It started rolling

After the two day outbound trip, classes started with macro economics.. Very interesting subject.. During the CAT preparation, I have read about GDP, GNP.. etc.. but it was vague.. reading economic times during CAT, helped me understand few fundas.. But, it was just the tip of the ice berg.. After the first couple of classes, we were given assignments to discuss on the classical economics and Great depression in US of 1929.. Classes started for statistics.. interersting prof... I am not disclosing the prof names for obvious reasons.. Leads the class with lots of jokes and silly things in life.. It was boring learning the fundas like mean, distribution and probability etc.. It became more interesting as the discussion turned to using stats as a decision making tool in business..

My room mates are Harshil, Shirish, Hari Prashanth and Manu.. We named it SLIM (Small lakes insti. of mgmt..) ... ;)) .. Though we come late to our house.. we have enuf gossips and interesting topics to discuss for hours.. Nice bunch of intelligent people.. After all I am there naa.. to show them the right way. ;)...

Class has been split into some 7-8 groups with around 6 people in each group.. For the next four terms, six months, we will be inthe same group.. MBA life is all about team work.. It is great watching people cranking their brains together for a common goal.. amazing .. !!! Yesterday we have been given a schedule describing the timelines for each subjects of the first term.. Papers include Marketing management, Financial accounting, Busines communication etc.. All the profs are from US.. One from florida university.. another from University of Texas.. and a couple of other eminent profs who are the experts in their domain.. It is this unique model that attracted me to Great Lakes(GLIM).. I will be taught by people who do research in the same domain.. I will be learning the contemporary concepts in management, unlike other instis in india where we learn the same old theory .. and the old case studies.. Learning from the horses mouth is indeed an exhilarating experience..

We had a session on presentation skills and each group was asked to prepare a presentation... We decided on an interesting topic.. Relating Alexander the great and modern management.. We discussed and learned his war strategies.. logistics for supply of food and ammunition for some 35,000 strong army. who helped him conquer 90% of the explored world.. We analysed his leadership skills, strategy planning, logistics and discussed in our presentation.. We analysed his failure.. which people fondly calls as 'Legacy leadership'.. It was an amazing presentation and we did excellent compared to all other groups.. Prof specially commented about the innovativeness and congratulated the team.. Will be back with more news.. Back to reality.. pending assignments.. ;))

Induction Week at Great Lakes(GLIM)

Friends,
I didnt get enough time to make a writeup.So kindly adjust.Well,college started on April 21st and we did not have much events except for giving the college our orginal certificates and other formalities.So not much of intro or general exchanges happened on the first day. I share a few credits of the following writeup to Prashanth and Harshil, from whom I fetched few lines.

April 22nd
We had our formal induction at tidel park auditorium which was graced by Uncle bala(well, we are supposed to call him like that and we love to call it that way.. ),DR. S. Krishnamoorthy(former chairman of SAIL,Maruti, Ministry of trade and commerce.. blah blah..), Dr.Mallika Srinivasan( DIRECTOR,TAFE) and Ms. Mangalam Srinivasan (Associate, Harvard University, US). It saw the launch of a new initiative by GLIM called as SWIM(successful women in mangement) where Mrs. Mallika is expected to head it from front. we had a series of advices and lectures on the same day and uncle bala i must say immediately got into the act and i must confess that he is brilliant in conveying his point and keeping up the crowd in rapt attention. he has got an amazing sense of humour and conveying management fundas using the simplest of terms.

April 23rd and 24th

We had a series of lectures by some eminent personalities in the business arena,the most prominent of them being the CEO and Founder of MaFoi consulting Mr. Pandiarajan. There were other lectures on Systems thinking,Personal mastery,Marketing basics and HR basics. these lectures were there to make us aquainted as to what is B-school education. Some were really good and others were really heavy . anyways it helped us in knowing what was in store for us once the courses started.

April 25th and 26th

The best part of the learning so far. We had an Fun oriented Outdoor learning (FOOL ) programme conducted at MGM beach resorts for all the batch.

The main objectives of the program were the following:


To ensure that all the students are well acquainted with each other, they lose their inhibitions and the concept of classmates as family members is internalized by all participants.

To unleash the latent talents in people, by giving them a platform to perform.

To introduce key management concepts like, teamwork, leadership and time-management in an innovative & practical way. Also to make sure people have fun during the program.

Experience:


The program was extremely well designed and perfectly executed. Everybody had a tremendous amount of fun and learning. Everybody was richer through this experience because they made new friends and realized some very key insights about important concepts like, friendship, teamwork, leadership and most importantly we realized we are limited by our perceived limitations but in reality we can achieve more than

We think if we try.


Listed below are some of the best activities undertaken by us.

