My forecast for today reads 'You will be a wiz at solving problems today.' On the contrary, I have been a whiz at messing up problems today. First, it was the Economics paper, where I took a conservative approach, considering the negative marks, and paid the penalty of attempting just 36 questions out of 50. No chance of a good score. Then in HRM wrote a lot of crap. The last two papers messed up.
Still, mid terms where more relaxing than the normal days. No pressure of preparing for classes, no CP and no surprise quizzes. It ends tomorrow. Post mid-term, we have classes six days a week and one extra subject to learn.
What have I learned in the past 5 weeks?
MANAC: MANAC will turn me into a maniac. For the uninitiated, MANAC stands for Managerial Accounting and Control. It deals with preparing various financial statements like balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements. Sitting in my room, working four hours to balance a sheet is ok, but then doing the same in a quiz or the exams is impossible. Every session takes some balance out of my life.
Human Resource Management: Studied some 10 cases and nearly half of a 600-page book. Now I can talk- unintelligibly of course- about the various functions of HRM and their implications on an organization. Cases, though, were very interesting.
Quantitative Methods: Before coming to IIMA, I was confident that QM will be a cakewalk for me. After all, I have a strong background in mathematics and love the subject a lot. Nevertheless, there was much surprise in store. QM proved to be the most dreaded subject. Solving linear programs was pain and getting low marks in the quiz, even more frustrating. QM is not for me. Guess I am the type who loves abstract mathematics more.
Operations Management: A very practical and interesting subject. Learned about job shops, batch flows, assembly lines and continuous flow processes; line balancing; calculating capacities and identifying bottlenecks in processes.
Introduction to Computers: Learned pretty much everything about excel, that too in ten lectures.
Economics: Economics is one subject I have fallen in love with. I can sit for hours studying market demand and supply, firm production, market structures, oligopoly, duopoly and all. Time is the only constraint. Economics can provide a logical explanation for all human behavior and the reasoning is very intuitive and simple. The learning from each reading was immense. More so, because we have God level professors out here.
And then WAC. WAC stands for Written Analysis and Communication. We are given a case to analyze and write a decision or a recommendation report in not more than 1000 words. No crap tolerated. Every point has to be based on some logical conclusion and the ideas should be coherent. Sounds easy ah! I have written two reports and writing each one took immense effort. First, there is the problem of a good beginning, then a comprehensive but short situation analysis, followed by options, criteria for evaluation and then the recommendation or decision. All within 1000 words. You have to write one report to experience getting Whacked. The submission is on alternate Saturdays, which invariably leads to night outs on Fridays.
Never in my life have I put in so much effort for studies. The facts speak for themselves. All through my engineering studies, which spanned a good four years, I hardly exhausted three ball pens. While, in just five weeks at IIMA I have already finished four ball pens.
Now, it is time for some heavy music and sound sleep. Need to debit the balance that MANAC has credited into my account.
Thoughtcurry said...Long time no updates? Must be pretty hectic up there. Still, try and keep posting.
Anuj said...hey yashodeep..were u there for the IMS's achievers workshop last yr at Bangalore..if u were I guessw e were in the same room that time.
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