Life or something like that !!

Circa Jan 2011, after I had accepted the offer for admission in PGPEX, in the quest to know more about the program I tried reaching out few alums. Thanks to LinkedIn , I could get in touch with a handful of them. I'll post what they had to say about the program and will add my first-hand experience.  Learning - Very Good. The cases are selected very meticulously. The books are of international standard. Believe me the kind of effort you need to put over here probably will exceed that of all four years of engineering. But sure enough you'll enjoy the learning and experience. There would many aha moments. Faculty - Good. Not all but some of the faculty is exceptional. Many are highly dedicated. Some of them mix up very well with PGPEX. They respect our experience. They remain under pressure as PGPEX is usually very demanding. Many faculty admits that they enjoy teaching us more than our PGP folks. Networking - Good. Depends upon you how y...

Half awake and sleepily, I look at my mobile, oh boy couple of missed calls and message from my wife. How long did I sleep? What's the time? 8:45 in the night. So I slept only for 45 mins. Time now for quick chat with wifey and then quick dinner. At 10 pm back at room with couple of articles, one text book chapter to be read before I could try my hands on the case to be read for tomorrow's strategy management class. Flashback to 7:30 am the same day. Grudgingly I am getting out of my bed. Its time to get ready fast, have a quick bite at the mess and run for the class. Professor is already in the class and next hour and a half is about how to manage a world class operations. After assimilating concepts of operations research in the previous term we are learning operations management this term. Though explained in manufacturing terms, fundas are on managing supply chain.  Next two class, for full three hours, are on corporate finance management. Again we have had our fin...

It has been exactly a couple of months since I came to Joka Management,  as IIM C , situated at Joka in Kolkata, is known among the taxi walas. And it has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride beginning day zero. Sometimes these two months seems like two years and at other not more than two weeks.  There is no single way of doing things, no right solution. The very first lesson we had on day zero when we were introduced to the nuances of case methodologies. With each passing days there were some aha moments and also challenges to our structured, rational and straight jacketed thought process, mainly shaped by our background in science, technology and engineering. But unlike technology life is not predicable and so does the business, and people who are at either side of the business. As they say at times one has to unlearn to learn. Now I can vouch for it. When at the end of case analysis you find all 44 people have come up with different solution for the busine...

" Amit? " called out professor one, P1. " That's me " I replied. " Lets go ". And I followed P1 to the interview room, where another professor, P2, was going through my profile file. After exchanging pleasantries P1 asked about my job profile and responsibilities. I told them that I take care of all aspect of project management. P1 - "How would you explain project management to a lay man?" I started to explain taking example of going to a movie and building a building. While doing so I must have used couple of project management jargon. P2 interrupted and asked if I am a PMP? I answered in affirmative. He went on to ask couple of questions from project management , like that of Gantt chart, PERT etc.. He then asked me to draw a network diagram. I managed to answer them satisfactorily. P2 then said he was done and asked if P1 had any question. P1 - "In your essays you have mentioned that you read books. Which book have you read rec...