They really sucks..

Well, this is not an actual image and is just an example of how image morphing is becoming simpler day by day.. This is just an online banner facility where you just write whatever you want to see on the banner and the script will do the rest. The reason I chose this text is that B school Rankings by these magazines fail to fulfill some of the basic statistical requirements. A common complain is that they are biased well, I will delve a bit deeper into the reasons behind this bias and will try to explain some other things related to the whole procedure. I am thinking about putting my three months of statistical learning to some good use without making it sound like statistics actually. Have two more papers to go and after that three days of life (One is Dry Day ofcourse).

I almost forgot about the banner. Try this link and have fun. Who knows, may be someday you will be a B school student, and have to sit tight in your room with your books even on your birthday. So Enjoy..

http://www.lintukoto.net/viihde/mielenosoitus/kuva.php?teksti=Happy%20Birthday%20Raji..%20

MAC Run..

For the entire trimester, I had only seen my friends runnning frantically from their room to computer lab and then to faculty room three times. And without any exception all those three frantic attempts were for just one subject. Management Accounting 1. It's better to call it MAC run. We were provided with the course catalogue in the beginning and Prof. himself makes sure that he gives us atleast a deadline of two weeks. Prima facie, every assignment looks okay but the moment you get indulged into it, it goes on stretching you beyond the normal working hours.
Latest, we finished our financial statement analysis assignment and 29 students means we anlysed the financial position of 29 companies. If we club it all together it will be atleast better than the A*B*C* Business magazine rankings which probably do not beleive in a proper statistical analysis.

Well, with midterms on, it was really worth watching everybody making a valiant attempt for the MAC assignment. We had an exam till 5 and the deadline for the submission was till 6 PM. So the scene was that someone was crying foul over the stapler, some were cursing the printer, someone suddenly found that the printer driver in their laptop is missing and they can't take the print outs. While one person was busy giving the finishing touch to his assignment the person sitting next to him suddenly ralized that she didnt do the analysis properly. With the rain god obliging us with a rainy relief today, It was all messed up. For me, I first went into the lab thinking that I have transferred the things from my computer to my friend's laptop but then I realised I need pages. I climbed three flight of stairs and then the moment I came downstairs it occured to me that I forgot my books in the lab.

Well that's why we chose to call it MAC Run. This is the only subject which is making us feel that what's the life in a B school like? Well life is getting tougher but then it has its own share of fun and pleasure.. If I have to follow up my life here.. I can say that I am Lovin it.

Writing on the wall: "Implementation is difficult"

Another compulsory seminar but well this time I was more than enthusiastic to attend this in spite of the fact that tomorrow I have to write the end term paper for the most dreaded subject and my decision making go well with the theme of the talk. We Indians really give a lot of emphasis on emotions rather than facts and figures and the moment I saw the name of Edward De Bono, it immediately clicked to my mind that I gonna enjoy the discussion.

Well, the fact is that I have done little for the accounting paper tomorrow (in a sense haven’t started actually) but still due to some emotions attended the seminar (making it compulsory obviously helped). It’s true that the most difficult art to master is the ability to think. As per the speaker, days of logical thinking is over and now is the time for creative thinking. To add to it, if I take my case, my thinking is completely unorganized so I need a certain amount of logic to be rational in my thinking. In a sense I rate logic as a measure of whether I am thinking in the right direction or not and creativity as the measure of how far I can go on that path. We can’t take out the importance of logic from the individual thought processing but being too much logical is a problem as you are putting a bound on your thoughts.

Another important point that clicked me is that “Out of the box” is not a process, it’s again a framework. I remember one instance when we were doing a presentation and the point of debate between the group members was that we were not able to think out of the box. I thought for the instance that what exactly is this “Out of the box thinking”? Is it just a flash of spark which will come to your mind when you keep saying to yourself that “I have to think out of the box?” I guess “no”.

