Fast track to success…

How would you define a fast track MBA program? 

Is it finishing Operations Management in 5 days, 4 hours each and being done with 1 Quiz, 1 group case study and a finals in the allotted 20 hrs? 

Or finishing Marketing management with 2 Quizzes, one group project and one finals in 20 hours?

Or finishing Corporate Finance in the equal span of 20 hours but with 13 extra pre-readings (other than text chapters), 3 Quizzes, 1 finals, 1 individual case study and one group project?

How about this: Having to read and understand the entire Bhagavath Gita (A 200 page book from Ramakrishna Math), a complicated research paper on “The Epic Period” and Vivekananda’s discourse on “The Sages of India” in one SINGLE night?

Well, I think the last one defines it the best. 

MBA at Great lakes is so truly fast track that it makes me dizzy!!!

Oh! and BTW, if you haven’t guessed so far, all these (except Marketing Mgmt) are happening in parallel…

:-S

George Mathew

Class of 2009

Rock Solid!!

Disclaimer: This piece has been published after permission from Prof. Rakesh Singh

“Its Rocky’s class man…”
“Rocky? Who’s that?”
“Prof. Rakesh Singh… Our Macro Economics Prof.”
“So, why the long face?”
“You’ll have one too if you knew about him. He is supposed to be a terror… “

Thus was my introduction of Prof. Singh. But we’ve had tough Profs before and so I took this in with a pinch of salt… C’mon.. How much worse can this get? Soon I realised the folly of thinking so. Prof. Singh made sure we understood that too. Him being a terror was an understatement! First time he came to class he asked us for our background and since most of us were engineers, he pooh-poohed us and got on with the class. He even told us that he knew he was known to be a tough nut… And he plans to keep up the reputation! At the end of the class he gave us an assignment that we were to submit by the end of the day.

All of us went to work and came up with what we thought were good reports. But he scoffed at these too!!! Man! This guy was sure hard to please. This cycle of assignments-submissions-scoffs went on for days with our patience running short as each day passed. Its not that we had a problem with doing the assignments per se (it was expected of us, and we are willing to do it too), but the way he reacted to them. And the worst part was, he would not even explain anything much to us save some funda about basic Macro Economic variables. But as to how it all tied together with the assignments we did, we dint have much clue! We were all in a state of utter confusion… Not knowing what is right and what is not. People began to crack, tempers started running high “Why on earth is he coming here Man! He dosen’t even teach anything! What a waste of all our time. Anything I’ve learnt in macro is purely due to my hard work in understanding it.” So on and so forth.

After a week and a half of this torture, we got a long break from him – about a week. But later we came to know that we were scheduled to have his classes for the 2 days preceding our term exams. Damn it! He is gonna give us some assignments and we will have to sit up late into the night doing them instead of preparing for the exams. And that’s exactly what happened. He asked us to figure out why the crisis of 1991 occurred and what after that. Tough one. But we managed. We even managed to write the exams pretty ok.

Then we had his last class on a Sunday @ 12 noon (the next day we were to have accounts and stats term exams). All of us were jittery, yet most of us were present even though there was a nasty rumour of a surprise quiz. That din’t happen, instead Prof Singh started his discourse on the economic history of India – since the time of independence. There was pin drop silence in the class. He went on and on and soon one and a half hours had zoomed past. At 1:30 PM Prof. Singh asked how many of us wanted to go for lunch. Just 3 hands shot up. The rest of us were glued to our chairs and waiting for him to go on. True to his word of him being democratic and taking the majority vote, he went on to speak for another 1 and quarter hours.

At 2:45 PM, a riveting 2 hours and 45 mins later,  he stopped his story stating “And that is the India story. Thank you” and majestically walked out of the room to a sea of applause. I can honestly say it was the loudest we had given to any of our Profs. We were all amazed at the things he said, the clarity with which he summarised his thoughts and at the way he explained it all to us. It took most of us another 5 mins to budge from our seats. We were all in a trance…

Soon after this we were discussing this amongst ourselves. “Why couldn’t he have told us all this before itself? Why did he have to put us thru so much agony and mental torture?” The answer came to us almost instantly. There was no other way he could have taught a subject like Macro Economics in 10 hours. By putting us thru all that grind and umpteen assignments, he made sure that we had had most of our foundations intact before he told us the real thing. Otherwise we would never have understood or even appreciated the subject.

