37.5% MBA

They say, by this time, the worse is over. Dean’s projected happiness curve is set to rise and as Prof. Nerkar put across, with more than 33% done, you guys are good enough to run a business now. All sounds so glamorous and scary at the same time.

Term 3 started with a buzz in the student body - with more assignments submissions than total number of days in the term, with three out of four subjects heavily quant oriented, with advice from Alumni that Term 3 is the peak of your MBA life. If I were to follow the suit, I am glad that Term 3 is behind me now.

As I normally do after each term, this post is also going to be about my comments on each of the subject we studied in this term and other major events.

• Corporate Finance: - A very interesting course and important course to understand the nuisance of capital structures followed by various companies, the divided payouts, IPO’s etc. More than anything else, as Prof. Bhubna put up – the number of terms this course provides can help shut off any normal person easily -terms such as WACC, Beta, EBIT, EBITDA, Agency Problems, Levered firms, Un-levered firms etc. I personally liked the course as it helped understand the basic concepts one should be aware off for any managerial positions.

• Operations Management: - Pretty quantitative, interesting, and practical course. I have no intentions to further my skills in Operations Management but the concepts covered here will certainly be applicable in any B2C business. On top of everything, I have developed an incessant love for all simulation games and deeply enjoyed “The LittleField Game” in this course

• Managerial Accounting and Decision Making:- One of my fav course from the term, given that this course helped understand deep hidden nuisance in cost structure that will help refine decision making process forever. This course illustrates the concepts of Sunk Costs vs Variable cost and inspires several new thoughts.

• Entrepreneurship: - Well, my top pick from the last term. I have no intentions to start my business right after MBA but as Prof. Nerkar put up, the learning will fade but the cases will stay with you for life. A very inspiring professor who certainly motivated quite a few people to pursue entrepreneurial journey. The CP style in the class – a more of debate – rocked!! This class was really the one I used to look forward to do during the term!!

Other than these, I have been engaged with my ELP work for my Pharma client. It is quite an interesting project and I like the way the project scope is shaping up. Another major event of the Term was Bandhan. I was part of the core committee for organizing Bandhan and it was one of the best days I ever spend at ISB. ISB hosted a bunch of 300 kids on Independence Day. We had spend around 2 weeks to prepare and plan everything perfectly. Student Volunteers turned out in large number. The kids from various NGO stunned ISB with their speeches (in English), with their skits, songs, dance performance, and most importantly by beating ISB Class of 2010 in tug of war competition.

As we head into shortest Term at ISB (~32 days), ISB Class of 2010 is gearing up for new set of activities that are about to start – Resume Preparations, companies visiting for placement pitch, and more students discovering their interests and hence, commencing their placement preparation. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, the happiness curve is about to go up now and hopefully their will be more time to spend on extra-curricular & parties.