Well, in a brief period of about one hour Mr. K. R. Ravi who has trained under legendary Edward De Bono, explained us the issues related to our education system, common mistakes that we often make in taking decisions, importance that we give to emotions and the way we tend to overlook facts and figures to drive home a point. This is something that we have inherited from our culture and my personal opinion is that reading books and merely thinking about thinking is not itself sufficient in infusing a dose of creativity in our thoughts as the most difficult thing to do is IMPLEMENTATION. I am going to write it on my wall in a bid to make it a part of my memory that “IMPLEMENTATION IS DIFFICULT”. I honestly believe that this one idea has the capability to change your whole life but then again implementation is difficult. Isn’t it?

In-"dulL"-gence

What is the worst indulgence before a big examination? Probably a compulsary seminar. Well, that is the perception with us. Friday we have a big examination of the most dreaded subject (for engineers atleast) and today we were made to sit up for whole two hours in the afternoon for a seminar. The organisers were wary of our response so they made this compulsary to attend. So, half asleep, half awake I finally reached the hall and occupied the seat in the back row. Well, the first five minutes and we were there in the first row, listening to every word and pondering over every graph. Economics is interesting but only when you somehow relate to the subject. Well, the Canandian professor was comparing the disposable income figure of Indian household with other developed countries and we had a laugh to see that India figures at the bottom. He started comparing the infant mortality rate and most among us shared that laugh again when we found India at the top. Well, he had to cut short his presentation due to time constraints but what we thought to be boring and monotonus initially, came out to be a good learning exercise in the end.

Well, do you know about this another indulgence which ideally shouldn't be there before exams? That's blogging. But here I am, with my favorite companion-my blog. I feel like talking to it at times when I have nobody to talk to. The good thing about this companion is that it has always been a patient and silent listener.

Santa Claus in US..

The way we have been taught micro-economics here is simply superb. Equations followed by derivation which again involves equations. It is another thing that most among us hate microeconomics for the same reason, too much of mathematics. Well, one of the complains that I normally hear from my peers about this subject is that, where the hell we are going to apply the knowledge of micro economics? Well, atleast I found one case where it makes a lot of sense to have knowledge about the govt. regulations (well, all the govt. regulations keeps into account the microeconomic principles)..To award a green card to Santa Claus or not. I have adapted this from Exploring Microeconomics by Robert L. Sexton.

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IT'S a good thing Santa Claus lives and works at the North Pole rather than in the U.S. If he had his shop in this country, Santa would have to function under so many laws and regulations that the federal government would likely close him down, leaving millions of boys and girls disappointed on Christmas morning.

Just consider some of the government agencies that could threaten Santa's work:

The Fish and Wildlife Service. Santa's sleigh is pulled by reindeer. But while reindeer are not an endangered species, flying reindeer are quite rare, and there is only one red-nosed reindeer known to exist. So under the Endangered Species Act, Dancer and Prancer might be allowed to continue working, but Rudolph would have to be placed in a safe habitat.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It is not at all clear that Santa's workshop would pass federal OSHA standards for workplace safety. Does Santa have too many elves packed into a small room? Are there an adequate number of fire extinguishers and fire escapes?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It is clear that Santa hires a large number of vertically challenged people--elves. But all of these elves appear to be white males, which leaves the suspicion that Santa is in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

The Federal Aviation Administration. Santa's flying sleigh would need to be equipped with seat belts to be used on takeoffs and landings. Since he flies over water, his sleigh would need a life preserver. The sleigh would also need the proper lighting--a real problem since Rudolph's nose is red, which would normally indicate the rear of the flying object rather than the front.

The Commerce Department. Santa is involved in the transport of consumable goods, which means he would be subject to certain weight restrictions and proper placarding of his sleigh if any hazardous materials were on board. Furthermore, regulations limit the number of hours a person can operate a vehicle transporting goods. After 10 hours behind the reins, Santa would probably have to take an eight-hour break, impeding his ability to finish his world-wide job on Christmas Eve.

The National Labor Relations Board. Is Santa using cheap elf labor, or is he paying his elves at least minimum wage? Is he giving them a lunch break? Paying overtime? Providing elf health insurance? A retirement plan?