Trekking: This trek unlike normal treks was based on teamwork. All of us were divided into five teams of 7-8 members each. There were certain constraints applied to each team these were: two people were to pretend that they were blind, other two people were to pretend they were dumb, finally two other people were to pretend they were deaf. This was a unique experience which brought out the trust aspect of a team because it is very difficult to navigate the mountains unless you trust your teammates completely. Moreover many of us thought they could not undertake the trek before they started the trek but they surprised themselves with the ease with which they completed it. This reinforces the concept of stretch; that is we can stretch further than we think we can.

Jam Bottle:The objective of this game was to fish out a Jam bottle from a set of concentric squares. This was to be done maximum number of times in twenty minutes. There were certain constraints imposed such that this had to be done by the means of given tools; these were two ropes, a bunch of rubber bands and two reels of tapes. Further more neither of the tools or a person should touch the periphery or the interior of the outer rope. In the event that this occurred there was a penalty of 100 points. The points for the successful attempt were calculated by the following formula (20- time from the beginning when attempt was made)*100 this game fostered lateral thinking and team work and was a great learning experience

Skit: We were divided into five different teams and each member was asked to pick up a chit from a box, each chit consisted of a character, and the chit-bearer had to assume that character and the team had to enact a play based on the given characters. This was very challenging and required on spot creativity and teamwork. It was fantastic fun and it gave us insight into fundamental concepts in management such as dealing with sudden change as sometimes characters were introduced at the last minute when storyline was set.

Besides the above games there were some other fantastic games, time on the beach, a short capsule on Salsa Dance, Yoga lessons, Karaoke, and dance to English, Tamil and Hindi songs. It was an amazing experience and amazing is an understatement.

Perhaps the most crucial part was getting to know our batch mates well and getting a sneak preview of the amazing diversity and talent in class. This was best demonstrated by the last exercise of the day in which we were asked to complement our batch mates on their qualities; it was a complete riot with people rushing to complement each other. We had amazing fun. trust me you have to be there to believe it. the salsa and jive dance were brilliant. the professional DJ's on the discotheque made dancing on the dance floor during 24th and 25th really enjoyable.

But as they say there is no such thing as free lunch our two day utopia came to an end and we returned backon 26th night.

April 27th

This was the convocation day and we had it in Taj coromandel. The function was presided by Uncle bala as usual who looked majestic in his robe and wearing the distinguished Kelloggs professor medal.The chief guests for the function were Jamshyd Godrej (MD and CEO,
Godrej companies) and Dennis connors (CEO, 3COM, USA.). All the seniors wearing the customary coat and graduating hat looked Splendid. there was an air of royalty in their attire as well as the way in which uncle bala and the guests occupied the dias. the background score was simply brilliant and was defly an symbol of class . after the awarding of degrees and other awards the way the students threw up their hats in mid air was a treat to watch . i just couldn't believe that in a year's time i too would be doing the same. after that as usual we had a sumptuous lunch. Yeah, the food was brilliant.

Now since i have given details about various activities lemme give data abt college. well the college is just one year old and comprises of a single building in saidapet. the entire building is wi fi enabled and has a decent library with an extensive e-library and journo collection. the computer lab is pretty fast and thats why i am typing all the above points from here. The canteen is pretty decent.

Student Profile of Great Lakes-2006 batch:

The class has 130 ppl with 113 experienced ppl and 17 freshers. 102 guyz and 28 gurlz a pretty low female populace ..i do agree but with lesser fresher intake that is bound to happen.

The average work ex (inclusive of freshers) is 3.8 years next only to that of ISB in india. So the class composition is brilliant for a 1 year old school and i expect it to get even better in the coming years. we have at least 50-60 % of ppl from other parts of India(leaving out tamil nadu) which makes for a multi varied diverse background. 50 % engineers and 50 % non engineers.



Few Star profiles of the class

One guy with 5+ years of work ex in US working for NASA projects.
3 CA chaps.
4 merchant navy guys with 4-5 years of work ex.
One guy with 20 years of work ex holding pos'n of CEO in an Danish company.
Three 7+ year work ex guyz from US.
One project manager from a major indian IT company with 10+ years of experience.
One IIT chap with 17 years of work ex who was the Asia-Pacific operations Head of Woolmark.

