You make a resume with all the "relevant" "achievements" of your life. You go through endless
revisions, trying to get maximum impact into each word, stretching the truth to as far as it will go (or your CV checker will let it), you fill every CV relate religiously.
You sell yourself to every company through your SOP-story, you pretty much cover your entire life in the cover letter...and what do you get:
DING,
DING,
DING,
DING,
Most of us 'normal' people here are suffering from this, wonder what the abnormal ones did to be abnormal.
Wondering when this will end!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Cheetah and the Elephant
One thing that WIMWI practically guarantees is world-class faculty. These people who could have made big bucks in the industry (some have I guess) teach us for what would be peanuts in comparison...reason:Unknown ( my guess is something called passion).
Operations Management is a subject that's started in slot 3 and will continue till the end of the year. We are taught by Saralda (Prof Saral Mukherjee). I won't say I appreciate everything about the subject but one thing definitely stands out in Saralda's class ... his passion for the subject. When he speaks about the assembly line or the process flow diagram or Little's theorem, the esteem he holds his subject in and how much he loves it comes shining through.
The metaphor of the cheetah and the elephant as kinds of organizations and operations took my breath away. He has the authority to tell 80 CAT-cracking superachievers "This is why we teach...hope...hope that ONE of you may understand what operations management truly is."
Today he showed a clip of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times to bring out the difference between an assembly line in the past and modern ones.
Hats off to you Sir...will be in awe of your passion and hope I can achieve something like that at some stage of my life.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
A week gone in slot 3 and I am already feeling exhausted. Mugging for classes, preparing CVs and attending PPTs leaves very little time to relax and consider all that is happening around me.
I-banking as an industry is no more...don't know where in the scheme of things I will fit in. What I will do for the next yr and a half and where I will go after that.
While studying for the Microeconomics exam, which was 2 days after Lehman filed for Chapter 11, I had an epi-funny (was funny to me...atleast at that time).
"There is a market for lemons, but no market for Lehmans".
The competitive nature of everyone here came to the fore when the interest survey for AT Kearney was filled in literally a couple of minutes. With most of the major banks out, consults are and have been for the last year or so the hottest items. I registered my vote at 10.05 pm I think and I was too late to get into an audience of about 80 PGP-1s. Lesson learnt...these days my interest is registered within 5 seconds of the survey opening whether the survey is FCFS or not.
Placecom doing a great job...keep it up guys!
A senior gave really good advice,"It doesn't matter where and what you do in summers...what matters in the end is how well liked you are by people." Hopefully that is true.
I-banking as an industry is no more...don't know where in the scheme of things I will fit in. What I will do for the next yr and a half and where I will go after that.
While studying for the Microeconomics exam, which was 2 days after Lehman filed for Chapter 11, I had an epi-funny (was funny to me...atleast at that time).
"There is a market for lemons, but no market for Lehmans".
The competitive nature of everyone here came to the fore when the interest survey for AT Kearney was filled in literally a couple of minutes. With most of the major banks out, consults are and have been for the last year or so the hottest items. I registered my vote at 10.05 pm I think and I was too late to get into an audience of about 80 PGP-1s. Lesson learnt...these days my interest is registered within 5 seconds of the survey opening whether the survey is FCFS or not.
Placecom doing a great job...keep it up guys!
A senior gave really good advice,"It doesn't matter where and what you do in summers...what matters in the end is how well liked you are by people." Hopefully that is true.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Random thoughts...
6 weeks to go, then 6 days... Summer placements beckon!
slot 3 promises to be the roughest time in my stay at WIMWI...though I'd rather not hypothesize about the future. 8 subjects (no WAC either to bring the actual number down), PPTs, summer preps, CV preparation...life is hectic.
Thesis accepted pending typo corrections...should get my MSc degree after a thesis defence.
A lot of the things that are happening around me remind me of different things described in "Snapshots From Hell" and "Running of the Bulls".
Had an OM class by Prof. Saral Mukherjee (Saralda) and it was the turn of my study group to present a case. While I was not speaking, must say we had our 'case' taken...not unlike the description of the Marketing class Peter Robinson describes.
The I-Banking situation, on the other hand, reminds me of the title of the second chapter in "Running of the Bulls"..."Goldman or Bust".
slot 3 promises to be the roughest time in my stay at WIMWI...though I'd rather not hypothesize about the future. 8 subjects (no WAC either to bring the actual number down), PPTs, summer preps, CV preparation...life is hectic.
Thesis accepted pending typo corrections...should get my MSc degree after a thesis defence.