Needless to say, the Macro Economics Subject has been one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had this far in my MBA education. So much so that I cant wait to go thru this same harrowing experience with Micro Economics… But sadly, that will have to wait for 4th term… 

George Mathew

Class of 2009

The good, the bad and the hypocrite

[Declaration: The author shall strangely try to be the least controversial till the very last full-stop of this piece of incessant keypad thumping. Despite this, if anyone wants to stamp on the author’s left toe, isn’t exactly welcome to do so]

It was 10^th of June and the wristwatches scattered in this part of the world were synchronously screaming three-thirty PM. Saturn was lost somewhere amidst the deep recesses of the infinity called universe and i was fresh out of the Rock(y) Concert called Macroeconomics – End Term Exam.

The Greatlaker in us was a little more than forty five days old and there we were, standing at the very end of the first term of the total of eight that the entire course had to offer. Break it up and you are in for a stun. Thousand five-hundred pages each of Financial Accounting and Statistics, fifty gallons of psychology, giga-handfuls of macroeconomics, Chinese and marketing, topped by 500 tablespoons of empirical study; along with sleep-deficit , dilly-DELLying , committee grind, guest lectures , all sprinkled in abundance galore.

I turned my head just to stare with an irreparable awe at the beast of a period that just hustled by; the nerves still taught, the grey cells still excited in unmatched equilibrium and Saturn – lost as ever.

As we gear up for the next term, we wonder if things stay the same breathtakingly quick or does it slow down a tad. Will i be called a hypocrite when i say that time is being unfair to us? That it has raised the speed from 24 hours per day to 24 seconds a day?

Time won’t tell.

(-Suryya Sarkar)

Bauer College , Houston was here.

A bunch of 20 students from the prestigious Bauer College, Houston(http://www.bauer.uh.edu/mba/) visited Great Lakes as part of their India visit. The group comprised under-graduates, MBA students and scholars doing their PhD. An enriching discussion on students’ profiles in India and the US helped many to get a better feel of the diversities in management studies. We were thrilled to learn the degree of encouragement that aspiring entrepreneurs get in the US. Similarly our visitors were surprised to know the balance that students at Great Lakes maintain between studies, karma-yoga and committee responsibilities. Great Lakers were also given an offer to join PhD programs at Bauer. Questions and answers followed from both the ends and the visit resulted into a healthy exchange of ideas and a stronger network of contacts.

(Rahul Prakash, Class of ‘09)

Anti Tobacco Day @ Great Lakes

May 31 was World anti-tobacco day and Great Lakes partnered with the Cancer Institute, Chennai and Radio Mirchi to spread awareness among the puffers. The main event of the day was the “donate-a-cigarette-and-save-14-minutes-of-your-life” campaign where smokers in the campus’s vicinity were persuaded to donate a tobacco product. A pamphlet that accompanied explained that every cigarette smoked shortens your life by 14 minutes. We had RJ Vidhya from Radio Mirchi adding some pep to the campaign by interviewing smokers. The auto drivers near the campus, after some initial resistance, parted with their beedis. One was magnanimous enough to part with his lighter! The campaign message was also spread inside the campus to discourage smoking among the student community. Let’s come together and wish all the Great Lakers – past and present- a healthy and tobacco-free life!

PS:After a great deal of effort to embed some snaps here, I have given up. You can find them instead on my picasa page

- Muralidhar S

Class of 2009

Mumbai Alumni Meet- Today

Folks in Mumbai, pls feel free to take out some time this evening, braving the rains

Venue- Gurunanak Park, Bandra West, Near Pali Naka

Numbers to call- 98 200 98 497 (Kartik Kannan)

Date- June 08 2008

 

The Seal of Zzugzzezzzzz…

Open Source Software (OSS) as a phenomenon has the potential of changing the business of software development around the world. OSS has come a long way from its infan… Zzzzzzzzzz….

A way for firms in the open systems business to gain traction and control over the market is to openly innovate and push their own boundaries. Intellectual Property (IP) will give hem an edge over compe… Zzzzzzzzz….

The real purpose of scientific research can be said to be an amalgamation of the truth. This truth is what we try to reach and there’s not…. Zzzzzzzzzzz…

Every industry goes through cycles of growth and decline. To ride this wave, every company needs to be aware of emerging markets and growth cycles. the moment these compa… Zzzzzzzzz….

In recent years, the contagion effect has become more pronounced primarily because of the rapid integration of global economies. Though the phenomenon of global stock market contagion comes for deba… Zzzzzzzzz….

Rural markets have always been ignored by corporates primarily due to the disparity in income when compared to their peers in the urban areas. This is especially true in the case of consumer dura… Zzzzzzzz….

BANG and there I had it! The Archimedes moment had arrived… I ran out of the library shouting “EUREKA! EUREKA! KITTI POYEEEE…” (sans the clothes bit, but with drool all over my face)

I had the answer to the ultimate question: What is the hallmark of a good research paper?

