NuclioManiac

2010-09-16T15:13:00.001+05:30

have taken off my defunct website .. will put up a revamped one soon .. for now www.yashovardhan.com points to my twitter account ... check it out .. www.yashovardhan.com

http://twitter.com/Nucliomaniac

2010-07-27T23:12:00.002+05:30

sorry guys,

havent been updating this for a while now .. am fairly active on twitter also .. http://twitter.com/Nucliomaniac

now that I have more control over my time these days, hopefully, Ill get the opportunity to blog more.

cheers,

Yash

A letter to friends .. who are always asking .. Where have you been ?

2007-09-05T16:51:00.000+05:30

My turn now :-)

Well I graduated from ISB this year and it was unbelievable experience. ISB is such a great business school and it surpassed all my expectations. I was extremely anxious upon choosing ISB as a business school, as I didnt know much about the school and was all set to go to the US for an MBA (was accepted at Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Tuck (Dartmouth), Darden and Insead). But keeping my long term goals of being in India, and at least attempting to become an industrialist, ISB it was.

ISB got hold of me from the word go and didn't let me go .. the year just zipped by. I didn't sleep a lot, but neither did I study. In fact, I doubt if i learn anything about an MBA at all, its just a degree i got hold of while networking for a year ... and boy oh boy did I do so major networking.

I became extremely involved in ALL the extra curricular activities on campus. was elected as the Social events coordinator of the institute, which meant that anything non-academic fell under my control, things such as networking events, parties, speaker sessions, picnics, alumni interaction events, some more parties ... you get the drift.

Apart from this, I was also heavily involved in the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital club, and was elected vice president of the same. This club is Big in ISB, and managed to get the business cards of scores of young entrepreneurs from India. The icing on the cake, was an event which we call the Tie-Isb connect, which is an event, attend by over 60 VCs from silicon valley and hundreds of delegate entrepreneurs.

anyway ... this went on for 9 months or so .. after which I ran away to HEC, Paris for an exchange. Paris was an unbelievable experience, and like Pramod, I not only used the opportunity to travel, but also develop some contacts in nuclear energy, which is big in france, fashion (was given a job by Moet henessy and Louis Vuitton) and European Private Equity. In my free time, I peeied on the Insead wall, pictures to follow ;-) Paris is a wonderful city and staying there for 4 months, I really learnt why people claim that travelling is the best way to learn.

I did pop back in India, during the middle of the my stint in Paris, to attend our placement week and having developed a distaste for consultants (sorry Pramod) and investment bankers, I chose to apply to really off beat companies, such as Aditya Birla Group, some other Indian companies and a few European ones. I was finally given an offer by Jindal steel and power Ltd., and it was such an awesome role, that I accepted it right away, rejecting one really high paying offer.

As of now, im cooling my heels in delhi, and understanding how Indian SME's transition from being an SME to much larger professional company and its wonderful. lots and lots of traveling, no time for a social life and a work schedule which would put an investment banker to shame, but I wouldn't have it any other way :-)

If any of you ever come to Delhi, do give a call ... would be awesome to meet up.

ohh btw: I majored in Finance as well as Entrepreneurship, mainly taking up courses, in real estate, private equity, capital raising strategies and hard core operations, things like logistics, supply chain and so on ... developed a distaste for soft courses pretty early into my programme, love Economics though.

take care and keep in touch,

With best regards,

Yash

movie lovers ahoy

2007-01-14T05:33:00.000+05:30

found a really cool site, which gives you really really condensed versions of all the popular movies out there

Movie-a-minute

the one i liked the most was for stanley kubricks "A Clockwork Orange which is one of my favourite movies

"Malcolm McDowell

I was having a right horrorshow time of it, O my brothers, crasting and drasting with my droogies all the nochy, viddying the vino flow. Then, those glooby bratchny millicents loveted me and hurled me in the plenny like a common prestoopnik. That vonny plenny wasn't for me, so I let some doctor vecks filly with my mozg to fix me up right skorry. Then I ittied on home like a good malckickiwick, but I couldn't slooshy my lovely Ludwig anymore without getting bolnoy. It was oozhassny, so I jumped out the okno. I've had rather a change of heart, and thinking of getting a zheena like a proper chelloveck, and all that cal.

Audience

Eh?

THE END"

The Famous Ultimate Frisbee video at the ISB - to the soundtrack of Dhoom 2

2007-01-01T21:20:00.000+05:30

Happy new year !!!!!

2007-01-01T00:44:00.000+05:30

Wish you all a

Happy & Prosperous New Year

ISB Life at its very best - you simply have to check out this video !!!!

2006-12-31T20:25:00.000+05:30

The Xpult Video ;-)

2006-12-31T00:53:00.001+05:30

XPULTTTTTTTTTTTTTT ..... Yeahhhhhhh

2006-12-29T23:24:00.000+05:30

As more and more of our mba is coming to an end, the cooler and better our classes are becoming.

quality management has been a pleasure!

Applications have also been an awesome pedagogy and and testifying that fact is the recent Xpult experiment and demonstration we were subjected to in class.

very briefly ... Xpult is a catapult and as students we needed to conduct experiments and create a model which maps a set of parameters to a result, which is the distant the ball travels. its an awesome way to teach about Design of Experiments and Taguchi Methods.

we had to present our findings in class which was succeeded by an in-class demonstration of the reliability of our model.

take a look at the setup of the experiment at our apartment ->

In the news

2006-12-29T20:04:00.000+05:30

I have been misquoted again ....

these damn press folks .... Grrrrr

MBA in 3 words !!!

2006-12-26T03:39:00.000+05:30

Process, Process, Process .....

Solstice 2006 !!!! - The Alumni reunion @ the ISB

2006-12-25T21:02:00.000+05:30

Finally the real thing - Private Equity - Yeah !!!

2006-12-19T05:10:00.000+05:30

It's almost as if these guys were saving the best for the last.

we have had some really awesome courses the last 6 terms, but the Investing in Private Equity takes the cake.

2 awesome professors, no examinations - what could be better

the first half of the course is taught by Prof Thomas Hellman who teaches at Stanford and University of British Columbia and the second half by Prof Vinay Nair who teaches at Wharton.

If thomas was good vinay almost blew us away.

This guy, came directly from a long haul flight, horribly jet lagged and delivered an exceptional class to 3 separate sections. he would be teaching 5 sessions to 3 sections within a week and covering material which he typically takes 3 months to cover in wharton in about 8 days at ISB. awesome guy

If ISB can continue to attract profs like this to come here, many indian students might not see the value add in going to the US.

Discussion Boards - a Wonderful way of keeping garbage, popularly known as "Class Participation" out of the class

2006-12-10T23:17:00.000+05:30

Discussion Boards - a Wonderful way of keeping garbage, popularly known as "Class Participation" out of the class

We have a course titled Managerial Decision Making taught by Prof. Joseph Russo from the Johnson School of Business at Cornell and in that he has opted for a very succesful form of grading Class Participation.

We has instituted half the grade for class participation to a Discussion board on blackboard (an online student information medium)

this has been very popular with the students, here at ISB with almost 80 entries notched by the first week alone. which is all the more surprising as that the class consists of only 65 students.

Even yours truly managed to slide a couple of comments in ....

On the topic of Framing - which is nothing but viewing a problem differently or out of the box thinking, I wrote a couple of comments ...

Comment 1

Study groups or taking decision in teams is a wonderful method of counteracting the disadvantages on thinking through a specific frame. Diversified groups consist of people from a variety of backgrounds, each of whom apply a different frame to a problem and view it differently. The result is that learning teams/study groups achieve far superior results when compared to a individual effort.

To cite from an exercise we did in a Quality Management class taught by Prof Ram Ganeshan recently...

The objective of the exercise was to illustrate the different ways in which individuals as well as teams solve a problem.

The task consisted of ranking a list of 12 items in order of importance for survival, when stranded at a plane crash site in -20 degrees Celsius. the items were things like loaded .34 calibre pistol, can of shortening, axe, blanket, 12 sets of shirts and pants, a large canvas, a bottle of whiskey, a lighter without fluid, a map, a compass and newspapers.

This ranking was done by a team of 8 people and in parallel by 12 students, who did it individually.

This was compared with a ranking performed by experts, which afforded best chances of survival.

The results were not too surprising. The team's selection was better than the average decision of the individuals. Framing a problem in different frames, allows individuals to look at all aspects of a problem and reach at a far superior decision.

Comment 2

I have recently started reading a wonderful book called

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

This book is a wonderful rendition of how Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane used innovative practices and viewed baseball differently when compared to other teams such as the famous Yankees and consequently maximised his dollar to win games in an as cheap manner as possible.

The approach of most famous teams is to purchase the most successful hitter/pitcher at an insane price and win games by scoring home runs or pitching out the other team. This method is extremely expensive and yields a very low "No. of Wins/$ spent" ratio.

Billy Beane of Oakland A's decided to view the problem of maximising the "No. of Wins/$ spent" ratio through different frames and enjoyed phenomenal successes. Rather than focussing on stars, who were expensive, he focussed on aspects such as fielding and the importance of getting a guy on the first base. Viewing the act of winning a game by spending the least amount of money via a different frame than other managers, permitted Billy to implement very successful practices which have resulted in a wonderful performance by the Oakland A's

Maybe Chappel can apply the principles of framing a problem differently and other aspects of a Decision Process to improve the woeful performances of the Indian Cricket Team.

