My last post was in Mumbai. And here I am back again posting from my home city.

Returned to Pune after Diwali vacation on 30th itself to make sure that we study for the Corporate Finance and Software Project Management exams on 1st. Well, study we did, but managed to mess up SPM

The rest of the week passed by with some good, some bad and some really really ugly papers. Well, January 3rd is the tentative date for the results.

Had originally planned on leaving for Mumbai on 10th itself. However, I had to attend a student interaction session by the NAAC team. Symbiosis International University is currently being accredited by NAAC.

Namrata and me set out for Mumbai by the 7.15am bus. The driver refused to take it through Parihar Chowk and insisted on taking the bypass route. The drivers can be really frustrating at times.

The MSRTC bus turned out to be full, which is rather suprising for a Tuesday morning. Anyway, got into the Neeta bus which got to Mumbair rather fast. Ended up watching Tashan on the bus. I really wonder how they allow some Bollywood movies to be made!

Got down at Santa Cruz and picked up my bike from Jana who studies in NMIMS. The bike runs well, but as usual I plan on getting it serviced tomorrow. Have a lot of riding to do this week.

Not sure when I’m heading back to Pune. I’ve got to start studying for my upcoming placements.

Finished off my FSA paper on 23rd and awoke early Saturday morning for some last minute preparations for the SAP-BIW paper.

This turned out to be a very comfortable paper to write in 90 minutes. Had a quick breakfast and got down to packing for my journey to Mumbai. I love travelling light and infact that is what I did. Picked up my laptop and a few essentials and caught an extremely crowded 11.15am bus from college to Aundh.

Was fortunate enough to get a Metrolink volvo to Dadar immediately. Ticket prices were hiked considering that everyone is rushing to Mumbai for their Diwali vacations.

The bus was quick and we got little traffic on the way back and was at Sion in about three hours. Caught a rick from there to Bandra to my Grandma’s place. Had plans to meet Lil white mouse in the evening.

Met up with Lil white mouse and her sis and went to 5 Spice in Bandra. The prices have been jacked up there as well and it’s definitely more expensive than the one in town. We did eat and drink well, paid well and got back home. Was so zonked that I crashed almost immediately.

Awoke early morning (well not that early) to go for mass at 10am. Mass has become a lot shorter with shorter sermons

Lil white mouse came over for lunch and spent the rest of the day with me before she had to leave for a wedding reception.

The next few days are packed well. I really hope to get some studies done, but vacation can be a real big hurdle to cross when you want to study!

Have plans to go to Big Bazaar tomorrow to shop for anything I can lay my hands on. Got to redeem my Rs. 1400 in gift vouchers. So, what should I buy?

Yesterday was the start of our much not-awaited third semester

Went out on Sunday night to Mezza9. Ate and drank well

After strugging for three days with SAS, we finalized and gave our presentation on Monday.

On Tuesday we had our Financial Statement Analysis re-mid term. I missed the original exam due to the CGN Thought Process Improvement workshop.

Prepared well for it. Can’t afford to risk an important exam in finance.

Today was a relatively lighter day and spent some time blogging. Finished our International Economics report and now have to work on my Supply Chain Modeling assignment due tomorrow.

There is an Mergers and Acquisitions valuation that also needs to be done by weekend along with yet another presentation.

A little more than a week remains before my final exams begin. So much to do, so little time!

Can’t believe my last personal post was on March 4th.. Then we were just getting into the exam spirit and a lot has happened since then.

For starters, we had to get through a barrage of exams, that just didn’t seem to stop. Everyone desperately looked towards March 29th, the last day of the exams, also the day when we could all rush home.

Exams were ok, though they seem to be at some point of my distant past!

Headed to Mumbai on 29th, dropped off my bags, picked up my bike from ABJ, who has been taking good care of it.

Work began on April 7th. I got placed at eClerx. The place turned out to be in Ghatkopar, a part of the city I don’t normally frequent. It turned out that the place is just 20 minutes from my home when I ride through Powai. Also end up skipping most of the traffic.
The place is good. Was given a choice of my project and chose one which turned out to be live in the field of Finance, IT and a bit of Operations. Well, I’m glad.

The first week was spent with reading as my immediate guide was on leave, but the week after that things took off at top speed. Jobs great so far. Doing well I guess. Hope it continues that way for the next five weeks.

Also been spending a good amount of time with Lil white mouse atleast on weekends. We watched Transformers (my review) and The Spiderwick Chronicles (my review).

Had plans to catch many more movies, but for some strange reason there is absolutely no good movie running! Isn’t this summer vacation time?

That’s just about everything I have been up to, viz. work and weekends. No holidays, except for May 1, which was treated as another weekend

Had a lot of plans these two months, but have surely been out of touch with a lot. Going to take a while to get back. I’ll be back

The past week I have followed a rather standard routine.