A lot of the things that are happening around me remind me of different things described in "Snapshots From Hell" and "Running of the Bulls".
Had an OM class by Prof. Saral Mukherjee (Saralda) and it was the turn of my study group to present a case. While I was not speaking, must say we had our 'case' taken...not unlike the description of the Marketing class Peter Robinson describes.
The I-Banking situation, on the other hand, reminds me of the title of the second chapter in "Running of the Bulls"..."Goldman or Bust".
Monday, September 22, 2008
A little break...
Slot 2 exams done. Were not the best set of exams I've ever written.
A 3-day break from WIMWI...a hurriedly arranged, tremendously anticipated visit to Bangalore.
Wanting to fill as much in every day as we could...to meet as many people as I could.
Thesis accepted pending small corrections for the award of the MSc degree.
Had really good coffee after almost 40 days, walked at Sankey, roamed Malleshwaram.
Then something unexpected, unwanted, horrific.
Somethings change your life, your outlook towards life.
Make what is REALLY IMPORTANT very clear. This was one of them.
A 3-day break from WIMWI...a hurriedly arranged, tremendously anticipated visit to Bangalore.
Wanting to fill as much in every day as we could...to meet as many people as I could.
Thesis accepted pending small corrections for the award of the MSc degree.
Had really good coffee after almost 40 days, walked at Sankey, roamed Malleshwaram.
Then something unexpected, unwanted, horrific.
Somethings change your life, your outlook towards life.
Make what is REALLY IMPORTANT very clear. This was one of them.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
slot 2
Slot 2 is about to end...2 more days of classes...6 more lectures.
then the end slot exams. never realized how this slot flew past me.
hope to do well in the exams and be more regular in writing this blog.
lots of things on my mind recently...career goals,
life goals, other things like how can you differentiate between so many talented ppl
and what happens to those who are unlucky enough to not make the cutoff ever,
even if they are as good as the ones who got selected.
and what happens to those who got selected and have to manage all kinds of extra currics with the
TREMENDOUS load that IIMA puts in terms of acads.
and why the case method???...maybe I will get my answers some day...'blowing in WIMWI's wind'
P.S: I went from Mumbai, where it rains cats, dogs and the rest of the zoo, to Bangalore where it rains ...let's say less (to prevent beating from some1 who always gets caught in the rains) to ahmedabad where it has rained exactly 7 min in the last 3 weeks if I remember correctly.
Where to next...Kalahari I guess.
then the end slot exams. never realized how this slot flew past me.
hope to do well in the exams and be more regular in writing this blog.
lots of things on my mind recently...career goals,
life goals, other things like how can you differentiate between so many talented ppl
and what happens to those who are unlucky enough to not make the cutoff ever,
even if they are as good as the ones who got selected.
and what happens to those who got selected and have to manage all kinds of extra currics with the
TREMENDOUS load that IIMA puts in terms of acads.
and why the case method???...maybe I will get my answers some day...'blowing in WIMWI's wind'
P.S: I went from Mumbai, where it rains cats, dogs and the rest of the zoo, to Bangalore where it rains ...let's say less (to prevent beating from some1 who always gets caught in the rains) to ahmedabad where it has rained exactly 7 min in the last 3 weeks if I remember correctly.
Where to next...Kalahari I guess.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
We're halfway through slot 2 and the dreaded 'short' quizzes are in 'short' supply.
Guess there is going to be a lot of them in the business end of the slot.
Olympics are over and India won a gold medal!!
FRA is becoming more interesting and less mechanical...trying to figure out ppl doing FRA-ud is better than trying to figure out where the sheet is unbalanced.
Marketing is something I don't particularly understand but the need for non-linear thinking and Prof. Koshy's exhortation to "zameen pe aa jao" are interesting.
The insights from the class are great...you literally have to get into the customer's head and think like him...something I'm not at all good at.
A gem from his class:
" Whenever you are trying to take an important decision, look in the right place."
Going home this weekend and participating in Nihilanth.
Guess there is going to be a lot of them in the business end of the slot.
Olympics are over and India won a gold medal!!
FRA is becoming more interesting and less mechanical...trying to figure out ppl doing FRA-ud is better than trying to figure out where the sheet is unbalanced.
Marketing is something I don't particularly understand but the need for non-linear thinking and Prof. Koshy's exhortation to "zameen pe aa jao" are interesting.
The insights from the class are great...you literally have to get into the customer's head and think like him...something I'm not at all good at.
A gem from his class:
" Whenever you are trying to take an important decision, look in the right place."
Going home this weekend and participating in Nihilanth.
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