The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh visits ISB

2006-12-06T00:41:00.000+05:30

The Global Logistics Summit (GLS), hosted by the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies at the Indian School of Business, was inaugurated by the Honourable Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh on December 5, 2006.

read the full article here

Quality Management at ISB - Simulating Toyota's processess

2006-12-02T12:59:00.000+05:30

Learning via applications is personal favourite of mine and often proves to be a more effective pedagogy. A number of our courses such as Management in organization, Managerial Decision making, Logistics and supply chain as well quality management are a chock a block with applications.

in quality for instance, in the first class wee took a VHS tape apart and calculated the cost and tried to redesign the product to obtain a lower cost. that was a wonderful exercise but the second class broke all records.

We simulated Toyota's lean manufacturing concept, replete with kanban cards and the like - it was Awesome.

Since pictures say it best, here are some pictures which show us as labourers trying to manufactures cars in a bid to make as much of profit as possible.

They are obviously in order ....

supply chains or supplier of chains !!!

2006-11-22T18:43:00.000+05:30

we just gave an end term examination on Logistics and supply chain management.

the course could have been "supply chains" or "supplier of chains" and we wouldn't have known the difference.

100 marks in 90 minutes and the paper stated "attempt as many as you can", in a way as to suggest that having hopes of attempting more than 50 would be out of the question.

nevertheless, it always feels nice to finish a test.

for=>

a) for having lasted through the ordeal.
b) and having one less exam to go through in whatever is remaining of this course.

later ....

Open book exam with nothing from the book - Electives are cool

2006-11-21T22:30:00.000+05:30

well the subject line says it all.

Electives are Cool!

The first end term examination of Term 5 (the 1st elective term) ended a few hours back and I answered an absolutely delightful paper on Branding.

Branding, was touted to be quite a tough exam .... what isn't.

It was scheduled to be an open book exam, and students meandered into examination hall carrying a variety of text books apart from lecture slides, self made notes etc..

One particular student (a famous boisterous sardar of our batch) came in with 5 different text books, most of which I had never heard of or seen in my life.

But Alas, they were of no use as the examination contained an 30 page long case and extremely open ended questions. I obviously enjoy these kind of examinations as I am always underprepared and these tests level the playing the field. The case was about the the famous "got milk" campaign and was an extremely detailed and interesting read.

the motto - Electives are cool and significantly reduces the pain of examinations

some more pictures !!!!

2006-11-06T22:24:00.000+05:30

SKILL CITY @ XIM, Bhubaneshwar

2006-11-06T21:39:00.000+05:30

ahhhhhhhhhh, 3 days of games and more games thanks to ximb, we couldn't have bargained for more.

skill city:

was a 3 day event designed to test essential managerial skills such as leadership, negotiation, strategy, analytical abilities, drive and the like.

but it turned out to be a 3 day fun fiesta revolving around a theme of the lord of the rings, replete with games such as the ones shown on the popular television show takeshi's castle on pogo.

some of the games were:

1. A physical Scotland yard
2. games to test your analytical abilities (anagrams, puzzles)
3. global manager (languages, geography)
4. A wonderful negotiation game (bargain for hotel room rates, negotiate with builders to optimize building materials)
5. physical puzzles/mind teasers ( played out in the open with beer bottles)
6. a cross between a maze, hop skotch and minesweeper.
7. military style endurance games (crawling through ditches, obstacle races)
8. strong man contest kind of games (pulling a cart with your teammates in them)

Its been quite while since we had such a great time at a fest!!!

the management and the efficiency with which events were conducted were unbelievable. I have never seen such a large number of volunteers, all of whom were given equal responsibility and no one fought for the centre stage. events took place in clockwork like efficiency and the result was one Helluva well organized fest !!!!

heres to XIMB, one of the most cohesive and unified b-schools in recent times.

Phew!!!! lots to blog about

2006-11-06T21:03:00.000+05:30

I have been intending to write a post for quite some time now and had a looooong "to do" list of things/events i had to write about. I manage my "to do" list with one of these cool widgets, you might wanna try them out.

anyway,

so ill just a give a brief write up of all things on my to do list and then jump write on to a detailed post about a more fresher and recent event.

1)

innovation challenge @ the darden

this was one super cool event and had teams of 4-5 people solve a business problem for a certain company. these problems were extremely open ended and as the name suggests, Innovation was a necessary precursor to victory.

we were given the arduous though interesting task of promoting GE money and came up with a little too much of innovation ;-)

54 hours and 3 red bulls later, we got this.

Tata boardroom wars:

this involved a simulation game between the best 54 future managers of the country. 9 teams participated, the IIM's, XLRI and ISB. IIMB had 2 teams thus rounding up the 9 teams and the prize money was a mammoth 1,00,000 INR.

after a gruelling internal selection, we got the opportunity to go to IIMB and participate in one of the most popular fests in the country.

apart from the mosquitoes and the drunk b-school students in the accomodation hall everything was perfect and we had a great time.

well ..... I have lots more to write about but let me jump to the most recent event ...

Victory tastes sweet !!!!

2006-10-03T18:23:00.000+05:30

we have finally tasted victory at a paper presentation competition called MANTHAN held at IMT ghaziabad.

160 teams participated, out of which 8 were chosen and invited to the finals namely: IIM A/C/L/I, NITIE, NMIMS, IMT and ISB.

as it is clear from the topic of the post we (Yashovardhan Gupta and Priyank Modi from ISB) won and IIM L came a close second.

Now the story.....

the paper was actually quite good and dealt with how, contrary to popular opinion Mergers and Acquisitions actually create value. but being our first paper presentation ever, we did not have a presentation or idea on what to talk about.

The fact that we are habitual procrastinators did not help much and our presentation was made on
a) 0545 flight from hyd to dellhi.
b) then on the cab ride from delhi to UP border
c) then the autoscooter ride from UP border to imt, ghaziabad
d) while waiting in the audience as the first 2 teams were presenting (we were the 3rd in queue)

nevertheless, we won :-) and are consequently richer by 15 grand

WOOOOOAHHH 5000 hits

2006-09-29T18:59:00.000+05:30

finally after blogging for quite some time and putting a hit counter a couple of months back, I have finally managed to break 5000 hits barrier.

God, my blog must really suck!!!

I do hereby solemnly swear that I shall update my blog truthfully, faithfully and to the best of my ability. I shall respect other fellow bloggers, right insightful comments everywhere and strive to better my blog everyday.

cheers till later!

Phew, that was a hectic month

2006-09-24T03:52:00.000+05:30

the fact that im posting after almost a month, to some extent explains how hectic the last month has been.

the last time you guys heard from me, we were coming to terms with the insanity of term 3.

Within 5 gruelling weeks, we had to study subjects such as corporate finance, Managerial Accounting, Operations management and my favourite Entrepreneurship. All in all, quite a useful but gruelling range of subjects. The only thing to look forward to at that time was the relatively lighter load in the 4th term.

However, Subjects do not decide how easy a term can be.
The courses this term can hardly be said to be gruelling. We have 3 "faff" subjects and 1 insanely tough one, so all in all an academically manageable term.

But, the sweet god of sleep still continues to elude us. This term is shorter than the regular ones by a whole week and also contains one of the BIGGEST AND GRANDEST events I have ever witnessed in a b-school.

Participating in the TIE-ISB connect was an awesome experience, I have never seen such an awesome star cast of speakers and head honchos in any b-school event. the oppurtunity to participate in such an event was totally worth all the sleepless nights that we went through.

Now, that the event is over and the term is almost over, its time to hit the books/laptop with gusto and hence, thou shall see more posts from me.

PS: check out my Gyann on the ISB website.

Morning Classes are POISON

2006-08-25T07:38:00.000+05:30

This term has been one of the worst in terms of class timings. We start at 0815 hours, yep I don't even know what the world looks like at that time.

We have been badly pampered the last couple of terms with classes starting at 11:15/ 14:15 respectively. Little did we realise that it was the high before the crash.

The result - borderline class attendance, even when I made it to class, I was one of the last guys to run in.

However, with our Final Term Examinations round the corner, I have devised a unique strategy to enable me to attend classes, which I shall explain by a description of a typical day @ my life in Term 3 @ ISB.

0815: Wake up - note class starts at this time.
0830: reach class - apologetically run in.
0915: ten minute coffee break - Breakfast time for me though.
1015: class over - time for a few laughs with sectionmates

1045: we start again :-(
1245: over for the day :-)
1330: lunch
1400: I finally get to sleep
....
....
....
1900: rudely woken up - some high profile CEO is lecturing on entrepreneurship
2100: dinner with the speaker after an awesome session
2300: hang around the Atrium, under the pretext of networking
0000: Business Plan development meeting
0200: ok we finally get sown to the meeting
0500: wooah look at the time - meeting adjourned as we are hungry
0600: raid fridges/apartments of hapless souls
0700: should I sleep or .....
0815: It starts again .....

So you guys think that you suffer from an excessive workload

2006-08-21T02:44:00.000+05:30

How ISB celebrates the completion of a set of tests known as the mid-terms:

Not so long ago, we managed to successfully last through our mid-terms. Dreaming of booze, we managed to saunter into our rooms and checked our mails hoping to come across invitations to about a half a dozen parties. But we had missed one critical piece of information, this is ISB.

Awaiting us was an insanely packed schedule of 10 hours of classes. We started the day with 4 hours of regular core classes such as Corporate Finance and Operations Management. Followed by an additional 2 hours of an elective known as PAEV (Planning an Entrepreneurial Venture, which I must add is the best academic course @ ISB), where we had the phenomenal sanjeev bikhchandani of naukri.com address us and take us through his entrepreneurial journey. after a quick dinner with him, we made our way through to a BCG (Boston Consulting Group) workshop, which was also quite informative.

Considering that I am as interested in consultancy as men, the fact that I still got a few take aways from the session goes a long way to show that consultants really do know their stuff.

Well this is how we celebrate exams!!!

If you are still thinking of studying management, this might be a good time to give it a second thought.

