ISB Solstice

This year's alumni reunion is dedicated to the founding batch to mark the 5th anniversary at ISB. There were close to 150 alums in campus. The timing could not have been more perfect - break for the students, christmas and the placement season is about to begin. The event kicked off with the inauguration from the Dean.

One alum recalled a quip:

M is busy taking a nap at the last bench in SAIT class. Professor Banker is discussing about Intel. He turns around and poses a question to students 'So why do you think Intel decided to do away with their memory chips?'. He directs the question straight to our M. She is nudged to reality by her neighbour only to realize the unaware of the situation. Involutarily she blurt out "Sir, it depends". Professor hails the response - 'Yes it all depended on ...' and went on to give an explanation. Smartly M pitches at the end 'Sir that was what I meant'! Full CP points awarded to M.

Photocontest judge and Well known cine photographer Avinash Gowarikar (of the Dus and Lagaan fame) partly stole the show with his insights in photography and education. Apart from these I didnt grasp much from the talks - I was trying hard to remain awake. I had slept at 5am only to be woken up NJ at 9am to inform that the event was about to start. Being part of the inauguration group, I had to show up. I contributed something meaningful by inviting alums for the speaker series and creating the poster for the event.

Placements will begin soon and with the alums coming in, the atmosphere is febrile for gyaan sessions and resume & interview tips (the last time we met our alums was during our orientation).

Time Flies

Topics in this post
1. Time
2. Term 6
3. Two things at ISB

Time elapses quickly. Today I met my PaEV Professor on the way to the library. He smiled warmly and said "another term coming to an end?". Going by his experience, I would think he was probably hinting at the pace of the course. With assignments coming one after the other, you loose track of large intervals of time. Assignments are like strain applied to rubber - initially the rubber is highly elastic and changes are reversible but over time when the strain goes beyond the yield point it is chaos. But assignments now no longer dreadful - this term I managed to do three in a day - the highest compared to my other terms. Going by magnitude each assignment on an average should take atleast three hours. Not a bad change but somewhere there always a compromise - you either skim through multiple things by knowing just enough to sail through or you can dig deep down into one area at the risk of jeopardising other - call it the T framework if I may borrow from the biz babble.

Term 6 is coming to a close soon. There are loads of assignments this term. But that should go through smoothly. This new year is full of promising.....well...exams actually! We'll be writing exams on all of Jan first week. Term breaks have long been forgotten. We rarely get a 3-day break (holidays are long forgotten). Now that we do have a break, thanks to Monday Christmas, its party time here! Another surprise was seeing Santa Claus making rounds in campus.

There are two things without which you cannot survive here - your social group and your laptop. There is always someone who can help you with the problem. Let me give an example. We were selected to the IIM-Indore competition. P and I decided to bunk classes and travel to Indore even if our travel costs were high "just for the experience". Reflecting now its a waste of money but at that point the excitement justified the costs. We reached Indore enroute Mumbai and spent the wee hours of the morning sleeping on airport lounge chairs. The dreadful assignment had struck again! On our way back we stopped at Mumbai airport, analysed a case, completed our assignments on the faithful chairs upto 3am in the morning. My friends patiently answering my 2am calls when they have classes at 8 or 10 in the morning. We had our assignment mailed to them and submitted it even before we were back at ISB, meeting the 8am deadline on that day. The laptop and the social group was a powerful combination.

I'll write about Solstice, the annual ISB alumni meet next.