At Great lakes we are privileged to have considerable time kept aside for LOVE. Oh Yeah! You heard that right… We have designated time set aside, that too with the permission of the management, for LOVE. It happens almost every Sunday (and sometimes on other days in the evenings) when a few of us get together for these amazing sessions. And frankly, its one of the most exciting times we have here. Yes it is!
But before your kinky dirty mind starts imagining all sorts of things let me tell you what LOVE means to us. Our Uncle Bala defines LOVE as Leveraging Our Varied Experience. In essence, it is about sharing information or knowledge that has been gained from all the years that we had been working, whether in IT or manufacturing or Banking or Shipping or Logistics or wherever. The sessions are run entirely by the current students for the students. It is a medium for spreading knowledge (to those who seek it). It is a medium for expanding horizons. It is a medium for incubating and sustaining interest in fields otherwise alien to us.
A few examples:
Abhimanyu Shandilya, a Lawyer and classmate, takes a course called “Law for Managers” on free Sundays. He basically introduces us to many of the intricacies that we as managers need to be aware of. Of course, we cannot obviously expect him to teach a 5 year course in a few hours. But he does lend us enough information on contracts and Indian law to help us be on our toes. It is one of the best LOVE sessions currently running on House-Full status at Great Lakes. Infact, Abhimanyu does such a good job that he can probably give our real professors a run for their money. I personally think he will be very successful if he ever thinks of getting into the education field.
The other LOVE session of interest is the one conduced by the Punter’s club where experienced investors like Umesh gives us novice investors gyan on how to beat the market using his Technical Analysis, Elliot Wave patters, Candle Sticks and Fibonacci series methods. Most of the analysis he did made a lot of sense and the proof was right there in front of us to see. He has managed a whopping 54% returns on the current bear market in under one month!! Now that’s true Experience!!
The Great Lakes management is really forward looking in this way. They believe that the students need to be part of the institution building and is willing to help us in any way possible in our endeavours.
We the students also take the opportunity extended to us and make use of it the LOVE way!!
George Mathew
Class of 2009
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
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
TCB – What does it stand for with reference to Great Lakes? The Champions Batch… But a more relevant expansion would be The Clubs Batch… I reckon that’s what we are going to be known as.
Why? Coz as of the last count, there are 3 new clubs formed by members of the present batch. GLick – The Great lakes Click a photography club, The Fountain – A management book discussion club and a Yet-To-Be-Named Financial Markets Club. Mind, this is apart from the umpteen number of committees that we already have here at Great Lakes. And I’m pretty sure there are a couple more ideas floating about in people’s minds.
They say that the idle mind is the devils workshop… But I beg to differ. We dint come up with the Clubs for the sake of it. There is an agenda behind each of them which is integrally connected to Great Lakes in a direct way. If The Fountain is striving to instill the habit of reading up on and understanding management books so that managers can take better decisions, the Financial Markets club is trying to teach interested parties the nuts and bolts of trading and investments while GLick is heavily into branding on the institution. Ours is a very gung-ho batch with a never say die spirit. By the looks of it each of these clubs will not only survive, but go on to be quiet successful setting precedents for the coming batches.
And that’s what you get when a group of highly motivated MBA grads are holed up in a seminar hall and left to fend for themselves. They come up with the weirdest and innovative of ideas… Pitch it to the Professors and students… Gather support… And make sure that they see it to completion. At first glance, it seems to be a very ambitious to have so many Clubs, committees apart from all the extra curriculars coming our way. I mean, the seniors din’t have any of these clubs and associated extra work to content with and yet they barely scraped thru the year due to the nature of the course. With work and studies piling up, all of us have started to feel the pinch too.
So the real question is, is our enthusiasm misplaced? Will we succumb to the pressure and get bogged down? Will the clubs meet a premature demise? Will Harry meet Sally? So many questions, so lil time to answer…
Its true that only time will tell, but sometimes you just know, y’know…
George Mathew
Class of 2009
