Solid start to the new innings

Two quizzes in two days… a brilliant opening for the new week… and we’re expecting atleast 2 more(hopefully it won’t be 3) in the next 3days….

The weekend was cool… We FPMs (Doctoral Students) had a luxurious weekend compared to the PGPs (MBA Students) as we didnt had the IGP classes on saturday… (But in the next 4 slots we will be having extra classes in the afternoon to compensate for :( )

We were eagerly waiting for that friday afternoon to happen as always… and had the pleasure to be back on the cricket field after almost a month, followed by the evening badminton and the midnight FRISBEE (this too had a long gap of a fortnight or so)….

Saturday, the COOLEST day on a calendar week, went on well and the cricket field was bombarded with ‘non-playing captains’… Wonder, it is better to have a mixture of tightness, so that play-freeks like me won’t have to sit out as happened on the day, although eventually i managed to squeeze into the second innings of the bowling side to open n bowl 3 of the 12 overs…. :)

Every small tide is followed by bigger storms… and this week is one of the toughest in this academic slot. Expected Quizzes in the week are 4-5 (2 - already over) and we have heavy load in all the subjects, especailly MARKETING… We made groups inside our group to split the workload, only to find ourselves in the receiving end in yesterday’s group presentation. But it matters (or mattered) little because, as explained earlier by the prof herself that, this is ‘THE ONLY WAY’ to learn marketing - to be screwed, harassed and whatever…

I have clear objections with the breadth n depth of the ’substance’ we are taking out here… There should be a compromise on either of these, otherwise there is always the hanging dagger over the output…

Let alone studying 8subjects simultaneously in a 5week SLOT, how hard it will be if we had to prepare for 3sessions a day….. For e.g. reading(analysing) a case in ‘Marketing’ alone will take 2hours, what about the preparation & group work and another 30pages of course material (text) to be studied b4 the class. And what else if there are 2 more subjects we need to be prepared, with more or less the same TAXING. And above all we can always ‘expect’ an ‘unannounced’ quiz as like the one we had today.

If the breadth is okay, then the depth is not acceptable; and viceversa. But as we had entered the system, we are expected to swim along the flow without any “exclamation marks”, let alone the “question marks”. We are (un)lucky to be the victims of this experimental (transformation) stage of finding out the peak overload one can sustain.

In the previous years, there were 19.5credits in the first year(compared to the 15.5 in the second). And our thuchchas(and alumni) always swear that FIRST YEAR of IIMA is one of the most rigorous transitions of life they had ever gone through. There is correct perception in the entire IIM community that the ‘A’ in IIMA stands for Acads. All the same, I accept that this is the ‘STAND OUT’ which makes IIMA, “IIMA”.

However, imagine how harder it will be for us, if we had to crack through “23.5 credits” this year. 21% extra workload on the already overloaded compartment. And that too without liberalising any of the earlier concessions. Our predecessors could afford 4′D’s (remember D-grade is a low-pass, not fail; F is Fail) and we too have the same constraints.

Probably after a couple of years the Academic Executive might realise that this ‘burden’ is too much an ant can take into its ‘den’ while back from work. And by the time, we might already be through and hopefully our successors might bear the fruit…

Or if found successful, will they overcharge it again???? ‘Wait n watch’….. That’s much easier than predicting the decision of IIMA Professors!!!