Benefit of Examinations

2006-08-11T00:22:00.000+05:30

Examinations, as we all know have a number of benefits.

For the benefit of humanity I shall prevent myself from elucidating those very benefits here.

However, one such advantage is quite enlightning.

you finally spend some time with your flatmates.

@ the ISB we have a type of living quarters known as Quads - an apartment consisting of 4 rooms with kitchenette, loos, massage rooms, jacuzzis et cetera - basically only the essential no frills kind of stuff

hence flatmates/roomates are known are given the prestiguous title of Quadies here. All of us (Quadies) maintain extremely hectic schedules and do not even see each other for days. Today was the first time in a couple of months that all of us actually met each other in the living room and caught up with each other.

"After all its the examinations that binds us " - Ace Ventura (modified)

Disclaimer: the author sincerely hates examinations and does not reccomend them in any way whatsoever.

TAKING TESTS IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH

Dress codes in B-school at ISB

2006-08-07T01:26:00.000+05:30

B-school students are unique in their ability to try and spice up a packed academic schedule by introducing inanities such as DRESS CODE FOR THE DAY.

Dress codes have really caught on in our School. must say, that it provides for some "Phantashtic" photographic opportunities.

These dress codes are initiated by a section at a time and do have a number of merits, such as fostering unity, adding to camaraderie, creating a lively atmosphere.... but any b-schooler will tell you that the real value add are the snaps.

some of our dress codes here @ ISB are ....

1. ETHNIC DAY

2. RED & BLUE DAY

3. FORMALS DAY

... and many more that i do not have the patience to write about.

DUNKED!!!

2006-08-02T03:48:00.000+05:30

wooooohoooo I have turned 24

2006-07-31T07:25:00.000+05:30

B-school is the best place to celebrate one's birthday!

the celebrations start by flinging the acccused into the swmming pool.

today was a packed day @ the pool. primarily because 3 of us celebrate our birthday on the same day. the mba populance waited, licking their lips for the accused to arrive. a beer was thrust into my hand and after a round of congratulatory hugs I was told to dismember any hydrophobic substances which i possessed. such as watch,wallets, et cetera.

5-6 burly guys held me and started swaying, and after gaining momentum for 2 counts let me go with a heave on the third and i landed face first in the pool.

this was followed by some more hugs, but unfortunalety no cake. probably ill get the cake in class today.

somehow the the "junta" wasnt satisfied by dunking us once and proceeded to dunk be about 3 times more.

even my study group exonerated me of any of the responsibility when it came to doing the assignment which was pending for tommorrow.

in short b-school is the best place to celebrate one's birthday.

TAGGED !!!!

2006-07-08T18:55:00.000+05:30

I have been tagged by bonet and now the onus is on me to provide truthful and factual answers to the following questions.

I am thinking of finally puting an end to my insolent procrastination .... well not really, I am thinking, why the best things in life are either illegal ...... or with someone else.

I said that I am going to my room and studying, but I ended up going to Hyderabad Golf Course and driving some balls. You know what I am not even feeling guilty :)

I want to spend some time with my family, neglecting them a bit too much.

I wish that I was more proactive and did a few more things with my life.

I miss My family. Refer answer 3. well I also miss italian food, wine, girls of calcutta and few other things which cant be written here ...

I hear the pitter patter of rain on my window. A refreshng change from the Punk Rock, which I usually listen too.

I wonder What if I had applied to a few other top rung B-schools or gone to Cornell ... Nahhh, ISB Rocks.

I regret Nothing, well maybe I could have been slightly more proactive in preventing the good things in life from being illegal ... with someone else.

I am A Rockstar!

I dance like a cretinous fool.

I sing like a Vogon (A Character in Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy), who voice resembles the act of gurgling and coughing at the same time.

I cry lesser these days

I am not going to give up.

I hate No one

I confuse Studying with learning and partying with networking.

I should Think less and act more.

I finish watching all the movies on my computer, but do not read even a page of study material.

I tag: Kapil Mantri
and Manu

RETRO!!!!!!!

2006-07-07T11:01:00.000+05:30

Some photos from our GSB party. The theme as evident was RETRO.

Commanding Heights !!!

2006-06-27T01:38:00.000+05:30

One of the coolest things about b-school education is the new and novel ways in which knowledge is imparted to us.

It is best exemplified by Commanding Heights, a 6 hour long documentary which is a required part of a course in global economics or macro economics as it is more popularly known in b-schools around the globe.

Commanding Heights was shown to us during the coffee breaks and a marathon session during the term and believe it or not, we will actually be tested on it. This is the first time; I am being tested on a documentary and prefer this to copious amounts of reading material any day.

Commanding Heights is actually a fantastic piece of cinema. It is by far the best documentary I have seen in my life and beats popular documentaries such as “The corporation", “Fahrenheight 9/11” and "bowling for columbine" hollow. Highly recommended for anyone who would like to know more about the economy of the world and how it is evolved or wants to answer the question “What is Macro Economics??

The music, fantastic interviews and rare footage make for unbelievable viewing and were a pleasure, hope that we are continually treated and tested on masterpieces such as these, might make studying a pleasure....

when my friends came to isb

2006-06-22T03:06:00.000+05:30

How an MBA program i ssupposed to kick-start your career.

1. the guy on the right depicts a student writing his application
2. the guy on the centre going through the ordeal of an MBA
3. the guy on the left - graduation followed by a plum job

Markstrat - The essence of an MBA

2006-06-19T22:20:00.000+05:30

Let me start this post by apologising for an inordinately long absence. The incessant partying and ... partying, which took place at the end of the first term caught me off guard.

However as all good things must come to an end, instead of partying I am now Blogging.

Term 2, arguably consists of the finest selection of subjects. One of the them is a subject called Marketing Decision Making, taken by 2 fantastic faculty - Pradeep Bharadwaj and Jagmohan Raju.

40% of the grade for this eminent subject is allocated to an activity called markstrat, which MBA students are aware of.

Blessed with a really kick-ass team, consisting of the Marketing club president and the batch topper till now, we were extremely bullish on our performance. Notice that I said WERE.

markstrat for the uninitiated is marketing simulation environment, where each team is given the reigns of a company and a starting position and over 8 rounds, the team has to earn as much money as humanly possible. the amount of moolah you acquire determines your grade.

Our first experience with markstrat lasted 7 hours. Starting at 2300 and going on till 0600. These 7 hours in my opinion captured the essence of an MBA. Optimistic about our chances, we delved deep into it and often discussed issues, such as firm A must be thinking this, hence we should be doing this.

After hours and hours of debates and naps and coffees and football breaks we thought that we had come up with an unbeatable solution. However when the results came out today ...... we were far from being numero uno ....... its obvious isn’t it, that we came last.

Confidence dented; today we shall aim to find the reason why we might have missed the top spot by so large a margin ;-) I would attribute it to over-confidence, excessive strategy planning, too much investment in the future, too many naps and variability of knowledge in the group. 2 are fantastic and 2 insipid.

The moral of the story in Prof Richard Waterman’s words is KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid

ISB Sets New Benchmarks With its Class Of 2007 - Press Release

2006-05-23T02:48:00.000+05:30

ISB Sets New Benchmarks With its Class Of 2007

Increases class size, becomes one of the Largest B-Schools inthe World *

Hyderabad, May 16, 2006: The ISB has increased its student intake by 20% for the current Class of 2007. The Class of 2007 – all working professionals - has 418 students as compared to 345 students in the Class of 2006. The ISB will now be counted as one among the largest, when compared to the top B-Schools in the world.

”We have taken the ISB standards higher this year with 53% students from our new class having secured GMAT scores of over 700. The average GMAT score has increased to 706 from 694 last year. This is comparable to GMAT scores of students at the world’s top B-Schools and is a matter of pride for the ISB and Indian management education,” said Professor Rammohan Rao, Dean ISB

ISB invests in talent

To encourage meritorious and deserving students, the ISB has offered scholarships worth Rs.1.67 crores right at the time of their admission to the ISB. Scholarships have been offered to nearly 20% of the class and will also be awarded by companies like HSBC, Citigroup, Novartis, Anand Group and KC Maritime during the academic year. Scholarships exclusively for women students are also being offered. At the end of the

academic year, the top 20 students who are selected for the Dean’s list will be offered merit scholarships.

Students reject international B-School offers for the ISB

The current class has many students who have rejected offers from B-Schools in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Singapore and have chosen to study at the ISB. Some of the renowned B-Schools from whom the students received and rejected offers include Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia Business School, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Purdue University, INSEAD, University of California - Los Angeles, National University of Singapore, and several others.

“On evaluating various options, I chose ISB because it offers the latest and best in global management practices and draws faculty from the top B-Schools in the world. Moreover the students here are drawn from a variety of backgrounds making the experience at the ISB even more interactive and unique, “said Yashovardhan Gupta, a student who has rejected an offer from Carnegie Mellon University

Women numbers go up

Another highlight of the new class at the ISB is the significant increase in the number of women students. The ISB, which has always encouraged women to take up a management career, has seen an upward trend year after year in women student intake. The number of women students which has gone up to 87 from 67 last year, represents 20% of the Class of 2007, which is comparable to some of the leading European B-schools.

Unity in Diversity

Keeping up the ISB tradition, the Class of 2007 comes from varied academic backgrounds and diverse work experience. Some are Doctors, some are from the Indian armed forces, others are entrepreneurs, architects, model/actor, urban planner, chef, etc. Students with interesting industry backgrounds like media, advertising, real estate and social services have also joined the ISB this year. The class boasts of a mix of students who have excelled and won acclaim for excellence in both scholastic and non-scholastic activities. Few remarkable examples include a student who has won the Operation Vijay Medal for the Kargil war, students who have applied for patents, a student who has won the International Femtor Award for emerging business leader in USA, etc.

