Scramble

Mid term exams ended today. We were to submit a presentation which was a take home exam on how government policy affects an organization. The question was open and one could come with all the wrong way of doing it considering all instructions were verbal and the exam carried half the grade weight. The second exam was on Investment Analysis. The paper was not difficult but I misread the exam time and when it was just 5min due to return the paper, I had one full question worth 20min left. Crammed in all I could but ended up writing the wrong answer for one part; didn’t feel good after coming out of the hall.

Today was hectic. After the 1.5 hours of exam from 8.30am, we had a class in the morning and another one in the evening. Somewhere in the middle, I finished writing my take home exam. When everything was done in the evening, it was time to party. Apart from the reason that the exams got over, this is last term where we remain as section E. My study group will also most likely be dissolved (unless we decided to continue with each other). So there is an emotional wave towards collective nouns like section and group. I will dedicate one post to my group. It has been some wonderful experience working with them.

Now that I’m back from the party (actually we were politely asked to leave the restaurant; people here are used to owl timings but the restaurant could not bear 40 students partying beyond 12am), its time to look at the pre-read for tomorrow’s class which starts at 8.45am.

Trilogy

You can spot an entrepreneur from his style. Joe Liemandt, CEO of Trilogy was here in campus yesterday to share his experiences in starting Trilogy. Dressed in casuals, the Stanford college dropout brought his Silicon Valley story to life - the high-highs and the low-lows he had experienced. He captured the audience's attention right from the first minute. From idea inception to finding customers, Joe's speech kept the audience engaged for the next 60 minutes. He recalled humourous anecdotes like the one where his team started funding their venture using credit cards. Joe received a standing ovation in the end.

Joe also gave a similar talk at Stanford. Listen to the podcast of that talk below.



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Term 4

Term 4 is the last core term before we start taking electives in terms 5 to 8

Courses for this term

• Strategic Analysis of IT by Prof Rajiv Banker, Prof Sandra Slaughter
• Management of Organizations by Prof Mary watson, Prof Dishan Kamdar
• Govt Society and Business by Prof Mudit Kapoor, Prof Shiva Kumar
• Investment Analysis by Prof Tom Nohel, Prof Ramana Sonti

Barring the last subject, all others readings look like general topics. This term has less pressure from the core subjects but the ELP or the PaEV (both are projects) are taking most of the time. Moreover this term runs on a 5day week. Its back to TGIF.

Interesting in a way these subjects offer a different perspective of the outside world. For example, in Govt Society and Business we get to learn about institutions, government policies, or even Afghanistan. For the Afghan session we attended classes dressed as Afghans. How does one understand concepts in Management of Organizations? By building and flying paper rockets. Atleast that's what we did partially. We divided ourselves into four teams/companies. One group was for quality control. Each of the other teams got to make as many rockets from the limited number of paper sheets. As the team sizes were different but the supply of paper was fixed, we had to decide on our production capacity. Team members were divided into production department, logo creation and flyers (the ones who threw rockets). One person, the CEO, co-ordinated activities. In the 1 hour or so, this was a totally different experience. It is not about throwing rockets at each other. But understanding and co-ordinating a simple activity as this one. As the team size increases there is chance of chaos in the first round. But the larger team quickly realizes its shortcomings by observing the smaller teams and improves its efficiency in its operations.

So we did have fun. This time class start at 8.45am and get over by noon. But all other project activities take enough time so as to get oneself occupied all day.

Another term already?

Term 3 started off slowly. In the first few weeks there were no assignments but lots of pre-read to do. But later on it was the opposite. Once every two weeks, we were asked to submit 3 assignments group/individual. Entrepreneurship was the exception with no assignments.

All three subject drop boxes will be placed next to each other at the submission center. Submissions are due at 8am. Once we started at 3am on Sunday and the work went upto 7.55am on Monday. Then we (my study group) attended classes from 8.15am till 4.15pm. It can get really taxing sometimes (reminded of Queen's hit UnderPressure)

Term 3 exams were by far the toughest. Exam on Operations Management was a complete surprise. Even the finance paper threw in a few surprise questions. Terms started and ended quickly. Term4 may not be as taxing as term3 or so it is believed.

Here is a wrap up of term3.

1. Corporate Finance - taught by Prof Bhagawan Chowdhry - one of the best professors I have met. His wit and humour will keep you engaged in class. One of the few classes where time just flies. I could keep listening to his class all day!

Midterm and final term exams were MCQs. The questions were somewhat tricky and unless one is attentive in class and has a clear grasp in concepts his questions will be tougher. Never wanted to miss any of his weekend review sessions.

2. Operations Management - At the outset the subject appears simple but progressively got difficult till the final exam. I haven't applied what I learnt from this course. Have a gut feeling that the learning has greater implication in the long run. The mid term was moderately difficult. The finals was a real challenge.

3. Entrepreneurship - One subject where I pre-read all the time! Partly due to interest and partly because of the high CP marks. The final exam paper was the easiet. It was an open book exam. We were asked not to exhibit the poetry skills. With a strict one page limitation, there is less leeway in spending time on one question alone.

4. Managerial Accounting - Barring one or two new ideas from the subject, I had been exposed to most ideas latently in other subjects. Never did justice to this subject. The last minute exam-cram was all I did. It helped. The final exam was slightly difficult less than I had dreaded.

Interestingly in all papers, I never really got to use a cheat sheet or the book/notes. At some point in the Entrepreneurship exams, my question paper got mixed up with the notes. All the diligently printed notes only added to my printing bill!

Now that we have a break, it is time catch up with sleep, movies and sports.