Blog

I hate myself for being this irregular blogger…trying to convince my own self that its because of lack of time. While all these years I have harping on the fact that time is always a matter of decision. If you want…you shall always have time…

I am guessing people wont be interested in the above gibberish. So I shall move on…

The past 15 odd days have been awesome. And intimidating lately. The break was supercool. Delhi, as always, was a pleasure to live through. Went for movies, dinners, dandiya and a road trip as well (which was planned 15 mins before we stepped into the car…!). amazing fun…coupled with the usual feeling of ‘damn…I don’t want to go back…!’

Coming back has been quite an experience as well. I have taken up all 4 Fin courses and believe me…the feeling is at times of ‘so…who do you think you are…superman…!”. So much so that to display the same I was wearing a superman tee day before…much to people’s amusement…!

But then…the courses are pretty good.

Advanced Corp Fin is something that I didn’t want to miss taking. However, the professor’s reputation precedes him. the 1st class was some kind of a trailer of what is to follow…however I have a feeling that it wont be as bad as it has been projected.

Fixed Income was good…and easy in the 1st class…though it could be simply because of the fact that most of it was a repetition from last term’s course. The prof reminds me of Rob Stein (Term 1)…and seems to be pretty cool. Is a prof at the Institute of Management at Tel Aviv…!

Financial Reporting and Analysis is something I am dreading…given my experience with accounting. I don’t know why…the balance sheet hasn’t really registered inside…and same with the income statement. Maybe I am trying hard enough…

Options and Futures by the Dean. The course was never meant to be ‘oh u know what…this is an option…which sells for Rs 10. So if you buy one…how much do you have to pay…?’ course. It will surely be one hell of an analytics driven course…and I guess the 1st class psyched people out. Lets see how it uncovers as time goes along.


Loads of things to look forward to this weekend. We have a talk by Shekher Kapur and Mohammad Khan (Ad Guru) Saturday afternoon followed by Dandiya Night organized by the Spouses Association. Our group also has the ELP client meeting this Friday. We have come up with some really fundoo recommendations…however they are quite drastic in nature. So lets hope the reception is good.

Apart from that…placements have started to take a serious turn. Preparing the CV…working on this and that…and what not…and with Deustche Bank coming for recruitment…(yes…I am planning to apply)…it makes the entire deal all the more rigorous.


I just realized…this is the most serious entry ever…! Damn I have killed myself…! (

~a

Course: Strategic Implementation of Information Technology
Presentation: Introduction – Session 1
Slide: 53

“Firms create competitive advantage by assembling, integrating and deploying tangible and intangible resources to create organizational capabilities and competencies”

What is it…buzzword competition…? And then they expect us to give ‘insightful’ comments…!

What the…?

~a

Life at ISB took a different turn for a lot of people today. We just completed with our bidding system for the electives. With 4000 points in everyone’s kitty…to be distributed over the 4 terms…people displayed fabulous levels of game theory concepts. Here are a few of them:

• If you bid at 800 for a course and it clears at 400, you get 400 back. Hence, some dudes came up with the grand idea that if they bid 1000 a piece for 4 subjects, they will surely get all of them. And then will get points redeemed based on the clearing price. What they fail to understand is that everyone is thinking the same way…!

• No no…is their argument. Even if everyone thinks the same way…everyone gets screwed. Right?…wrong…! with 200 people expressing an interest in marketing and only 120 landing with a course of their choice (at the high bids) there will be 80 odd people who shall have the points to play the same game in the next term. And then the original set will get screwed…!

Anyways…after a day of horrible rumor management, collusions of the highest order…and ‘underpromisin – overdelivering’…the results came out this evening. Some disappointments…a sense of relief primarily.



The term is coming to an end…and so are the core courses. From now on begins a revision path…building on the concepts of these 6 months. With an all FIN portfolio…I shall be against the top brains of the batch. And its not going to be easy. Lets see how it goes…

Life…at ISB…has a lot to learn from…!

~a

So…a senior partner from Bain Singapore and a Manager at Bain India (BCC, Delhi) had come over to explore the possibility of recruiting from ISB this year. I believe we are up against IIM C, which makes the ‘battle’ tougher and challenging. And I guess at some level even if we loose, it will be a well-accepted ‘defeat’.

However…this isn’t what was best about the visit. The 2 gentlemen sat through our classes and apparently both the profs and the students did a remarkable job. So Section A and B…thanks a lot dudes…! In the evening they wanted to have a small gathering of 30 off people…whom they could address and then interact with. Now…the statistics is easy…349 students…30 to select. We could have had elections…but there wasn’t time…we could have selected 30 based on the way they dress but then the idea was squashed. So ultimately the class reps were requested to send in the names of 8 odd people…whom they felt could do a good job of impressing the Bain guys.

Needless to say…Bain turned into a pain…with students criticizing the methodology used…etc etc…! Personally…it is hard to judge whether they are right in acting so. However, I do know that the 30 chosen are in no way better than anyone else on campus. And definitely nowhere near indicating that they will ultimately see through Bain in the placements. So if you look at it…30 had to be chosen…and 30 is a slightly smaller number than 349…so people would have been left out…one way or the other. It is unfortunate that people had to be left out…and I am sure it was not an easy choice for whosoever making it.

Anyways…

Life has been hectic like anything this week…assignments flooding us left right and center…with a few new ones coming in from the top as well. Have been fighting the same with diligence so far…hopefully will be able to sustain the same.

Got the corporate finance end term…did horribly bad…can’t believe myself…! So here is the deal…marketing bad…finance bad…IT will be bad…what the hell do I major in…? I wish they had home science…(G…heheheh!)

Loads to look out for this weekend. Section C has its last party together…! Am hosting a quiz this Saturday…then assignments as usual…onam celebrations…so pretty packed…and should be exciting…!

Life’s good…

~a