ISB nurtures entrepreneurs

One of the key differentiators for the ISB is that it attracts working professionals, including several entrepreneurs, who join here to sharpen their professional skills and acumen. The current class has eight entrepreneurs who have work experience ranging from three to thirteen years in their own ventures.

The Class has an average work-experience of 5 years in a variety of industries and functions such as technology, pharma, media, etc., and in operations, finance, marketing, consulting, entrepreneurship, merchant navy etc. The average age of the students in the Class of 2007 is 27 years.

The recognition that the ISB students have received in the past years show that they are on par with the best in the world and the Class of 2007 is no exception.

About the ISB

The Indian School of Business is a research-oriented independent management institution that grooms future leaders for India and the world. Its association with the Kellogg School of Management, The Wharton School, and London Business School make it one of its kind in Asia. The School offers a one-year Post Graduate Programme; short-duration, high-powered Executive Education programmes for CEOs and senior executives; and a two-year Research Fellowship Programme. The origins and distinctive research of our faculty members ensure that our programme content is contemporary and global in its perspective, and develops our students’ understanding of modern management opportunities and challenges.

Soap Box: B-school Elections

2006-05-22T22:18:00.000+05:30

An ideal time to post my opinion on B-school elections.

I stood for the post of Director- Student Life Council, arguably the most sought after position on the GSB ( Graduate Student Board ) on campus. So did 5 other awesome candidates. It was damn good fun, we were given 5 minutes to sell ourselves to the GSA ( Graduate Student Association, in short the entire student body ) and blood well we did. After a couple of mails extolling people to come and attend the soap box and in the process strategitically interjecting that we need their vote, we submitted our Manifestos to the Co-Curricular activities department. This was duly mailed to the entire student body.

The soap-box consists of a 5 minute speech by nominees, followed by a round of cross-questioning. Its great fun and a significant part of every b-school life. the objectives of the cross questioning varies to a large extent in most cases.

some are strategically planted by the candidates themselves, in a bid to increase their airtime. Some are merely "Arbit", uttered by a few key members of the audience, seeking their 30 seconds of fame. and the best kind are the ones which are used to unsettle the candidates are a real test of wit in most cases. These questions and many such similar gestures are what makes this event so interesting,

Hope the practice continues, since im hoping for stuff, hope that I win ................

anti-quota demonstrations !!!

2006-05-22T21:58:00.000+05:30

Heated debates regarding Quotas are happening throughout the country, ISB being a pretty intrinsic community, we are sort of abstracted from the happenings throughout the country.

However some shocking images of the treatment meted out to Anti-Quota protestors have recently been distrubuted throughout the blogging and " Fwd: " Forwarding community. The Police Act in India, which I believe is unchanged from 1862, is to a large extent responsible for the highly controversial treatment meted out to students in the country. There has to be a law to distinquish peaceful protestors from rioters.

that said I am providing a couple of photos and a link to some more photos which you can peruse to understand the plight of students in this country,

I for one, am totally against reservations in any form or the other. My opinion sorely rests with providing need and merit based scholarships to deserving candidates irrespective of caste, creed or race, but reservations are a strict no no .....

The guy in Orange is a college mate - Ashutosh Ojha

A link to some more ghastly pictures:

http://rhapsoder.blogspot.com/2006/05/mandal-ized.html

interesting articel ;-)

2006-05-18T13:47:00.000+05:30

Its all relative !!!!!

2006-05-17T21:27:00.000+05:30

Our first Examination looms ahead, a mid-term actually. Before i applied to this place, i had found out that there are 8 terms. 8 terms = 8 sets of examinations, not so bad i guess .....

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE MID-TERMS........

the % allocation of these tests are quite large. yet ISB holds classes for different subjects and different topics the day before the test, quite a dichotomy.

with huge syllabuses and pages of cheat sheets to write, the copius amount of workload has created such a huge incremental effort, that starting any kind of academic preparation seems an ominous task.

However, we shall survive .......

The only saving grace is that " Its all relative ", a die-hard optimist that I am, i see the grading system this way, if you fail and most of the people around you fail, then technically you dont fail.

Don't know far this philosophy will go in preventing a D.

B-school Elections !!!!

2006-05-16T02:22:00.000+05:30

One core subject which is included in almost every b-school in the world is Political Science. Well almost....

The last week had consisted of a frenzy of activity with regard to the GSB (Graduate Student Board) Elections. Nominations have been filed, withdrawn, discussed, debunked and almost every adjective you can think of can be added here. We have witnessed first-hand the merger and acquisition of political parties, A few hostile takeovers and some merely driven out by force.

The result as Prof Bubna aptly put it has been the result of Market Dynamics. We have been left with only 3 candidates for the GSB President. This number is merely a shadow of what it had promised to be and not at all reflective of the diversity present in the batch.

The soap box, which took place today, was as boilerplated as the "why school x" question. Extremely uninteresting and dashed a lot of hopes, specifically for guys like me who were looking at enjoying a couple of laughs at the expense of others or a few heated arguments reminiscent of the Indian Parliament.

As campaigning is not permitted within ISB, I shall refrain from mentioning any specifities about the candidates but am brimming with ideas, how such a situation might be prevented next year. I am not saying that we may not end up with the best candidate for the role, but having choice is essential for making a decision and any sort of monopoly is undesirable. The economy thrives on competition.

Oh Well ......

Heres to an enjoyable round of elections and a succesful stint for the winner of the proceedings... hic hic hic

CNBC Interview

2006-05-15T17:39:00.000+05:30

CNBC TV18, came on campus today to speak to a few students.

Since we have not formed a formal commitee yet, to look over these things. The information that CNBC was looking for a couple of entreprenuers and/or guys who have "dinged" US b-schools for ISB, was sort of circulating on campus.

Vaguely qualifying both the requirements, I recieved 5-6 calls at extremlely awkward moments, extolling me to go and speak to them in a picture perfect location in the LRC.

Panting and Sweating, I just managed to make it in time for the media guy to tell me that you look quite dishevelled so ... sort of just put your hair in place, to that effect somebody added that "they wanted to have a casual conversation with students in the midst of their class schedules", so we could carry on, Reality TV - i guess.

It was fun actually, he asked me a couple of questions which were quite straightforward, a relief from the kind of stuff we are asked at various group meetings and definitely better that the kinds of questions students would have to answer at the "Soap Box" today, but that at another time.

The questions were, which schools did you get into and why did you choose to come to ISB, hmmmmmmmm.... with a heavy heart i answered the usual yada yada, which i knew by rote after all the essay writing and interview prep these b-school applications make you go through.

Armed with the Media Dude's card and with imminent information regarding the time I would come on TV, I strode into "Khemka" for a session with CAS.......Considering that I am still in Khemka, I need not elaborate on the CAS session ;-)

btw: the real gossip about b-school life would be acquired today after the "Soap Box" presentations, so until i put up that......

2006-05-07T21:35:00.000+05:30

PARTYYYYY!!!!

Signs of impending doom

2006-05-07T21:12:00.000+05:30

The last 3 weeks at ISB have been awesome. Full of parties and minimal academic pressure

Week 1: The first week was filled with memorising names and faces, partying like crazy and having the time of your lives. Sleep was at a premium, not that anybody cared. We had club presentations, team building events, leadership development programs, some lectures extolling us to pull up our socks or to hit the ground running.

And parties every night, sort of set the tone for my entire stay at Gachibowli.

Week 2: Pre-term!!!!, after a lot of begging and grovelling I was given the honour of being part of the pre-term classes. Had earlier missed the deadline of applying for the pre-terms, because of procrastination and then later due to non-existant internet in spanish villages.

On hindsight, I was better of without the pre-terms, Quant prof was aweome. Prof Shankar from IIMB. Rather than go through the motions, he made it his responsibility to create some interest in the subject with interesting anecdotes and trivia and made a dull subject such as mathematics quite interesting.

The same obviously cant be said about the other 2. Although I have been hearing reports that Introductory accounting was awesome in the other sections.

Pre-terms, werent taken quite seriously and most chose to extend the revellry into the 2nd week of ISB as well. The parties continued, the mispronounciation of names and the practice of calling people Dude, when one doesn't know the respective name continued.

This was an awesome week at ISB. No academic pressure, freedom to sleep over 10 hours, Its almost like a vacation ... awesome stuff.

Week 3:

ahem ahem ahem ..... the profs are awesome, they are giving an insane amount of workload, but somehow people havent really started buring the midnight oil. Maybe the assignments or the mid-term tests will sort of open our eyes to the task which faces us.

Meanwhile the parties continue, People continue to party till the wee hours of the morning convincing themselves that instead of partying they are actually networking.... well I am one of them. Studies or reading, as is commonly called here is still nowhere to be found. I have till date in my entire stay at ISB done about 4 hours of study.....

Is this b-school life, if it is. I am in love with an MBA. However, I believe that this is just the calm before the storm....

Or in other words, signs of impending Doom.....

Hope to survive to right my epitaph.

2006-04-29T15:26:00.000+05:30

ISB Rocks!!!!!

great test, take a look

2006-03-26T17:55:00.000+05:30

http://similarminds.com/othertests.html

Amusing test, do check out the link above

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

2006-03-23T12:59:00.001+05:30

another angle

2006-03-23T12:59:00.000+05:30

My room during the essay writing and application submission phase.

2006-03-22T00:55:00.000+05:30

Karting, Wooo Hooo, Somehow its not looking fast at all. should take a slow shutter speed one next time

Tuck Interview

2006-03-22T00:20:00.000+05:30

After the fiasco of the carnegie mellon interview, I was keen to make amends. A oppurtunity came along with Tuck's invite.

