all the warnings and cautions yelled at me by the book, I stuffed myself both with breakfast and some last minute quant fundas before rushing away to the centre at breakneck speed.

Must have reached the centre around 30 minutes in advance, the gates were open and people trudging in to the classes. It took me 10 minutes just to find which building I was in. I finally found my seat and sat down. Got my pencil, pen and hall ticket out. The arrangements were very well done. There were loudspeakers at each corner. The paths to the classes had been clearly marked. People were there to help guide the frantic test takers to their rooms and seats. After an announcement that the test would start at exactly the scheduled time, a bell rang and the papers were distributed.

While writing the paper, I must say things went like clockwork. I had practiced enough tests, and knew my plan of action. Saw the question, could do - attempt, couldnt - leave. Kept looking at the clock every now and then. It's very important to ensure you're ahead of time. If behind time, it's very important to see how far behind you really are and if it's worth it. Since the time allotted was now for the entire paper, and not just per section, I started off with what I thought would let me have enough time to get the speed up for quant, and hence began with verbal. I thought it was a good decision, everyone tells me later that was stoopid. In any case, while working on verbal, when I saw that the time I had allotted for it had elapsed, I went on to the next section - quant. And similarly, at the end, DI. When I was done with the paper, I realized that I had left quite a few questions and had some time left to answer some more. I then went back to the questions over the entire paper, which I had marked knowing that if I had more time, I'd continue working on them.

Finally the bell went off, the paper was submitted, and I left for home. It was only when I reached home, that I let out a sigh and went to sleep. No point bothering about the results, they'll only come out this evening, or the next morning. This was November 16th 2008.

The next morning, I went to the PagalGuy forums, set up my answer sheet on their cool scorecard. Saved me a hell of a lot of time, comparing against the expected results. Within a week, sufficient scores were in to let me know how I had approximately done against other people. Looked like I'd get somewhere around 97 percentile A little anxious and excited, I began the long wait for Jan 2009, when the results would be formally announced.

Flashback - The Preparation

Woohoo! The most difficult part was done... filling out the application form! (In retrospect, I seem to easily think that what I just finished was the most difficult part. I'm a sucker for milestones! ) Now "all I had to do" was prepare. So I hopped and skipped along into Landmark, got one book for GRE (Kaplan) and one for CAT (a TMH book). (Here's a funny story, I was thinking of also giving the GRE so I could really really decide between doing an MS or an MBA. Ha ha, no? Such an idiot.) With these books tucked under my arm, I swipe my credit card (swish, money that is not mine used by me. The wonders of Mastercard and Visa. And Amex.) to probably make the ONLY futures investment that I followed up on and which paid out BIG for me.

As I was bound to do, the first two weeks I lolled about, reading up how to prepare for CAT, the numerous success stories and the innumerable failures. I told my office that I was going on vacation, and then I put my phone off. I plugged out the internet cable. I stopped short of yanking out my motherboard. And then, as an afterthought, plugged the internet cable back in, and promised not to go to orkut and facebook. Pbbffftt! Yea, like that happened!

The two weeks before CAT was intense. It's very easy to think "Oh, quant and grammar. Easy stuff." WOAH! The TMH book had one "orientation test". Apparently it could say how ready I am, and how much more I needed to prepare. Took the test, and checked the scores. I was shocked at the type of results, apparently I'd get a 50 percentile. Goosebumps here and there, I started checking each answer. The quant appeared to be right reasoning, the verbal was very suspect, very very suspect. But still, the book is always right they say, so I went through the theory. The one good thing this book had... was tips.

Apparently, it's very important to not get into an ego war with the question. The paper-setters have really enjoyed their task. The questions look deceivingly simple, especially in quant. You start it and then you begin wrestling with it. It's a big no-no to keep wrestling. 30 seconds into the question and u know whether you can do it. If you can't, LEAVE it. If you can, another 30 seconds to solve. If you cant finish it, LEAVE it. There are a LOT more questions waiting to be solved. In DI, you look at the sub-questions... if they are something you're familiar with, attempt it.. if not, LEAVE it. The same logic applies: if you're reasonably sure you can do it, then do it, else leave it. Base your action on periodic feedback "Does it look like the time remaining FOR THIS QUESTION is worth continuing to solve it".

Verbal, the book suggested a different approach. It said "Use ONLY 5 minutes to read and comprehend the passage". Then answer. So if the passage looked too long, I left it. I came back to it, if I had time in the section. It took a little practice to get over ego-wars for this one. I mean, its just a few words, you can read the rest of it... yeah, right! So these were the basic guidelines. Personally, I thought the book sucked at Verbal. Maybe I'm not willing to accept my English is bad. But it sure came out a winner, when it came to dishing out punishment. It says in the introduction, that these papers are set along the lines of the old CAT system, 270 questions in 180 minutes (or sometihng like that). IF YOU can crack this or score reasonably well, then you MIGHT get a call from one of the IIMs.

