Super Hectic Third
Term at IIM-A
- by Vinamra Srivastava *
The third term at IIM-A is known
to be the cousin brother of the first one in terms of academic load.
Operations Management is back, in
the form of OM II, and is arguably the toughest subject of the first year. OM
and MANAC were the toughest ones in the first term and if we thought that OM I
was bad, then we had seen nothing. Because OM II is known to be the nemesis of a
lot many.
However, two things went well
with this subject. First, the subject was pretty interesting. With concepts like
Queuing Theory, Inventory Management, etc., backed by fundoo cases, the
learning just kept getting richer. Second, our OM professor was one of the best
I have ever seen in my life. IIM-A has some great professors but this one is
simply out of this world. Witty, Succinct and Imaginative, he would easily put
himself in our shoes and, hence, was very easy to relate to. I am tempted to
write so much more about the novel ways by which he teaches but this is not the
right place. And yeah, by the way, the final exam paper of OM II was such a
bouncer that it did full justice to the 'toughest subject' tag this subject has.
Finance II is the next in line. I
am sure many of my batchmates would not agree with me and I respect that. But
for people like me who are not too enthusiastic about finance, this is the other
toughie in the third term. The problem was that there was no set pattern. The
cases were so weird and arbit. And the exams were as expected... all bouncers.
Apart from the above two, there
was WAC back in action. This time, we had 3 reports to be submitted, one
individual, and the other two in groups of two and four respectively. And that
meant that few of the Saturdays were doomed to be disastrous.
The highlight of this term, and
also the reason why its known to be super hectic is the huge amount of group
work. The study group really comes alive in the true sense in this term. Every
subject has loads of assignments. projects, class presentations and what not,
that needs to be submitted as a group. Which meant that long hours were spent in
one of our rooms, working on the next submission.
I still remember the long nights
that we would spend in my room, working on the lappy, brain-storming, discussing
the latest movie, talking about girl-friends and the list was endless. You see,
no group meeting would be complete without our usual regular digressions!!!
In between the academic load came
few sporting activities, which further took a lot out of my time. 'Yalgaar'
is a Fachcha-Tuchcha Sports Meet that went for about 10 days and proved
to be lots of fun. The event ended in a draw but generated good interest.
Then there was the Inter-Dorm Cricket Tournament that is again a regular annual
feature. It�s a knockout tourney that takes place on the basketball court late
in the night under lights. It�s a very prestigious event with the reputation of
each dorm at stake. And hence, the passion this event generated was beyond
imagination. Every match was followed by a detailed performance report that
would be posted on our internal notice board just minutes later, thus, spreading
the enthusiasm to even all those who could not be there on court.
So all in all, the term indeed
proved to be stressful to some extent, with so many activities taking place one
after the other. And once the exams got over, the joy on everyone�s face was for
all to see. The grueling first year, the toughest one year of our lives for most
of us, was finally behind us. We could close our eyes, look back on those
demanding days and smile with satisfaction. Yes, we had done it!! What lies
ahead are the blissful days of being a tuchcha. That life, which we all
have been envying for one year as a fachcha, now beckons us and how eager
each one of us is to come back to campus in a totally new avatar. We all
deserve it and am so glad our time has finally come!
Everyone pushed off for their
summer internship just a few days after the exams. I moved to Bombay. What
happened during these two months is something I will not cover here. I will be
back as a proud tuchcha now. And this blog will now see life at IIM-A
from a completely new perspective.
An year has passed by... time
flies... hardships come and go... friendships grow stronger... a whole new world
emerges... and I already feel richer without even earning a penny!