I was scheduled to interview with a second year student ( Telephonic ..... Again ) without digressing too much, I would like to add that - Whatever Admissions Commitee's proclaim, a telephonic interview is not quite the same as a face 2 face interview. you feel that your answers were not as convincing as they would have been f2f, telephonic interviews are devoid of hand movements and other non-verbal gestures. voice modulation does not achieve similar results.

Oh Well, ahhh yes, Tuck. Keen to make amends I researched like hell on the interviewer, and got to know possibly everything on the web about him. even called a school friend who did his undergrad in Dartmouth, to get the latest dope.

After extensive research on the interviewer, procrastination and work deadlines set in and IH was unable to put the same amout of hours or even minutes into more specific Tuck research. hence like a qualified procrastinator decided to "Wing it in" - Read as, minimal prep, meandered through the website for a few hours before the ineterview.

The interview and the research about the guy helped. He was a major studly jock, brilliant athlete and finance guru. held a number of record timings for sprints and rowing. Brilliant profile. I decided to concentrate on my extra-curricular activites which are quite significant and made that my differentiating factor or WoW factor.

The interview went on well, typical questions such as

walk me through your resume
why mba
why tuck
what kind of extra-currics do you enjoy
2 specific cv related questions 1) work ex 2) extra-currics ( what is that )
why now
more why now, appeared unconvinced, can hardly blame him. i have about a year's work ex.
etcetera

The major mistakes I might have made were

I was speaking too fast, typical of most indians
he was speaking too slow, made me miss out on some stuff on long questions. for instance in a typically long-winded question in which " what kind you bring to Tuck with your... and add to diversity.. .. succesfuly... why are you so interested", was replaced by Why Tuck upon asking him to repeat the question.
Too eager, maybe .

However, i was feeling good after the interview. but I guess that is typical of all BEI interviews. One should try some interviews in Indian B-schools such as the IIM's or even the IIT's who have recently started their own schools of management.

They really grill and ask insane amounts of General Knowledge, which unfortunately isnt always general.

However, In spite of my valiant efforts i recieved a ding a few days back. well...

CARNEGIE MELLON INTERVIEW

2006-03-20T15:16:00.000+05:30

Next in line was a carnegie mellon ( Tepper ) interview.

A perfect example of what not to do on an interview. It was a telephonic blind interview. a fact which i had not known at that point of time and assumed that like the ISB interview the interviewer would have read my application and eliminated a lot od important information.

FIRST ERROR: INSUFFICIENT RESEARCH INTO TYPICAL B-SCHOOL INTERVIEWS.

Secondly i was out of town in Delhi, at a friends place and decided to give my interview from there. the result was that i was out of my comfort zone, and the surroundings were pretty alien to me.

SECOND ERROR: TELEPHONIC INTERVIEWS SHOULD BE IN A FAMILIAR PLACE

Thirdly, i did not check for obvious things like reception and mobile phone connectivity. the result was that i could not use my mobile phone to give the interview and had to use the landline, which tied me down to a certain place. quirky that I am, i am used to walking around and talking on the phone and sitting in an upright position and looking at a blank wall for 30 mins while answering tricky questioons were unnerving to say the least.

The recpetion was so bad on the mobile phone as well as the landline that the call got disconnected 4 times, yes 4 times. extremely unprofessional on my part.

COROLLARY TO SECOND ERROR: DECIDE COMPLETELY ON EQUIPEMENT AND LOCATION.

Fouthly, the plan was such that my buddy whose place i was at. would come and take his keys and ciggies or whatever and get the hell out of there while i gave my inetrview. he would do this before my interview started and leave me alone for the duration of my interview. This did not happen. on the other hand 2 syllables into "Walk me through your resume", and the dude came with a friend and couple a beers. Sheeeeeeeeesh.

Gesturing madly i instructed them to sit, but the flow was lost. after that proceeded fortwith to stay there listening to me speak.

Call me Wierd but I become concious when i know people can hear me interview + add the silly smirks passed during cliched answers. all 0f these create an extremely unpleasant environment.

If everything was not lost already, my pal's phone started ringing and i signalled like a madman to take his call out of there. finally he persisted and the other guy followed but left the door open. this by the way was a ground floor annexe building and wind started billowing in. January Delhi weather. I started tottering in the cold, unable to bear it any longer i had to excuse myslef and go and shut the door.seconds after fumbling with excuses and shutting the door, those guys return.

confidence shattered I give extremely short answers and ask limited questions and wrap up the interview in 20 mins flat !!!!!.

So what have we learnt.

THIRD ERROR: MAKE SURE YOU BLOODY WELL LOCK YOURSELF IN A ROOM WHEN YOU GIVE A TELEPHONIC INTERVIEW.

next in line

Tuck interview ( again Telephonic )

lack of posts!! ISB INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

2006-03-20T14:53:00.000+05:30

Its been quite a while since i have posted. so lots of catching up to do.

Quite a few developments have taken place so after bringing you up to speed i shall resume my blogging duties faithfully, truthfully and to the best of my ability.

The last post was an ISB call.

Well that was followed by calls from carnegie mellon, cornell, tuck and Darden. London business school was the only "ding".

Inetrview with isb was great!!, about 40-45 mins and very off beat. i could guide the interview to an extent and the major discussion was about my work experience, which is exactly what i wanted. did not get a chance to sell myself much. but that did not affect my candidacy much as unlike most us b-schools ISB interviews are not BLIND.

The interviewee panel which consisted of Mr. Kanan, and an Alum, had already gone through my application and had formed an opinion of me. I had 40 minutes to dispel that opinion and create a more favourable one. Thankfully it turned out to be enough.

I was instigated and often attacked on my lack of experience and the attributes i would get to class. these questions are the best which one could get in an interview and gave me the oppurtunity i needed to sell myself to the admissions commitee.

after about 30 minutes of answeiring questions i still wanted more and went on probing and started asking a lot of questions. needless to say i came across as quite aggressive and a typical mba shark.

After the interview i was quite scared that i might have come on too strong, but the feeling was dispelled after an admit with a bit of tutition waiver from ISB.

I am very keen on ISB, and am looking forward to 1 yr of an insane workload, 420 colleagues, serviced apartments and the best faculty seen in the asia pacific. the only demerit which comes to my mind is the weather. Hyderabad is sweltering.

so in all probabilty ISB it it!!

My favourite sculpture

2006-02-21T13:08:00.000+05:30

It titled Self-made man and its absolutely brilliant

2006-02-21T12:46:00.000+05:30

ISB CALL!!!

2006-01-17T15:36:00.000+05:30

Got an ISB interview call lets see how that works out

venue ; taj Bengal kolkata
22nd jan, 1130 hours

keeping fingers crossed for cornell/tuck

unbelieveable .....i think i will go mad

2005-12-02T23:13:00.000+05:30

my test centre experience:

TEST CENTRE EXPERIENCE :

sorry guys slightly late , but was out of town for a couple of days .

my test slot was on the 29th of nov , at 1700 - 2100 hours at prometric kolkata .
and some construction work was going on at a nearby site where heavy machinery is cranked up at 1900 hours , hence the chaps at prometric called me up and told me to come early and start by about 4 . i even wore the "ear muffs" , they are great and i would advise anybody who has a problem concentrating in a noisy environment to wear them .

awa:

pretty regulation stuff, started of with an analysis of an arguement followed by issue and wrote a couple of trite essays based on some plagiarized templates . wasnt really bothered much as i had scored a 5.5 when i had first appeared for my gmat. hence ended up writing some really long essays , which werent even edited for typos , (hope i at least get a 5 so it doesnt look too bad).

break: splashed water on the face, it has become quite a popular thing to do and let out a bellow in the washroom to get my adrenalin pumping and reminded myself that the real test starts now ....
it sort of worked in removing a sort of complacency which had set in due to the awa's

math:
math in short was ridiculously easy , in fact it was so easy that i was left wondering that am i doing anything right ,(probably they were experimental questions ).
math continued to be easy with 1 probab , 2 per/comb and lots of inequations and statistics , do brush up on stats .
finished with about 15-20 mins to spare .

traded in my scratch paper for a new one , made a grid for verbal got fresh pencils etc and went for my break .

consumed a red bull , (good stuff) , and a chocolate which i shared with the security guard .... more splashing of water and i was ready for the main section.

verbal:

started of with a shocker of an sc , spent about 4-5 mins until the picture became clearer. but a got a couple of sitters after that , so that helped to bring my timing back to normal .
4-6, 7-10 rc , pretty regualtion stuff i guess ,

got a boldfaced question really early on i thing sometime around 20th or so, the only one by the way, and it was really big , and i mean big. luckily the second statement was a conclusion and it made the choice of answer a lot quicker .

everything went fine till about the 37th question, when i had about 6 -7 mins left , pretty good pacing till then , but i got damn excited that i was doing well and sort of switched off , just switched off and lost quite a bit of time didnt help that it a tough and lengthy cr , followed by one of those 4 line sc's where everything was underlined . so had about 3 questions with about 60 secs left . so instinct in one of the sc's and blind guessing on 2 cr's ended the verbal.

finished the survey , filled it out properly , and was ready to see me score was expecting a 51 in math and about late 30's or 40's in verbal about 730 - 740 so was pleasantly surprised to see 770 , went mad , let out a stifled yelp and punched my fist, ( as is the norm , hehehe) and ran out to take my score report .................

scored 770

2005-11-30T02:49:00.000+05:30

i rockkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

gmat tom

2005-11-28T15:29:00.000+05:30

GMAT SURFACES AGAIN

appearing for gmat again tom.

have changed my strategy a bit . didnt study at all . i mean at all . doing a bit of application work and chilling around , but no work no sireeee. lets see if it helps and i cross 750+ hehehe a joke right.

anyway wish me luck as without 750+ i do not have a chance any of the places i am lookgin at

2nd innings

2005-10-29T13:53:00.000+05:30

2nd innings starting .... on the 21st of nov.

gmat!!!!!