My target was 97 percentile(Apparently, you need atleast 95 to be even remotely considered for the PGSEM course. 97 seemed safe). A call from atleast one IIM means I would have gotten around 98%, that seemed like a good thing. So I figured, yes, now I've read the theory, solved some sample questions. Let's kick some paper-ass! Shudder. Oh, the memories... the horror.

Another priceless tip that the book passes on, is to write the mock CAT (and the previous year question papers) every day AT THE TIME of the actual paper. Apparently, this helps your mind orient and prepare itself for "flogging-time", keeps it ready.. alert! This really helped. I'm sure just thinking "I am in the CAT hall, I am in the CAT hall", getting goosepimples and then writing the paper helped big time. With absolutely no distractions, I wrote three or four mock CATs, got reasonable average scores (put me in the 80 percentile). And then there was just a week left for CAT.

So I spent the first two days just checking up on the basics again, watched some TV too. The next three days I wrote the actual CAT papers of 2005, 2006 and 2007. 2005 and 2007 put me in the 98% percentile, 2006 put me in the 89% percentile. It sucks when you know that your scores will not be very consistent. You get scared all the more. But in my opinion, scared is good. The last day of preparation, I looked over a few fundas, and basically chilled out a bit. Then in the evening, it suddenly hit me that I was going to write the actual test the next day. So panic set in, and I rushed through a couple of RCs and slept at 10 PM. Sleep - very important before an exam. VERY.

Flashback - The Choice

My first quarter just got over. It's funny how when you are studying hard for an exam, your mind wanders to what you should be doing. Mine went overboard, started thinking of going cycling, riding horses, playing the guitar... yea, a lot of all that. All the exams had to do was end, and all of that pretty much died down. Natural death and all.

But there was one thing that stuck - write a PGSEM diary. Nobody here knows about the PGSEM, apparently people dont think it has much of a value. A part-time course they said, nobody in their right minds would choose that they said. Do I want to glorify the PGSEM course? Nopes! I'd rather advocate that people go and join a full-time course with no other distractions (no office work, no overtime, no home work.. basically no work! ) and slog through the duration and come out a spiffy new manager.

But not everyone can just leave everything and join a management course. Some can not. Some dont want to. I didnt want to. I am more the... what would you call it... techie types. Give me bits and bytes and I'll juggle them all day. But I want to "do something", and I dont want to plunge head-first without knowing how to handle it all. Yes, give me a PC and I'll get started... but all code and no business makes Jack an idiot, or helpless at the least.

• Do I want to start an enterprise, but am not sure how... maybe.
• Do I think I'm not leading my team well in my company, and wish I had the know-how... maybe.
• Do I think I deserve more, and my company isnt giving me the chance because I dont have the required skill set... maybe.

Does this sound familiar to you? Probably, yes.

There's a huge gap between aspiration and the choice. My choice came about in a wierd way. I had this competition with someone, where in I said that I'd get better marks in CAT by studying for under a month, when this person had been studying for a year. I was scoffed at, but I was looking for a challenge.. and this seemed like fun. Solving puzzle, reading and understanding something, yea.. didnt sound like rocket science. At the time.

Anyway, while filling out my application, I marked all the PGP slots as a normal person would. But when I reached the Bangalore section, there was an added slot for PGSEM. Now, a friend had told me about the course, so I was vaguely intrigued by it. I looked it up... a few blogs here, the PGSEMInfo group there. It appeared to be tailor-made for someone who wanted to hold it all - work, family, study. Only if he thought he could go through with it. It seemed perfect! I wanted to know the fundamentals of managing an enterprise. Yea, I could always find someone who really IS interested in management, and let him handle the business side of the company. But I dont want to be illiterate when it comes to understanding it, I should atleast know the basics.

Now since I was writing the CAT anyway, I figured why not... why waste this opportunity in a competition, you actually have a goal now for the CAT. Will help you prepare better. Besides, this would let me know how I stand against the rest of the population. If I dont get a good score, I'd know what my weak points are. I can then write the PGSEM test in February (It was August I think at the time). You see, there were three tests to write to be eligible to enter the PGSEM course: The CAT - the mother of all filtering tests, the GMAT - The mother of all filtering tests internationally, and the PGSEM entrance test - The modest, silent killer.

• You got flogged in the CAT, competing against 2.75 lakh people is no joke. Your percentile varies by a mile for each wrong answer.
• The GMAT was apparently quite merciless itself - We're Indians, Quant is a walkthrough for us. But Verbal, sigh. People howled when they saw their verbal scores go for a toss "But Barrons/Kaplan/Princeton said this was right! What the $%#@!".
• The PGSEM entrance test - approximately 5000 people. A forgiving filtering scheme you think. 400 out of these guys get shortlisted. Hell, no! On the flip side, you dont get to know what your scores were... did u lose on verbal, or was it di? Was it the essay?? It's just an acceptance mail if you got through.

So I merrily ticked the option for PGSEM, alongside PGP. Left out the "other colleges", I figured why bother, you're only interested in the PGSEM, not like you're going to let go of your office tag and grab some books fulltime. Sent the application form.

And that's when the nightmare began.