"IIM Calcutta:
A Student's Perspective"
- by Bikramjeet Sra
I do not know what was the one
thing that impressed me most about IIMC before I joined it. It could have been
the lake and trees environment or it could have been the round the clock tennis.
It was certainly not its reputation for producing managers who can do a
quantitative analysis of the Bengali psyche. And after spending a year and a
half in this livewire campus, I still cannot decide what I will treasure most.
If a MBA is all you want to do,
any management institute anywhere will suffice. But one does not spend the best
years of one's life working hard to join an institute that will impose a burden
of more courses that will bring back the painful memories of school and college.
To the best of my knowledge, IIMC does offer some courses (a particularly
conscientious friend of mine has confirmed that there are enough courses to keep
one profitably employed for many years) in various disciplines. That brings me
to something very important to all IIMCians and something they are very touchy
about - Discipline.
The one thing that I have learnt
with great difficulty here is that discipline is something that comes from
within and cannot be imposed through rules that curb freedom to think and act.
IIMC embodies a healthy mix of fierce independence and tolerance. Infact, it
actually teaches that. Another thing that can leave an outsider spellbound is
the autonomy students exercise in running and improving the impressive IT
infrastructure, among other things. That should not lead one to suspect that
everyone here is master of his or her destiny and can get up without assistance
in the morning, if he does get up after spending the whole night playing
games('IIMC's Sepak Takraw' or Footer Volley, as it is called here, is very
popular), dancing to the latest pirated songs, or reading all night class notes
on Stochastic Processes. But no one is surprised when these revelers and players
end up scoring the highest marks in the exams.
Friends who go to the Lecture
halls never fail to express the strong feelings they have about members of the
teaching faculty. The best thing about them is that most have adapted to the
needs of the programme. Completing a course on something most students have not
studied at all in their lives in 10 weeks and doing it with passion and
effectiveness is something that wins the respect of students and IIMC has
arguably the most respectable group of professors in every area. The consultancy
work done by them is as inspiring as their teaching style. Our lecture halls are
not as detested as elsewhere because they are also the venue for some of the
most interesting interactions with exceptional people from the fields of
education, business, art and sport.
We have our institutional biases
and our rigid beliefs about tradition and rituals but we can rise above them.
The strength of IIM Calcutta lies in its wonderfully diverse bunch of students,
who are capable of rising to every challenge with trademark chutzpah and who
never forget the debt they owe to the invigorating environment and culture that
the institute has evolved.Initiatives mooted and executed entirely by students
such as the Internet Solutions Group, which is responsible for website
maintenance and intranet communication and the i2I business plan competition,
which attracts huge international participation, add to the enviable reputation
that the IIMCians have earned for their independent thinking, highly competitive
streak and versatility.
If you think IIMC is laidback,
come to the campus and we will show you the weakness of your perception. The
other day, I met the mother of a student doing a soul stifling MBA. The first
thing she said when she heard about my institute was "You guys have all the
fun." I wish surveyers included a parameter called 'Mom's Perception' when they
decide the B School rankings. Not many institutes can boast of having clubs with
members who can actually take out time from the gruelling academic schedule to
go trekking and water sporting on weekends and who, in their spare time, plan
about scaling Mt. Everest. Or of having a thriving student exchange program that
confirms the ability of its students to take on the best in the world and
thrive.
Our Kweej Club wins more quizzes
and the gifts that go with the wins than what is considered healthy. Our music
bands spend more nights entertaining us than what would be considered normal for
the ears. The gifted individuals who belong to these subunits of IIMC would not
have it any other way and neither would we. I know of well intentioned people
who still think that IIMC can become more formal by doing more of the formal
things which everyone else is doing. That can be done with some effort but who
wants to be just another B-School?
IIMC may be an island of
excellence but it is not unaffected by the culture and business climate of the
great metropolis called Calcutta. The biggest challenge it faces is to change
faster than the pace of development around it and to maintain its preeminence in
providing sound professional training that meets the requirements of the
increasingly connected economy. The past few years have seen a quantum
improvement in infrastructure and with ever growing support from alumni and the
corporate world, IIM Calcutta is perfectly placed to set even more exacting
standards of achievement.