2005-10-28T15:06:00.000+05:30

hi guys scored 700 ( m50, v34)

dissapointed , taking the test again.

here is the post i wrote for scoretop.com

hi everyone ,

gave gmat a while back and scored 700 . extremely dissapointed.

but first let me provide some background:
i am computer science graduate , indian with a year of work ex .
sufficiently strong in maths and weak in verbal, like most people out here.

i sporadically prepared for about a month and a half with a lot of breaks in between when i had a lot of work. but serious preparation was only for a week .

however i think i had a good test preparation strategy was adequaetly well prepared to score 730+ , just a bad day i guess and as i have benefitted from a lot from posts by people such as jeepers, tianlong and the great arch. i will give a detailed account of what i did, though not a succes story some of you could apply relevant information in your study strategies. but first the text experience while it is still fresh

test experience:

my test was scheduled at 9:00 at the centre in prometric , which i had checked out before to know stuff like where the loo's are and what id's we need to get , earplugs et cetera. and i reached by 8:50 very late and was further delayed by the incessant amount of checking that happens in india . i had to write confidentiality agreement , by write i mean that they actually make you copy out the agreement and sign it below . and a mugshot was taken after which i was shoved in to my cubicle time 9:15, yep they started late.

my awa started with an analysis of an issue for which i wrote an extremely simple though sufficently long essay's as i heard somewhere that length is a factor though not a crucial one, vaguely based on a template developed by this chap called twinnsplitter in testmagic , who is probably one of the greatest minds in the gmat fraternity.

i have always found analysis of an argument simpler because it doesnt require any creativity but rather just the ability to refute some amount , some debating skill do help here. after some rudimentary attacks on things such as staistics and incorrect comparisons i was on my to the heart of the test.

the one thing good that gmat does is start with the awa , as it really calms your nerves down before the real action starts . my math section was far too easy initially though i dont know whether i got any jj's or not as i didnt have time to do the mjj's . in fact it was so easy that i was wondering whether i commited some stupid errors and the difficulty level had nor risen . so i ended up taking extra time . i got 3 probability questions one of which required quite some thought , the details will be put up in the vip forum. one ratio question which i got was more than 8 lines long , almost like a boldfaced cr question and took quite some time to figure out what was needed . in fact probably the reason why i got a 50. by the time the last question came i had 40 secs left , though an easy one i did not possess enough time to mark the right answer. i think it is crucial to finish the test . as i dont think i made any error till that stage.

PS: dont worry mjj will be provided in the vip section.

the verbal !!!!! this is probably the most important section on the gmat and learning from my mistakes could enable you guys to do much better.

1st error : didnt use my break to well , read a lot of tips on what to do in the break and took water , bananas, chocolate and red bull . ended up only having the chocolate, and also met a friend from iit roorkee in teh hallway , that also consumed some time. so in short use your breaks well , if needed just take a leak and come back fast and sit in front of the terminal until time.

in fact when the test started i wasnt quite well prepared for it , it was too sudden . as in most cases my test started with an sc , which in hindsight was quite simple one but i stared at the screen until quite some time until i could figure out what was happening. it was follwed by 3 more sc's and a barrage of critical reasoning questions. my first passage was quite late around the 7th or 8th question and extremely long , in fact all my passages were extremely long , i think one of the passages i got is vaguely mentioned in the vjj's without questions just the gist is mentioned. anyway i spent a lot of time in the initial questions of the verbal section due to lack of concentration and the fact that i was getting extremly irritated with the procter walking around in his heavy and noisy boots. to add to it some toefl guy was talking , i didnt bother to look at to whom , but the guy was talking !!!!!!.
all of this led to the fact that i had only 17 mins left for the last 20 questions and was contemplating cancelling the test , but soldiered on got a simple rc which helped in by time a bit a science passage with 4 questions i think took 2 mins for that followed by some sc's which helped in managing time a bit however i reached the end with 5 questions remaining and 40 seconds on the clock blindly guessed from then on.

in hindsight i would say the pivotal factor would be my lack of time management , and i think it is very important to give a lot of times tests . i totally agree with TIANLONG in this . and also a lot of time is wasted in just acquiring information rather than studying. i spent a lot fo time just getting hold of info but didnt study much . not beneficial .

ill give my test preparation strategy which was quite strong in another debrief , and i seriously feel that some of you could benefit from it .

my practice test scores are as shown below :

pp2 : 710 , started with this some 3 months back at one of these training centres no prep, no idea even about the time required in the test.
gmatprep1 : 720 , before prep

princeton review : 690, 720, 720, 730 ; all during prep

kaplan : 600 . wierd huh , extremely demoralising didnt study for 2 days after that. good review though.

ims diagnostic test: 710 , a training centre in india

gmatprep2 : 710 "after prep , but before starting og"

powerprep1 : 780 " after doing math and part of sc from og, no rc and cr though . so slightly skewed

apart from this i did 2 gmat sets set 20 and 19 and i arch's explanations were spot on, you seriously rock dude . and read the oct vjj . didnt get time to do the questions.did some mjj about 10 but was frustrated with wrong answers and explanations and didnt do any more .

so in conclusion my score is ok . not good and would want to take it again but am still undecided . it would be great if i could get some suggestions and opinions , needless to say i am extremely confused.

my prep startegy and debrief is yet to come , stay tuned......

ps: its nice to part of the 700CLUB , sounds better than vip , what do you think.

so finally a day left

2005-10-24T18:52:00.000+05:30

gmats on the 26th ... having been chilling since yesterday , more because of a lack of will power than need ..... however have to switch back on from right now and till teh next 24 hours if i want somethign repectable . will hopefully stop studying tom at this time but till then ... its asss kicking time

gmat day after tom

2005-10-24T10:55:00.000+05:30

hi everyone gmat is day after tom , and right now i am just chillign trying to revise the stuff i have done and steering clear away from new stuff ... and there is just so much to do , thats its phenomenally hard to keep track off , dunno what i will do ... awa has been neglected , and in fact havent even formulated a template . whereas rc has never been studied . done a bit of sentence correction but not something to be proud off , and copius amounts of math (because its easy), but still errors in the tough data sufficiency problems continue to happen . guess there is no magic mantra to banish errors from mathematics .

cr which i thought was my forte apparently is not . and has been neglected a little bit too much. at this point of time , i can only hope for the best and hope that i get a score which doesnt embaress me at least .

signing off ..

ps good or bad will post information about my score

wassup guys long time no post

2005-10-20T02:19:00.000+05:30

just wanted to inform you guys that 3 days left and prep is underway and no postponement has happened , and neither can happen .

so now all we can do is wait and watch whether i smash it or get smashed

12 days left

2005-10-11T18:48:00.000+05:30

wassup dudes , only 12 days left , so rather than pissing you off with ramblings of my non existant prep . i shal regale you with my ambitins .

today i plan to cover a lot of material , primarily becuase the last few days i have just been going out a lot for instance i went for coffee at 11:30 in the night and again for breakfast at 6:30 in the morning .

to do : og 11 math portion , complete , ims stuff , og 11 diagnostic , manhattan sc

14 days left..

2005-10-09T14:09:00.000+05:30

hi guys i dont remember when i posted last but whatever the teraget it has not been achieved .

today i am exclusively focussing in math , even though i am quite string at it , in a bid to remove the backlog which has been plaquing me for a number of days .

to do :
gmat 800 math portion , very little left should take an hour.
ims probability and other misc , revision of all formulae.
manhattan sc guide (planngin to read this since a number of days , not succeding do or die today)
parralellism/ comparison sc from og 10 .

not in the least bit ambitious , very much possible i might add . let see how i fare .

gmat surfaces again!!!!

2005-10-07T23:53:00.000+05:30

hi guys long time no post , primarily beacause i was abstracted from my studies to a large degree hence , didnt feel the need to procrastinate and start blogging .

since the time for hitting the books has returned , the need for blogging resurfaces.

i have 16 days until gmat now , and will maintain a log of what i have done each day and what more i plan to do the same day, to track my progress and also castigate myself on the shoddy and meagre amount of work done .

so day 1:

8th october:

done 40 pages of sentence correction theory from petersons ultimate gmat guide about 2hrs .

to do:

gmat 800 , math portion and ims probability , math section test.
manhattan sentence correction theory read.

gmat postponed !!!

2005-09-11T22:03:00.000+05:30

yes i have succumbed to the pressure and postponed my gmat . have to live up to a lot of expectations and get an extremely high score which will, in all probability not be possible, if i take the test on the 15th of sept . giving myself lots of free time to do research and study i have decided to take the test on the 26th of september .

8 days left .

2005-09-04T17:53:00.000+05:30

yep only 8 days and no sign of nervousness .

probably becuase i have made an extremely ambitios roadmap which if followed should lead me to a 700+ score .

this involves only studying the og and kaplan gmat 800 and totally disregarding tests .

well 9 days left

2005-09-03T18:21:00.000+05:30

finished a two day break , did about 30 mins of study in the last two days . but now the crunch time starts , in fact it has quite a while back and its up to me stand up to it .

10 days left dudes

2005-09-02T17:41:00.000+05:30

wassup dudes ,

10 days left . its an eerie feeling . the euphoria after getting 720 in a test , though it is not even close to what i desire, was enough to make me a one day long break. due to which i havent studied anythign today at all . didnt go to usefi where i go almost every weekday to study a good 4 hours in the morning and got up lazily at an unearthily hour . must really get cracking now ...

gmatprep1 720!!!!

