Harsh lessons learnt for life from my first year of MBA

Well folks I've almost completed my first year of MBA. The journey was not easy and had lots of tweets and status updates. I could not have done this without the support of my Friends, Family, Teachers (yeah both of them ;) ), all chicken corners and fast food joints in Greater Noida. Oops I forgot this was not end of second year, sorry wrong speech. So coming back to point the year bygone has told me many lessons which I swear I’ll never forget in my life. As I've a habit of forgetting things, I decided to write a blog about the 10 most valuable lessons I learnt.

1. It is always hard to stay awake in a class but easier to stay awake through a late night movie. Even after having a bucket at KFC. If you don’t believe me, aa forget it I know most of you are already saying “Been there, done that”

2. On the first day of the month you’ll be having Butter chicken with 100 pipers. On the last of the month you’ll be having Dal Roti with hostel ka paani. (This I have a feeling will stay ever after my MBA)

3. You’ll always remember the latest song and sing it even while sleeping, but you’ll never remember that economics theory even when the teacher demands from you in the class.

4. It is easier to wake up early in the morning to watch a cricket match, but impossible for completing a left over assignment.

5. You can always motivate a group for a sip of Royal Challenge, but never for that Marketing group assignment. (I bet Vijay Mallaya loves that, hope he gives me a job when it comes to placements)

6. Text messages are still the way for it, when you know you have your faculty over at Facebook too.

7. That mentos thing (late for class wali) never works in real life. Teachers are way too smart to fall for that trick and you just freeze when they shout or throw some sarcasm at you.

8. Do break rules but don’t get caught not only applies at the traffic lights but also in B-School life.

9. Never think weekends are supposed to be fun, you’ll only be disappointed.

10. Trust me. It was far easier to write this blog than a 500 words project report.

So there they are, if you also have some do share it with me at the bottom. For moment let the feeling that we are seniors now sink in.

MBA for a receptionist!

So here comes another Sunday. It’s been a while I rested on a weekend and not go for some partying or shopping. But I have to say as much as I love partying, travelling or shopping, this time I really liked a quiet and alone Sunday. As the first thing on my checklist was to get a good amount of sleep for my sleep deprived body, so I woke up in the afternoon when finally my back started aching. And then as always I had missed my breakfast and lunch at the hostel mess is an option that I never consider. So I decided to take a walk and treat myself to some paranthas. That is how I ended up settling for the nearest market to our hostel which is Kailash. I went there, got my cell phone recharged, another thing I can strike off the checklist and ordered some paranthas. At that point only one thing crossed my mind if only I could have mom’s handmade paranthas. I got my order and started eating. Just as I was engrossed in them, some advertisement struck my eyes. It was one of those kinds where you take out a printout and you go around the town pasting them on the walls. It read

Required-Receptionist

Salary- 6000-8000

UG/Graduates/MBA

I was stunned. It really shook me. I was so taken aback that I forgot I was having food. How can an MBA even think of doing the job of a receptionist, leave alone the salary. You go to a B-school, pay around half a million Rupees at least and then go through the entire rigor to be an MBA. They teach you operations, marketing, finance, HR, strategy and what not. How a person after learning so much, can even think of being hired as a receptionist? I started thinking, my mind now totally diverted from the fact that I had no food for the last 15 something hours and now a plateful of paranthas lied in front of me and only me. I thought, how can that person who gave that advertisement, think of hiring an MBA for the specific job. Well It didn’t require too much of thinking. It takes no Sherlock Holmes to figure out that we are living and studying in a fractured system. A system which has stuck to the old notion of just getting admission in a college and then go through the motions and one thinks he will end up having a job. This has what led to the dilution of what MBBS, MBA or other educations really meant. Many of us study because we think we don’t have enough education to match how much we want to earn. And we forget the fact that it not the education but the capabilities that matter. We forget that in the real world nobody gives a damn what degree you have, they see what you can do. What results you can deliver. I think the person who gave the advertisement, is aware of the same fact. He knows he might hire an MBA for the job of a receptionist but then that’s all he or she might be capable of. Here I am not questioning our education system, what I am questioning is our mindset, how we approach our life at college. Are we one of those who just go through the motions and are desperately waiting for two years to end, so that they can finally earn something, or are we part of the other breed who approach everyday as to learn something new and make a change in them. Are we the same what we were a year ago or there is a fundamental change in how we think, how we act. These all are questions I think all of us who have this huge burden on their shoulders to be dubbed as nation’s future should ask oneself. What am I here for?

AND I THINK REALITY IS UNDERRATED.

