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.

Our topic is Business Decision Making in FMCG industry using SAS Enterprise Miner.

Everything would have been fine and hunky dory, except that we do not know anything in SAS! So, the last two days has been a desperate attempt of learning Enterprise Miner. SAS and Enterprise Miner are both extremely complicated softwares to work with without formal training.

In addition to this, we had to find our own data. Are we in MBA-II or is this self-paced learning?

The funniest part of the whole exercise is that his part is supposed to be a portion of the syllabus of SAP-BIW!

Off to the lab now to finalize whatever we plan on presenting. The future is bleak…

Spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday cooped up in the vipasana hall working at the helpdesk for the summer placements of the juniors.

I’m not at liberty to discuss this, but I can say that we did a good amount of work, spent a good amount of time doing all kinds of activities and lastly eating and drinking till we burst!

8th was a packed day. Woke up early in the morning to give a 7am final exam of Corporate Governance. I have no clue why we studied that subject!

Next had the FSA presentation to give, immediately followed by a Social Entrepreneurship presentation.

Following the class I had to work on the Software Project Management presentation which we did for yesterday.

Last evening and early this morning went towards the preparation of the Six Sigma event that has been going on today and tomorrow.

The rest of today has been rathe lazy. Have another presentation, this time on SAS scheduled for Monday. We have no clue what to do!

Tuesday usually is a light day, as is Wednesday. However, they are usually consumed in working on the new Financial Statement Analysis case or some other assignment that manages to crop up.

Monday to Wednesday evenings were spent interviewing juniors for the Admissions Core Committee, the last obligation we have before we move out of the Admissions Committee.

One last thing in the pipeline is the conversion of the existing slow SCMHRD website template into a faster loading one. Have the junior Web Committee to assist me this time.

Now, back to FSA.

Reached here around 10.30 and immediately got down to studying my Corporate Finance assignment.

Had classes on all days of the week except for Wednesday, which was an equally busy day.

Also got asked out for freshers. Didn’t expect it so soon.

Took an expected surprise test in the FSA class. I’m far from where I need to be. Also have an FCQ in the Corporate Finance on Monday as well as a presentation for Project Management (Ops) on SPACE analysis and BCG Matrix.

So, basically got my hands full all of today and tomorrow morning as well

Finally getting back to the crazy life called MBA.

The first fortnight at SCMHRD was crazy. But, that was just the beginning.

What followed was a crazy semester during which Ravi and me formed the WebComm and redesigned and relaunched the SCMHRD website.

Also joined the Admissions Team, which would ensure that the next semester would be more hectic than the first. Not because of the hectic schedule we have at college, but because Admissions demanded our total dedication, which we did. The admissions process was a hit, as well as everything preceding to it.
It did come at the cost of lack of sleep and surely not-so-great grades. But, we learnt a lot both theoretically and practically.

The second semester exams ensured that for a change we got some sleep and the last two months of summer internship ensured that I got the luxury of weekends.

I’ve learnt a lot in the last two months, and finally decided to take Finance as my major. Just hope everything works well in that regards.

So, here goes (number in brackets are number of credits):

Finance Electives

Corporate Finance – Theory and Practice (4)
Financial Statement Analysis (4)
Mergers and acquisitions (2)

Operations Electives

Supply chain analysis design and modeling (2)
Project Management (Ops) (2)

IT Electives

Software project management (4)
SAP-BIW (2)

Economics Electives

International Economics (2)

Now, I hope they prove to be a good choice, because I had a really bad experience last semester.

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.

Didn’t feel a wee bit sleepy as can normally be the case and sat through eleven hours of the same lecture. We covered a good amount of the portion.

Have finally opened the books of Financial Management, which midterm exam we have in another two days. I hate midterms as they are a go-nogo from our point of view. Same was the case with Managerial Accounting, whose midterm happened last Wednesday. The paper went ok, but I could get screwed by the 1.6GPA rule we have out here.

Anyway, going to study all day tomorrow, as well as work on some of my submissions. It’s going to be exhausting!

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