Senior Managers to a Bunch of Kids – A Typical day at IIMA-PGPX

Two months over and the excitement of being in IIMA has been replaced by an excitement of learning from a new set of opinion makers in Indian and global businesses. As first term gets over, another set of courses is lined up for us to develop a deeper understanding of various aspects of the business.

As they say, in IIMA, different people learn different things, make different interpretations, and do various activities, but if one thing that everybody gets here is an appetite for working hard while unlearning the concept of IST (Indian Stretchable Time). The rigour of the program can only be imagined.

Our typical day starts at 7 AM with a walk, run or a brief workout in the gym. As we run, time also runs and many of us barely find it to have few slices of bread and butter with a coffee while continuing our run towards the class to see 8:45 in the classroom watch. The first word of professor's mouth breaks as the clock shows the exact time. Here onward things move very fast with the discussion on last night’s cases, problems, and doubts. Many times we come with a lot of confidence in our analysis and decision around the case, but it doesn't take much time for the professor to make us realize that business has various aspects, and we missed to take many of those aspects before making coming up with our decision.

The lecture-break-lecture-break-lecture streak breaks around 1:15 by which time we might get notice of a surprise quiz after lunch. We are lucky if it is not there. Post-lunch, things go little slow for 2-3 hours during which time we pick up the cases we supposed to read for next day. At times when workload is huge, we end up dividing the study among our group (we call it Syndicate here) members who would later meet in the syndicate rooms to discuss and analyse them, and reach a common conclusion. Although we may break for dinner in between, every syndicate has to ensure that the next-day cases, problems, and text is complete before we break for bed, which happens around 2 AM.

And after elections of students committees are over, most of us have got even more responsibilities towards each other. Some committees are planning for our future events; others are executing as per their plans.

But then ‘all work and no play make Jack a dull boy’, so Cricket, Tennis, Chess, and other recreational activities take the front seat on Friday evening unless Saturday is a working day. After such a busy schedule, what is yet to be seen is how would we find time for the preparation for IIMA Sports meet and culture event that I am sure we’ll kill through our performances.

Despite being a cohort with an average age of 32 years, and an average experience of 10 years, it is nothing but a surprise to see the energy that every individual brings to the class and outside. Friday night parties (non-alcoholic though; remember Aapno Gujarat, dry State) celebrate the birthdays, talent (Dance, Guitar, Flute and many more), and life in IIMA.

After every day of tiring schedule, we realize the fact that this one year is passing very fast and each day that has gone will never come again. So…..

“Jeelo jitna jee sakte ho !!!”

Expenditure reduced, Expenses Recognized !!!

	Prepaid Expenses	Expenses Recognized	Knowledge Gained
Opening Balance	2,45,0000	0	0
Closing Balance	20,41,667	4,08,333	Invaluable

This is how the balance sheet looks after the first term. It was a hell lot of information thrown at us and it is very difficult to gauge what percentage of that is captured by all of us. But one thing, I believe, my colleagues in PGPX would also share is that ‘Abhi to party shuru hui hai’.

Time is the most precious commodity here. In Term-1, 2 AM was the time when we could only think about sleeping and 8 AM was the time after which we couldn't afford to be in the bed. Despite of this, most of the time we used to find ourselves running to the class with our breakfast in our hands. Afternoon nap was highly recommended but one rarely got it. Reading and analysing 50-100 pages of business text for next day was new norm while surprise quizzes of financial accounting kept us on our toes.  As one of my friends expressed, in IIMA, clocks are everywhere, but time is nowhere. But there is no respite from this yet as we know term-1 was just the trailer and ‘picture to abhi baaki hai mere dost’.

There were lot of ups and downs in last two months; few things were liked by everybody, few by some, and there were few which were liked by none ;-). There were things that we knew before the course but today after 2 months we have imbibed them so much in our character that they have become part of our daily conversations. Sunk Cost and Opportunity costs are not just concepts for us anymore; they are part of our thinking process. Similarly, as few of our colleagues mentioned in a presentation, hypothesis testing is not only used for business decisions but also life decisions such as marriages. It was especially intriguing to see how if ‘not marrying a right one’ is Type-1 error (less dangerous), ‘marrying a wrong one’ is Type-2 Error; and power of the hypothesis lies in avoiding Type-2 errors.

Besides learning from professors in classes and from accomplished colleagues in syndicate groups, we had opportunities to host industry leaders who shared their thoughts and vision for the industry and academia.

But again ‘Abhi to party shuru hui hai’.