2005-09-02T03:22:00.000+05:30

finally i can breathe again , what a relief scored 720(m50 , v41) in gmatprep 1 , ok it is not very good agreed . but its the best i got .

should increase my confidence a wee bit . and make me realise that i might be able to give the test , will start cracking og from today , been doing pretty nothing till now.

11 days left ..... what will i do

2005-09-01T23:34:00.000+05:30

gave power prep 1 today

2005-09-01T01:30:00.000+05:30

and i got a really demoralizing score , in fact so low that i would be embaressed to put it up here, even though i got a boldafce in my verbal on the 32nd question . so probably i was doing danm well till then , after whihc due to a severe time shortage things got majorly out of hand.

hopefully this should motivate me to study more as august os over and i have 12 days left .........

13 days .......

2005-08-29T22:57:00.000+05:30

studied a bit today , but i have decided to maintain a log of all i do in the run up to the gmat. this can help prospective gmat enthusiasts and miht asisit me . in the event that i take the test again,which by the likes of is a certain possibility.

1. manhattan gmat sc notes .

2. ims formulae and examples, not solving problems . not enough time . wanted to give pp1 today . couldnt hence will be given on the 30th.

2 weeks left!!!!!!!!

2005-08-29T00:23:00.000+05:30

i have finally broken the two week barrier.
and amidst that i have contemplated nearly everything , from postponing the test to a week to giving it half heartedly, basking in the solace that i might appear for it again.

nevertheless all of these philanderings are not only a source of distraction but highly demotivating as hell .

so i have come to the conclusion , come what may, ill do in 2 weeks what nobody else ever has ... (hahahaha "evil laugh" )

i will give my first powerprep 1 , tom night , which should be a good predictor of my actualt gmat score , lets hope for the best .

yet to breach 700

15 days left!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-08-28T13:18:00.000+05:30

i think this blog has been reduced to a place where i can vent my frustration, unable to do it in public . a place where i can chastise/castigate myself repeatedly .

guys , you might have to bear my unesay temperament until my gmat is over , .......

16days left!!!!!!!!

2005-08-27T23:09:00.000+05:30

keep the encouragement coming guys , for i sure havent any....

17days left!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-08-27T15:24:00.000+05:30

shit .........

- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice . analysis of an argument

2005-08-26T04:57:00.000+05:30

- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .

analysis of an argument.

the following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by olympic foods, a processor of frozen foods:

"over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. in color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3 by 5 inch print fell from 50 cents for five day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one day service in 1984. the same principle applies to the processing of food. and since olympic foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday. we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximise profits."

discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. in your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. for example, you may need to consider what questionalbe assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. you can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound,and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

[30 mins]

the aforementioned argument in asserting that olympic foods will enjoy the kind of success that color film processing did, in reducing costs and increasing efficiency, appears at first glance to be a coherent. one could also say legitimate argument. however upon further examination of the argument and its underlying structure. a number of flaws become so evident that one cannot take the argument or its conclusion seriously. among the most pivotal shortcomings of the argument are its inability to adress or even acknowledge its assumptions, as well negligence of the information necessary to substantiate its claims.

the premier assumption that the argument makes is that the example of the film processing industry can be generalized and making the faulty assumption that what worked for it, will be true even in the case of a disparate industry such as food processing. the generalization of the film industry is uncalled for and could be a very specific example of a success story which had a number of other underlying factors responsible for it. such as, increase in competition causing a reduction in prices, cheaper equipment adding to the cheaper processing, lesser demand causing a drop in prices, paper prices fallign et cetera. none of these reasons can be applied to the food processing industry and the assumption of generalization is not justified.

another assumption that can be made is that experience creates efficiency, for which no underlying proof is provided. let us consider a hypothetical situation of a manager with a lot of experience but one who is not able to cope with the advent of technology. although he might possess a plethora of experience, he might not exactly be successful due to the immense retraining effort required and updation with technology. hence it is not always true that experience creates efficiency and this assumption is also essentially unsupported.

the third assumption which the argument makes is that 25 years is a considerable amount of time in which to gain experienxce. again without any proof whatsoever.the amount of experience necessary is highly industry specific and varies from industry to industry, for instance 25 years might be a lifetime in the software industry, but a 25 year old automobile firm might still be learning from its mistakes. hence generalizing "experience" over all industries is another important shortcoming that the argument possesses.

the fourth assumption made by the argument is that minimized costs, maximise profits. this is an extremelty short sighted viewpoint and is seldom true. what a company fails to realise that profit is not only dependent on cost but also on sales, and if costs are reduced then quality will reduce which might adversely affect sales. however we might have accepted this assumption had a succint example been provided, however the lack of information provided does not enable us to make these very assumptions.

this argument might hold true if each specifc assumptions are strengthened by newer and relevant information or simply more data is provided, which might enable us to make more informed judgements on the information provided. hence in conclusion the argument is extremely incoherent, and the assumptions mentioned above need to be strengthened before the validity of the argument can be guaged.

how about some pictures

2005-08-26T03:49:00.000+05:30

will put the pictures neatly later on . but for now how about these

- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .

2005-08-26T03:34:00.000+05:30

- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .

analysis of an issue:

"in some countries, television and radio programs are carefully censored for offensive language and behaviour. in other countries, there is little or no censorship"

in your view, to what extent should goverment or any other group be able to censor television or radio programs? explain, giving relevant reasons and/or examples to support your position.

[30 mins]

The issue of censorship of televison and radio programs, which has aroused heated debates, has increased in significance in light of the technological boom facing us. the opinion that televison and radio programs should be censored, has some merit to it, but when juxtaposed against the option of eliminating censorship in totality or diminishing it, fades into insignificance. some of the salient reasons which tilt the balance against censorship are listed in four cogent arguments below.

freedom is the most essential right desired by man. in any form the lure of doing what one wants to do will always preside over the wishes of others. censorship curtails some of this desired freedom, albeit in an entertainment capacity. since time immemorial any sort of control has been rejected by humans, call it communisim or a centralized from of governance. history is testimony to the fact that man is happier in a democratic society. this could be abstracted to the issue facing us today, using the thought that history is a predictor of the future, it can enable us to realize that censorship indeed has a short life, and the quicker we brace ourselves to that fact the better prepared will we be.

secondly, the 21st century has increased the dominance of media and enabled it to appear in a variety of forms such as the ubiquitous internet. pleasure seekers being devoid of entertainment will proceed towards media where censorship does not prevail. hence slowely but surely reducing the "TRP'S" of televisional channels and paling them into insignificance. what censorship will do , is eject primitive forms of media such as television and radio into obsolete entities.

thirdly, control should not be excercised by the authorities but by the users themselves. televisons could have child locks and other advanced features which could enable households to decide for themselves what levels of obscenity or violence they would like to endure. however this would require television channels to declare their obscenity content in forms of ratings such as "PG", "A" et cetera.

fourthly, it could provide extra income to the goverment, by taxing channels whose obscenity ratings are higher than others, at a higher rate, thereby providing a discernible incentive to media houses to remain "clean". information about who is doing what is necessary, and big brother watching might not be that bad an idea after all . but where i would like to differ is when big brother starts interfering . hence no censorship would give goverment data about the media houses and their channels, enabling them to view cases on a case by case basis.

however the prospect of having censorship is not without any advantages as well. but in my humble opinion the advantages of removing censorship are far too many and important to ignore. some of the reasons and situations where a censorship might help society are when control is desired because excessive amounts of sex and violence in the media are becoming a precursor to crime or when the situaton become so much out of hand that order is desired. however apart from some specific instances the advantages of removing or diminishing censorship far outweigh censorship.

help!!! 18days left for gmat

2005-08-26T01:16:00.000+05:30

hi everyone ,

18 days left, the countdown has started without any serious preparation under my belt

as most people preparing for gmat already know .
the crux of gmat preparation is the OG , for the uninitiated "the official guide for gmat review 10th edition"

but now that the new improved "avatar" vernacular for another version, so to speak, has arrived the copius amounts of time needed to devote to it has aggrandized.

"for sentence correction afficionados " notice my effective use of modifiers ... hehe im getting better at it .

18 days would be a highly insufficient amount of time to prepare seriously for gmat and would be unadvisable for anybody unless you have b***s of steel . my lack of time and motivation has been further exacerbated due to the presence of a significant someone . heheh "chuckle" . hence the reason why i choose this blog to vent my frustration apart from learning how to type furiously .

however i would be grateful for all your good wishes,(doesnt sound grammatically correct, nevertheless) for my last hurrah. and i shall, if successful, post a long description of my experience as well a study plan which is quite perfect . lacking the only thing time . the same post should be accesible from the two portals the athor frequents.

www.testmagic.com and www.pagalguy.com

with best regards,

yashovardhan gupta

ps: my last post was the longest post in the history af all posts, and due to some crappy glitch didtn get registered . even the recover post button failed to work. (dissapointed ) it was a great post . nevertheless until later ciao

gmat!!!!

2005-08-06T03:14:00.000+05:30

blogging has a number of benefits which have not been documented as yet .

i shal proceed to elucidate a few of these benfits which till date i have not realised , but intend to do so .

1. it increases your typing speed , now this is a quality desired in almost all industries these days . but they gain importance for me , as i am appearing for gmat , and as can be seen from the freqency of my posts . it is disastrous . gmat starts with a couple of essays to be scripted in 30 mins each from conception to implementation which is kind of short to effectively convey one's ideas. but that is the hallmark of a good manager or a succesful mba . conveying what you want to in the least possible time.