Answer: Put the average reader to sleep within the first 2 sentences!!

Man, I truly hope my research paper will be half as sleep inducing!!!

George Mathew

Class of 2009

As the week unfolds and the bomb ticks.

The war cry was just heard.

Saturday: It was a different day when pitted against the rest of the recent mornings. The sun was unusually quiet and had decided to take a break behind the surprisingly organized clouds. Quite a few of us were interacting with the students of Babson College, MA, USA who had come here on a study tour . Some thought of participating in the Mandarin class while an insignificant little were still watching the sequel of their respective dreams at home. (Simply put: were acting bed-bugs.)

11:44 A.M. – A mail knocked each of our inboxes. A quick glance through it and we at once knew that life would never be the same again. It was a revision of the Time Table for the week ahead. The earlier one had three final term exams, three running assignments, nine bucketful of classes, committee work and karma yoga. And now– the revised one had one more marathon lecture series nailed in whatever little blank cells that were remaining in the excel sheet which had the time table. Which meant an enormous probability of another couple of assignments hammered in .

All that when translated imply that the work that was handled by two overfed Hercules in the entire lunar month would have to be taken care of in seven days time by each one of us who did not once have the privilege of fighting out a dead cockroach ; let alone the Greek war. . That seems almost like getting pelted with rugged Colorado rocks for fifty hours at a stretch . What the class of 2009 will see in the coming few days will go a long way in deciding the ones who have it in them .

As we wait and watch with five kilotons of unexpired health supplements and some liters of black coffee; a post-dated bottoms up already – to the survivors!

(Tick tick one..tick tick two…)

(Suryya Sarkar, Class of 2009)

A day with Babson,M.A.

Entrepreneurship is a path less taken. There is no method to it. But when a group of young and confident MBA grads come together and discuss it, it generates a lot of interest and enthusiasm. This is exactly what happened on May 31^st, 2008. Around 15 students from Babson College, the #1 in Entrepreneurial courses, led by Mr. Bala Iyer were hosted by the students and the administration of Great Lakes Institute of Management (Great Lakes).

Professor Sriram, Executive Director, Great Lakes and Professor Veeravalli, addressed the gathering and talked in brief about entrepreneurship. There was an air of expectancy from the Babson students and Great Lakers alike as far as the interactions and discussions were concerned.

Mr. Sukumar elaborated on the Young India chapter and the activities that are being taken up. The Babson students were curious to know if they could do their bit as students from abroad to help the cause of Young India. A lot of creative discussion took place on that front.

We had a half an hour break and Professor Sriram took the opportunity to talk about the history of Great Lakes. Professor Sriram went about in a very erudite manner explaining to the Babson students, the USP of Great Lakes, that being the 1 year MBA program and its diverse batch of students and of course the Great Faculty!. Great Faculty attracts good students and vice versa. Good students attract great placements and it becomes a positive feedback cycle. We also talked about the possibility of having a student exchange program which could serve to enrich students from both the institutes. Prof .Sriram said that this could materialize as early as next year when the new campus of Great Lakes would come up which would further add diversity to the batch and make the learning experience truly international.

After the break, our fellow Great Laker and Champion Dheeraj gave a presentation on the Entrepreneurship Development Forum at Great Lakes and the activities that had been done so far. After this, we had an open house session which lived up to its billing. A whole lot of questions were asked from either side and Professor Veeravalli as well as Mr. Bala Iyer answered these questions and got us thinking about latent possibilities. Mr. Bala Iyer also elaborated on the curriculum at Babson and how they go about practicing and honing their entrepreneurial skills during the course of the program. He stated that their purpose of visit was to study the Indian IT industry as a whole and the factors affecting it in a globalized world.

I think at the end of this open house session, all the students present there realized that there was a lot in common in terms of our thought processes and this could lead to something meaningful in the future. Perhaps a joint workshop, you never know.

It was lunch time and we went to this place called ‘Checkers’ which was about a kilometer and a half from Great Lakes. As scheduled, we got to meet Mr.Gopal Srinivasan, the MD of TVS Investments. He addressed the gathering.. A lot of questions were asked and we had a really fruitful discussion about the Indian IT industry and how it is shaping up and the factors that make it tick and of course CSR in general in India as compared to the west.

I am sure everybody in the room was in awe of Mr Gopal. He could rattle out numbers with ease and his knowledge on Business was something to savor. We had a lot of informal discussion with the Babson students and this added to familiarity and friendship during lunch.

All in all, an amazing experience. It helped remove certain misconceptions on either side. An apt ending to this episode would be that the World is getting flatter as we speak!

(Ranjit Shankar, Class of 2009)