A sample process flow for a day is given below… note for sake of readability it has been shown as a single flow, however it is a vicious cycle.

Today was the reFCQ for Six Sigma. We were surprised to find a 45minute theory paper given for just 30minutes. Considering that the rest of the batch gave a semi objective paper, this one was a killer! Tomorrow is the Operations Management reFCQ with the full portion… God bless me

On better notes, had a good Spanish viva last week as well as a few good tests to which I actually knew the answers too Now, the corrections will make a decision.

We got a 17/20 in the Brand Management presentation we gave last week and a 50/50 in the Managerial Communication Presentation which were at the top of our batch

However, one thing for sure is that thanks to the bell curve grading system that we follow, we won’t be ending up with great GPAs this semester.

Well, our batch (except for a few bookworms) are definitely on a rollercoaster ride this semester. Every single FCQ that comes our way seems to be a major disaster.

Because of oversmartness or sheer stupidity, a perfectly well going FM paper was set on the path of ruin. Finance students are now in a state of hope and despair!

Operations Management is one subject that is also in an equal state of disarray with a lab exam with two questions nobody knew the answers of or were not able to complete it in time!

We also made a presentation in Brand Management based on a Starbucks case by Mary Crossan and Arif Kachra. This required us to sleep for less than 3 hours on Saturday morning.
The same repeated itself today as we worked all through the night to get our Marketing Research paper ready for tomorrow.
I don’t see much sleep tonight as well considering that we have two FCQs tomorrow, Spanish and Technology in Business tomorrow evening, a possible Spanish viva tomorrow morning and a Sales and Distribution assignment submission as well.

I need to sleep!

That’s what my MBA Semester 1 GPA reads.

And, due to rules of the university, I cleared my Financial Accounting paper… which means no stars on my transcript!

Have I been busy or have I been bored, considering my last post was two months back!

Well, busy is more like it.

WebComm Team

This team was instituted after Ravi and I joined / founded it. And work was hectic the last week of August and the first week of September.

While we did get the SCMHRD site up and running, as you can see it is painfully slow. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to speed it up except redesign the entire site.

I’ve been working on a layout and speeded up the entire thing. A test site has worked decently, but I guess I will have to move away from tables totally as I do with all my other sites.

As part of the team, I spent a lot of time in the Admissions room and so was asked to join it officially…

Admissions

…which I did

And as a result, the last two months have been extremely crazily busy. We released the Admissions Brochure, which has come out pretty well. We’ll most likely release a PDF version of it for those interested.

Also been looking into the advertising in magazines and newspapers. Can be both entertaining and quite a pain at times. But, it definitely has improved my negotiation skills.

Answering phonecalls is the most painful part of Admissions. For one, most of the calls are regarding distance learning. SCMHRD doesn’t offer that and for distance MBA, you need to contact SCDL. The second set of questions are about the Management Quotas. This is handled directly by the Symbiosis Society.

The last thing we did (besides tonnes of others) was load the trucks. Between three of us guys, we handled some 2-3 tonnes of materials several times. If you’re talking TQM, we did that.

Brochures should be available in all leading career coaching institutes all over India.

College and Exams

Finally got done with the Semester I examinations! Well, atleast gave all the papers and am now awaiting the results. Studied for most of the papers on Day-1 except for accounts which began on Day-2!

As for accounts, that still remains a challenge as I got that paper to give yet again. Had expected a backlog but was surprised to have been joined by over 100 others as well!

Summer Placements

Summer Placements were painful, especially when we could see several Freshers snatching up jobs, while we work-ex people struggled to find one. I’m hoping the tables turn in the Final Placements next year.
Anyway, got placed on Day1 at eClerx, which has its offices in Mumbai

Sem II begins

We’ve selected our electives. I chose Operations Management II, Sales and Distribution and Brand Management. With these three I could cover the 8 credits that I needed to choose. It will also help me in my transistion towards an Operations Major, which I am strongly considering.

Ohh, and we’re on our Diwali break. Will be going back to Pune early Monday morning. Ravi tells me that there is tonnes of work to be done on Monday and Tuesday. At the same time, will have to juggle with lectures to attend!

Life @ SCMHRD!

Happy Diwali my dear readers

As is custom, we had two FCQs today. Spanish was expected as the seating arrangement was put up.

The other one turned out to be Operations Research. While Spanish turned out to be decent. Slight memory lapses and a few silly mistakes will ensure I don’t get a full this time as well, but I’ll survive.

OR was a different story. I confidently completed both the problems, walked out of the class and realized that they both were incorrect.

As can be expected, I won’t be clearing this. I’m not worried about the subject but this FCQ gets me a two and I’ll be a happy man!