2. secondly , to a certain degree . it improves your written english .arguably it could also worsen your written abilities if your creative writing instincts are moderate at the most.and the need to understand the "gmat" method of writing the said essays exist .
nevertheless , practice never hurt anybody . so from now on i shall endeavour to write a couple of essayd each week which apart from increase the posts here should also effectively help my typing abilities.

3. another factor could be the lack of a spell check and formatting abilities , this editor provides very basic facilities , in much the same way as the gmat and would make one used to the editor provided by ets .

i can think of more reasons , but would care to elucidate them at a later junction . as i am hard pressed for the time at the moment , so ...

alvida

harry potter and the half blood prince .... ughh

2005-07-22T02:03:00.000+05:30

pretty early that i have started posting again , but it is out of sheer brotherhood and the desire to save the entire reading fraternity from falling prey to the ghastly harry potter and the half blood prince.

another one among the teeming multitude which call themeselves a harry potter fan (i have read 9 hp's till date including this one and one fanfiction), i queued up outside a bookstore at 6AM(in india the book was being launched at 0600 IST),. me who has never seen what 8AM looks like , woke up at that ghastly hour just to get my hands on this hallowed piece of literary fiction , read it non stop for the entire day couldnt finish it the same day as i had go out somewhere the major part of the day , and also party because i didnt desire to anymore . nevertheless i completed the book yesterday , and promptly chucked it aside with a bitter taste in my mouth and a degree of satisfaction at having finally got rid if it .

my opinion on this book can be ascertained by the last paragraph, where i have minced no words in informing you guys how much of a drawl it was , and i am a die hard fan of the series .
the flaws which i feel existed in the book , are mainly , firstly the book lacked a plot . there was never a story really and it is very tough for book to carry on for 606 pages without a plot , its kind of like a multi starrer bollywood film without any story riding along soleley on star power.
secondly the book was just tying up ends , and for once you hoped that something new would come along even the "half blood prince" issue is dealt in an extremely abrubt way, whihc makes you wonder the book could be renamed anything for instance hp and the red haired girl, hp and his most boring year in hogwarts ever , et cetera . you almost wish that dumbledore's dies because almost anyone who is a keen fan would expect his death because of the betting fiasco from suffolk. where the book was printed . in the eternal hope that it might pick up pace . finally in the last ten pages it does pick up speed , but being such a breakneck one, fails to impress yet again . being used to the lazy construction of the earlier chapters you are caught off guard in the last ten pages and almost skim through the pages to the end . the end also is very much like b grade serials in india , produced by miss ekta kappor , whihc leave the audience at tenderhooks waiting what will happen next . and there is no satisfaction at having completed it .

what will happen to joanne kathleen rowling after this book , pretty much nothing , she is already the richest woman in the world . as said in a certain move what can you do with 11 billion dollars that you cant do with 8. but what this book has done is, reduce her fan follwing and at the same time creating phenomenal expectations from the finale as the entire book was used to tye up ends and create a base for the last one . it better be good or ....... a crazy fan might do anything if he realises that being a fan was a waste of his time .

2005-07-22T00:36:00.000+05:30

wassup guys

2005-07-22T00:30:00.000+05:30

hi dudes,
long time no post , thats primarily due to the lack of free internet . the previous blogs were all done on DCrti's bandwidth where i did my internship , now that i am out of there , the chance for blogging simply did nto arise .

so how come am i blogging again , yipeeee back in cal (home town).. and ill continue to fill you guys on the latest from the city with a soul hehehe.

trip

2005-05-02T11:23:00.000+05:30

hi guys , havent posted in quite some time , and a lot of reasons why .. was on vacation ... will give a detailed account of the trip ........ later dudes

deleted aoe

2005-04-13T10:43:00.000+05:30

yipee i finally deleted aoe , and almost instantly i created more time for myself , what did i do with that additional time is another story , but first things first . aoe has been finally deleted

daily routine

2005-04-12T10:47:00.000+05:30

hi guys i thought i would devote this post to my daily routine , which is soundily exceedingly boring and "vella" which is calcuttan colloquial for a person with nothing to do .

my day begins with people banging on my door to get up and get ready they are part of my car pool who come along with me to office ,thsi usually happens at about 7:45 to 8:00 . and i lazily get up by 8:00 - 8:15 . this also leaves me with no time to read the newspaper , whihc i absolutely love to read , though admittedly the economic times is a bit terse . hence i just get enought time about 5 mins to glance at the headlines after whihc it is usually bathing and getting dressed at breakneck speed .

breakfast is strictly optional only if time is available and has an accuracy of 50% ie if we are runnign late , have to skip it , nevertheless we leave by 8:45 and reach office by about 9:20 - 9:45 depending on the apalling road conditions of the IT city (pun intended) Bangalore.

once i reach office , i leisurely check mail and ponder what the real rush was , it was probably to swipe my card to get a decent time logged in . anyway i leisurely check my mail and write on my blog or post a few articles on this cool forum called www.pagalguy.com or just generally get some information about mba , or check whihc colleges i have been admitted to , (got into quite a few institutes , but that at another time). this goes on till about 11:15 , after which i am taught german in office , which is real good fun and good be classified as my high point of the day . learning Deutsch is extremely entertaining , primarily becuase the teacher rocks as we are in no hurry to complete , hence chugging along at our own pace with the primary objective being to entertain , that is what happens.

this is followed by lunch which more often than not tastes good and is in the DaimlerChrysler campus itself . we have lunch on the terrace where the cafetaria is located and it is quite pleasant if the weather is good . this is followed by a round of table tennis or ping pong as it might be known as in a few cultures , which usually goes on for another 30 - 45 mins . after which i return to my desk , to do some technical reading or make a presentation about some technology learnt , dont ask me when do i actually learn , i myself wouldnt know . i think the total amount of constructive work done in a day would never exceed 2 hours which would always between 2:00 - 5:30.

however at 5:00 we run up to the cafetaria again to have some tea and snacks and by the time we finish it is again 5:30 , and then i check some more mail or piss of some more people with my really bad forwards and do some more research on mba and the like (interpreted as while away time), only if really saddled will work do i work for another 30 mins to 1hr . convincing myself that i would return to the hostel and complete it. never happens.

On reaching the hostel i am usually convinced to play Age Of Enpires by a team of extremely "vella" people , and i never understand why i agree to it , cause i am not as good as them in the game and prefer to watch a movie instead , as i possess at least 25 unseen movies on my computer , even physical sports have been reduced and i hardly play squash anymore . so its usually 2- 3 games of AOE after which i might read an e book for an hour and sleep .

come to think my routnie sucks , i dont get much sleep dont do anything constructive , and we are what we do , hence i am nothing. whihc would mean i should snap back into a system as soon as possible , ending this frivolous lifestyle which is a huge waste of time .

office space

2005-04-11T10:46:00.000+05:30

hi everyone i saw this movie called office space yesterday , which is about frustrated software engineers , thought far from being frustrated right now , as i possess a plum job in this company called DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology . i couldnt not help thinking about the future .
such as what would happend after a fairly long period of time in such an organisation , which would necessarily entail me too sit on chair and write code. being a true blue leo , and a person who has always been extremely hyperactive and extroverted , sitting in a chair the entire day cramps my style .
this further led me to realise 2 things , firstly the prime reason why people leave jobs , is not because of the pay or the company or even the work, it is solely because of their boss , or people they have to report . this is an observation which is not only professed in many many management theory books circulating the market , but even i with my extremely limited job experience have come to accept this fact . possessing wonderful bossess , but work which i am intrinsically unsuitable for , i still desire to stay and work for this wonderful organisation.
however this brings to my second theory which is one should always do what do what he is good at and what he so desires , should not be influenced by mony and power , "we are what we do " this is a line blurted out by a villaineous chap in a b grade movie which i cant remember , however makes sense , and makes me work towards my goal of being a very succesful entrepreneur

lessons learnt from a car devoid of fuel

2005-04-01T11:14:00.000+05:30

since this is online journal... i am thinking why not get a little introspective and post something really cool .. so heer it goes .. yipee my first real post

so this story took place yesterday evening when my car( a small rasberry red colour zen , whihc i absolutely adore ) ran out of fuel , about 1/3rds the way on a bridge . and i was stuck looking for a bunch of people to push my car beyond the apogee , primarily because their was a petrol bunk to my rescue on the other side.

this exercise which took a little over an hour taught me that there are 3 ways one get out of a sticky situation

a. one could be saved by people who are benefited by the good deed .. but this only lasts till the benefactors benefit .. for instance as i was blocking a few burly truckers they jumped out in the name of helping a poor soul to push it a little further .. but only such that there trucks could come out .. beyond that , the hapless soul was left desrted and in a dilemna to find his own means.

b. the second option is to buy your way out of sheer monetary power .. this i could have implemented as i was suitable loaded being payed my generous stipend ( heheheheh "wicked smile").. but i wanted to avoid this , as i am an aspiring student to insead , fountainblea , and wanted to disply all such management characteristics.

so we come to the thrid option ..
c. which was convince people to assist you in a manner that they see their own advantage in this without bribes etc . .. displaying a fine degree of problem solving and managaement skills ...
this i imlplemented by going to the petrol bunk on the opposite bunk to convince the chap to come to walk a distance and help me push beyond the crest of the bridge .. whihc took a good 15- 20 mins .. even a simple task as pushing a vehicle enables a person to display any such leadership skills which he may intrinsically posses or which may be developed due to a course/degree etc .

hence we see management is in every walk of life and better managers usually have better life

wassup dudes

2005-02-25T12:05:00.000+05:30

hi dudes,
my internship has started in daimler chrysler research and technology , quite good must say ... will write later lots of people eyeing me . bye for now

wassup dudes

2005-01-31T14:48:00.000+05:30

hi dudes .. this is me , will start the real posting later and i sure will keep you guys entertained

yash