All of these issues are important, yet Santa is avoiding them by doing business at the North Pole. Which raises another vital concern: By "dumping" toys in the U.S. at below-market prices (to wit, free), Santa is subjecting U.S. toy manufacturers and dealers to unfair competition and putting countless Americans out of work.

There's only one solution: Washington should impose stiff tariffs on goods imported from the North Pole, lifting them only when Santa ends his unfair trade practices and brings his operation up to American health and safety standards.
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(About the original author:
Mr. Matthews is vice president of domestic policy for the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas. )

Open Ended Questions..

Quantitative methods was my favorite subject at the beginning of the session. And call it Pygmallian effect or simply "self fulfilling prophecy" the professor saw some sparks in me which I honestly beleive were non-existent. Anyways, as the trimester progressed, as usual I slept into my undergraduate mould and decided to study only when it's absolutely necessary. So here are we now. We have a big presentation coming on wednesday and the case that is given to us is "Open Ended". I didn't realise the actual meaning of this jargon "Open Ended" until I did a google search on the case "Hershey Food" and found that the case is also non-existent on internet.

Well, I was not the only person who was brainstorming on this case. Everyone tried their luck with google and answers.com but well only the spark worked. PK Vishwanathan is not someone who gives you cases which are considered to be "baby food" he will rather wish to grill you down. Well, that is another case that he gives you fill in the blank questions which he only can fill and the very moment he mentions the word " Analyze,Criticize and Explain" that drives the whole batch crazy. We have still not answered his question that "What is the correlation between electricity and buffalow"? I guess that Lalu Yadav can answer this question well but that too will be possible only when he gets time out of his IIM lectures.

Now less than 36 hours are left for this case presentation and I am still struggling whether to perform this statistical test or that test. Truly its an open ended case. Anyways, this is life in a B school. Open ended. Always open ended.

Balls...

Playing cricket is a luxury in a B school. That's for sure. Three days back we kinda freaked out and started thrwoing cricket balls at each other at 1 in the night in order to divert others from some serious discussion. We played for like half an hour. Later the next day during lunch we were discussing it with others. One of our friends started complaining about not including him in the game. We asked him that okay next time if we decide to play, we would call him but he has to bring balls. No probs, he immediately responded, I will bring both my balls with me. Everybody at the dining table started laughing.

We asked, we lost one last night so could you bring another one. Yeah, I have three he rplied and another frenzied laughter broke out. He didn't realise his mistake and went on adding, Anand gave me two of his own so, now I have three. Well, we kept laughing like crazy. And when he realized he just said " Dirty Minds".

Sleep Deprivation..

Friend: Yaar I am having a bad headache.
Me: Okay, may be because of the hot and humid day or it could be either from the tension of exam. It seems that you are studying too much. Did you sleep well last night. I can see that you were in the lab till 4 in the morning two days back. Maybe, because of all these night outs that you are putting in to study. But anyways, wat do you think? Why this headache?

Friend No, nothing like that. I think that it is due to over sleeping I guess.
Me: Oversleeping? Don't tell me that. How much you slept last night?

Friend: 6 hours.
Me: 6 hours is still too less how come you say it is oversleeping?

Friend: I am sleeping for like 3-4 hours a day, and yesterday I slept for 6 hours so I guess, this headache is because of that only.
Me: I see.

**Sleep deprivation is not a myth in B-Schools. Its a reality on average. For me, the consoling thought is that atleast I am above average in some thing.

Beating the stress..

Trimester end examinations have been anounced and the schedule is enough to drive everyone crazy. But, I am at peace with two of my three favorite movies. Over the years I have observed that whenever i feel stress piling up on me, I take my refuge in watching either Lord of the rings, Saving private Ryan or Forrest Gump. These movies had such a great imapct on me that somehow I always find them new refreshing.