More amd more is gonna follow.. WAit and watch... It is not even two weeks since the college started.. and we got the schedule for the first term exams.. as one term is 5 weeks here at Great Lakes (GLIM). Gotta go.. :)

MBA Dream

Friends and Dear ones.. I am posting after a long time.. But, this time there is something to celebrate.. Two weeks back I was a workign as a software professional.. Now, I am back to student life... Before that.. I want to take you back into my life..... After finishing my B.tech, I had an invite to join Melbourne University for doign my M.S-Ph.D in Distributed and grid computing, with full fellowship.. It was an invite from Mr. Raj Kumar Buyya, the pioneer in distributed and supercomputing world with hundreds of paper in his name.. We did our Final year project in grid computing, a virtual super computer, back in 2001, which was the second prototype in the world, in the agent based grid computing arena. ( First one was CoABS system developed by U.S. Dept. of Defense ).. It was a tough decision to make at that time.. But, I finally decided that I will need an MBA more than M.S. to make that impact in the world I live in.. Hence, I thankfully (and sadly) rejected the offer.. I joined by iNautix technologies ( Subsidiary of Credit Suisse First Boston , swiss bank in Zurich, which is now the offshore technology development center for Bank of New York). I worked there for more than 3 years in applications related to Securities in U.S. capital markets.. It was an amazing experience as the learning curve was very steep...

I tried CAT for first time in 2003.. It was a pretty decent attempt eventhough my prepn was bad as usual.. Unfortunately, CAT paper leaked and we had to write the CAT again in Feb 2004.. It didnt helped, and the score was pathetic.. 89 %ile.. Then, I thought of taking the preparation seriously.... But, as the murphys law says.. "When something can go wrong, it will definitely go wrong"... I didnt get time enough for my preparation.. In between I had to go for an onsite assignment in US.. It was a wonderful experience... The friday before that CAT exam, I was in the office till 11 in the night.. You can imagine how good preparation would be... I wrote the CAT in a happy mood... I dont have anything to loose.. I have a good job :)).. blah.. blah.. CAT was another surprise for everyone.. For the first time, they came out with two section CAT, with differential marks for each sections... I literally laughed at those TIME, IMS, CL people who exhorted the students about the strategy and all fundas to be applied on the D-day.. !!! I comfortably attempted few questions and came out... After few weeks, the score came out... 96.3 %ile... I just couldnt believe it... I was surprised at the output for the effort I have put in.. I thanked god, and waited for the IIM calls.. B.. L.. A.. C.. K.. I.. No one gave a call.. ( A, B, C, L was out of question.. !! ).. Then I happened to meet a friend named Manu, who told me about a new institute which started an year back by the same founder of ISB and MDI.. I was more eager to know the further details once I learned that it was in Chennai itself..

I applied to GLIM.. Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.. The application form costed 600Rs. and the submission of application costed another 2000Rs. Total 2600Rs.. I thought, "I have wasted enough money for CAT and applications.. ( I applied only to IIMs and SPJAIN.. Didnt cleared SPJAIN after the second round).. so lets take another gamble.... " The application process was more or less like that of U.S. B schools.. I had to take two recommendation letters from my workplace.. Lucklily, I had a manager who supported going for higher studies... With the help of my old project leader ( who became a manager later), I managed to get two recommendation letters... The essays part was the difficult one.. I had to sit with the draft and I revised it many times... Proof read it by my friends.. One advise is, never copy any great stories from the net.. Be YOURSELF.. that should be the motto when you prepare the essays... Reflect upon your past life and see which experience can gave a perfect answer that you are looking for.. Redraft the essays and it would shine in the application...

I attended the GLIM interview.. Four people were there in the panel, including a current student.. They started off with my hobbies.. trekking , photography... Then they asked about my current work.. company's business.. Overall flow of the business etc.. it was a pleasant experience for me... Truly, I had good fun there.. I think not losing your poise is the best strategy for any interview.. After, a few minutes I was asked to meet the Deputy Dean of GLIM.. I was offered an on the spot admit, and was informed that I will be getting the hard copy within a few days..

I was overwhelmed with joy, as it was a dream come true.. I am a student again.. studying with the best brains from india.. in a b-school with a global outlook on par with ISB.. Many faculty coming from Ivy League US B-schools like Harvard, Stanford, Kelloggs etc, coming over to teach the latest management concepts.. That was something unique which I could never dream of .. even from IIMs... One of the faculty who taught a paper in economics was the Economics Nobel Laureate of the year (2004), Mr. Finn Kydland.. It was just amazing to see people like Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, Ramadorai and a long list of biggies from industry, holding seats in the business council of GLIM.. Philip Kotler, who is considered to be father or marketing, is one among the many famous academicians who adorn the GLIM academic council.. It was another jewel in the crown, when one of the Ivy League US B-school Yale University decided to open a Yale-GLIM Management research centre in the institute.. It was a great move for such a young institute, where research is considered as the indicator of the quality of management education around the world.. There is so much to say that, I can very well say that GLIM or Great Lakes is on par with ISB even in the first year of operation...


It was a small step in my long journey.. EXPLORE.. DREAM.. DISCOVER.. All in the next one year in GLIM...