Term 2 over

Well not over exactly coz there's an assignment submission due tomorrow by 4PM. The exams got over last Tuesday and I ran (well flew) like hell from the campus and reached Calcutta by 9 PM. Im still at home and Im loving it. Ive been eating like crazy over the last few days and have probably put on 5 kgs during my 5 day stay here.

Well anyway, the last term was a whirlwhind. Some exogenous factors meant that I could give even less time to studies which was really a double whammy. Nonetheless, the learning during this term was truly mind blowing.
We had the following papers:
Competitive Strategy
Global Economics
Marketing Decision Making and the terror
Decision Models & Optimization (DMOP)

I liked the subject Compstrat the most primarily because if the way it was taught by Prof Prashant Kale. It was like watching a suspense thriller. The class atmosphere used to be so fantastic that most of the time I was too mesmerized to participate in class (there was 20% CP weightage). It's a pity that he only taught us 5 sessions. After this course, I'll never look at a case again the same way. Anyway, the course involved analyzing diverse strategies of 10 different firms/situations ranging from Coke/Pepsi Industry analysis to Cisco's acquisition strategy to McKinsey's knowledge management strategy. What learning!

The other noteworthy paper was marketing due to 2 reasons.
1. Markstrat a marketing simulation game which was just super fun (and super time consuming) and provided tremendous exposure to real life decision making. And did I mention it was fun? Well, my study group won the game across ISB (in our industry) so yeah, it was real fun.
2. Prof Jagmohan Raju taught the 2nd half of the course. Now Raju is a legend in academic circles and he just awed me/us with the depth of his knowledge/research. Yet he was unbelievably humble and jovial. These experiences make ISB what it is.

DMOP was incredibly stimulating in terms of tools it provides for managerial decision making but I found the course a bit too overwhelming at times.

Global Eco was also helped demystify the current economic crisis and more.

Overall the term was very stimulating. It was challenging primarily because it had loads of assignments. Term 3 is even worse Ive heard. This time Ill have to plan better.

On a different note, I realized something profound in Term 2 (the hard way): the impossible trilogy-Grades, Social Life and Sleep - at most 2 achievable simultaneously. What the hell, one can't have it all.