A Term to Remember

I decided just to sit down, let some words flow and write something, but an idea stuck me. Read through the lines and see for yourself the idea and the writing. I don’t know how many times I will feel nostalgic writing this piece but I will relive all those moments for sure and for countless times .When I came to IWSB I came with a feeling that somewhere I belong. But now after the first term has been done with I think I do belong here. It was the larger than life seminar delivered by Sreeni at CL Jalandhar which played a key role in me coming here. Fast forwarding to 20th of June when we all a bunch of anxious, apprehensive strangers came together for the first time, sat together under one roof for the first time. It was a good session, and it did eased the butterflies in the stomachs a lot. Then came the classes, but it was the outbound that all waited for anxiously and the wait attached to it was really killing me softly. In the End it came but also went like speed of sound. And it was time to quit playing games and do some serious work and with Veeresh waiting for us, it was all serious business. The pre- term went away with some sleepless nights and with one last breath we sat for our first exam of the b-school journey. We welcomed the first term with stars in our eyes and laptops in our hands to finish the outbound experience article. Nevertheless it all began on very positive note for me at least. The classes went on and so did the assignments. Most the times we were crawling back to our beds at night with finished assignments and reading. But then there were times where we had to wake up early and make a move. All these had an effect on us as many of our esteemed batch mates dozed off frequently in the classes and some became vegetables in the process. We were then swept away with a flurry of infections. Many of us went home, for some it was the last train home before the term end and for many it was a regular routine after that. The classes and the assignments still continued. Srijan came and all were engaged in displaying their artistic and business minds. The classes still went on. New leaders emerged and confidence in the class grew especially of the b.com battalion as Raju sir handed over the baton to Joshi sir to teach financial accounting. Somewhere down the line there was furore about too many assignments, too much work being given. But it was all resolved in a way which can be at best described as laissez faire. On came many other celebrations like Freshers party, Janmashtami, teacher day. But who can forget the day when their birthday was celebrated in the hostel. These are just the memories that just never fade away. But during all these white things, there was black also. In came a smooth criminal, dropped a bomb with just writing a few lines. Many parts of my life of the past three months still look like a dream to me. I still cannot believe the faces I knew on Facebook three months ago are so close to me that I trusted them with my life. I knew Vicky, Shweta, Prateek, Padmaja all on facebook but today these are not just faces they are my pillars. My friends Uns, Shweta, Vipin, Shubhangi, Aakhansha, Niharika gave me so much that I was overwhelmed with emotions. You guys you are just the best. If I were to spend my whole life here, I would prefer to spend it with you guys and Leave out all the rest. All those moments of joy we had are still a mystery to me, but have made me change and I guess change for the better. I was blessed to have a person who could guide me in mudassir and I could go to him when all other ways were blocked. Towards the end I found a new kind of bonding with Rishab, maybe out of competition, but man you are good. IWSB gave me a gift in Raju sir. Sir thanks to you I could face many things I could not have thought of. All these things finally converged to the last week of the term, where sleepless nights went to their peak. It was time to smack the exams to get smacked. Thankfully they went without much of a big incident, and all I can say after all this is good riddance.

How did I lose my creativity?

Its 1.00 am, but its ok, the deadline is by 5.00 am. I know I can afford to wait for some ideas to come up. And the very next moment I see its 3.00 am, oh man the time is going too fast and I haven’t written a word of my assignment. I switch on my laptop and sit down trying to jot down something. I type in some words which at best can be used to describe my confused state of mind. I wait for some time, delete the whole line and try to get more ideas. Then I turn to professor Google seeking some inspiration, but as soon as a result pops up I was doing Ctrl+A and suddenly was taken aback by the very realization, it’s going to be termed plagiarism. Time seems running out on me. I leave my room for a short walk. Then I come back, time is already past 4.00 am. Now it’s the time where I am willing to write whatever comes to my mind and then after a short pause, I feel it’s all blank and the sound of an ECG losing the heartbeat of a person go through my mind. Suddenly I get an idea and I start typing it. Just to be on a safer side I turn my head to look at the deadly wall clock which said 4.50 am. The rest is better left unsaid.
What I wanted to convey here was my feeling how deadlines eventually end up killing a person’s creativity. There is a big trade off between time and creativity. You want to sit in a quiet place, observe nature and seek inspiration to create something. But if you have a deadline to meet invariably you will end up sitting in front of some liquid crystals and stare at brick, mortar or at best some plastics for inspiration. However I do agree most of the things in this world would not have been done if somebody did not put a date in front of them. What I felt was a big transition, coming to a b-school, going through the rigmarole of learning the ways of the corporate world. But eventually it’s the work that wins and makes you happy. But is this happiness worth losing my creativity?

Thrift and thriving 1

2007 was a very important year for everyone's finances. It told us why we need to have solid financial plannings and gave us ample reasons to fall back to a policy which many of the new generation considered outdated, that is being thrifty. That year and thereafter we saw unprecedented number of bankruptciesand many people losing their jobs and with that many other things which they owned on credit. In the midst of all one thing stood pretty clear Indian banks and Indians somehow and for some reasons still thrived. People were perplexed and were asking how and why.

But the answer was simple Indians have thriftiness deeply rooted into them. Right from the big corporate banks to my father everyone believes in the phrase

“A penny saved is a penny earned” or “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush”

While many in the western world were being affected with affluenza, we on the other hand still upholded virtues like frugality. No wonder RBI has one of the stringent guidelines when it comes to operations relating to credit for the banks. We have one of the highest Cash reserve ratios and Statutory liquidity ratios. We can see it this way, being thrifty was a big reason why indian business and banks did survive and continue to do better than just surviving despite behemoths like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley feeling the pinch. But the real understanding of the concept of thrift and thriving comes when we look at average Indian and an average American. While many Americans during the subprime mortgage crises came to streets, Indians mostly survived and some managed to do well as most of them had their own homes, had savings in the bank and still had other assets like gold to fall to.

If we look closely we can find that word “thrift” is cognate to the verb “thrive”. In the view of Theodore Roosevelt malloch chairman and CEO of The Rooservelt group "Thrift if if properly understood should be joined with constellation of other characteristics that make society more just and ultimately more prosperous". Infact being thrifty does not make a person a miser, but opposite to that by not being thrift one becomes a person who wastes. Mahatma Gandhi's one of the strongest beliefs were to refrain oneself from wasting. It is for that very reason that thrift inevitably leads to thriving.