I have started thinking that taking too much of stress is somewhat against my character and I will study only when its absolutely necessary. The result is too much of back log piling on. I started with an aim of getting all A's. Now, the revised estimates are getting atleast 50% A's. Let's see whare I end up after two weeks but well, atleast I won't be regretting for not being grade conscious.

I have just started with my MBA and if there is something to be jusdged from the restlessness of all people around me then, I can very well sense the things which are in line. That's the strange thing about MBA, when you study you wish you could have 30 hours in a day and when you sleep you again wish you'd have 30 hours in a day. But well the trick is in deciding your priority. Learn whatever you can in whatever time you get from whomever is possible. Now, the question is what I am learning from movies? I hope most of you can answer this question and if you can't, then try watching one on a night when you are very tensed.

The word ASS has a different meaning..

Attention Seeking Syndrome (ASS)

I remember one instance from my school days where one of my friends asked a question related to the subject being taught in the class. Teacher first tried to convince him that this will confuse the other students as it is to be dealt in the subsequent sessions. But, then he answered that question and my friend went on to argue. Finally our instructor sarcastically commented that “it seems, you have read something” and a frenzied laughter broke out in the class. Now, that was just one random case and I am glad that CBSE do not follow CGPA system otherwise there could have been many more cases like that.

More than five years have past since then, and now sitting in an Organizational Behavior lecture, I am trying to attribute reasons to similar kind of behavior. Even in our undergraduate days students just loved to ask questions, not for satiating their intellectual hunger but only for the sake of asking questions. Asking stupid questions is not at all bad because that is a manifestation of your confusion but asking questions and making all others look like stupid is a real problem. Anyways this whole ASS syndrome is all about insecurity. People wants to look more confident than they actually are, they need attention because they treat this “gathered attention” as a measure of their accomplishment.

Well, this syndrome needs much more detailed analysis as many factors can be attributed to a particular attention seeking behavior. However, according to me the two major factors could be environmental or psychological. When everyone around you is suffering from the same syndrome then it’s not ASS it is GASS (General attention seeking syndrome) and the factors are largely external. It could be strict dead lines; stringent benchmarking for performance appraisals or it could be a strong competitive environment which drives the people to call for attention every time. But, when one or two individuals tries to capture the attention it’s because of psychological factors. People like these have their own agendas and they are always in a hurry. The underlying factor is that they need attention and they get a feeling of satiation when they get it.

Their ASS makes them vulnerable too. They expose themselves to others for exploitation. Now, next time you see someone trying to over impress you, you know what they are suffering from, ASS.

Honest advice***. Before asking something stupid or making some stupid remarks in public ask yourself this one question, is this ASS? And yeah, if someone else does exactly that, have some pity on poor guy. They do not know what they are suffering from.

Back in the undergraduate mould..

I thought that I was changing but no, I haven’t changed much. Just yesterday one of my friends commented that he has heard of only one person who sleeps for 14 hours a day in his MBA. Well, I myself even haven’t heard of any such person. So I am back to my old engineering days where a day seems to be worth enough sleeping for like 14 hours. Life has certainly changed in some ways. Time is flying by so fast that we have almost reached the end of the first trimester. Till this time it has been a joy ridden for me. I was taking everything for granted. But, now I guess that a few more dismal performances in the quizzes and case presentations will put me into the back seat where I will be reduced to a mere spectator watching other people zoom past me due to the hard work that they are putting in now.

Now, if you are planning to go for a MBA, then I must warn you that this is the time (third month) when you will find everyone around you busy with their own things. You have to be choosy here with things like friends and study group because at this point of time the only thing that people care about is scores, scores and scores. Barring a few close friends, for others, their marginal willingness (have learnt this term only today in micro economic class), to help you will be nil.

Anyways, mid terms are all about sleepless nights, but for me MBA is turning into a long vacation. I am eating more, sleeping more and yeah thinking more. You know what is that stuff that I think about normally? Yeah, how to cut down on my sleeping schedule and the normal modus operandi is that I set up alarm for 5 in the morning to wake up only at 8.