Voice of PGSEMer...

What better way to welcome the new batch to the blog than to put one of their creative work as part of orientation...

Creating Nostalgia: IIMB PGSEM 2011 Orientation Day 1

It was a Friday morning, dress down day at work, but I got into carefully ironed business formals. I picked up my laptop bag, like I do everyday, but also picked up a suitcase that had been filled until it was bursting at the seams. If it sounds like I was preparing to go on a business trip for an extended period, let me tell you I wasn’t. I was preparing to go to college…10 minutes away from home.

More than four months of a procedure – entrance exams, interview invitations, admission offers and the anxiety accompanying each of these – had culminated into this day. The 14th batch of the IIM Bangalore PGSEM programme was to be inducted into and oriented towards the Institute, the course. A 3-day residential event that we were all looking forward to, finally commenced this morning with breakfast and hostel check-ins.

Some things in life don’t hit you until you are in the middle of them. Like finally being an official student of IIM Bangalore. I walked in through the gates, pulling my suitcase along and taking in the campus anew, the greenery, the serenity, the sanctity that only college campuses can exude. I was completely in the moment until I reached the hostel blocks and stood in line for getting a room allotted. It was then that it hit me; I could now call this campus mine, that I was in there as a rightful occupant and not as a visitor. I suddenly relaxed and almost broke into a comfortable smile at the thought. The feeling wasn’t different from coming home.

For someone whose last memory of college was being on an NIT campus with peers of the same age and naïve mindsets, ready to take on the world, this felt different. The classmates standing in line, most of whom I was seeing for the first time seemed to come from all ages and in effect, from all levels of experience. They seemed somehow more grounded, more sorted. One immediately knew that this wasn’t going to be like the last time for more reasons than one. And the day’s proceedings reiterated that fact in every way possible.

We were allotted rooms in the Executive Blocks of the student hostel and for someone who had never stayed in a hostel it was a complete deviation from the stereotype that undergraduate level hostel had left in my mind…the ones where my friends stayed in college. I got a well-furnished front room in these well-designed blocks and the view of the striking green patch that is the football field was like a balm to my screen-strained eyes! I couldn’t enjoy the view for too long though and had to run back for the day’s proceedings!

The PGSEM senior batch students had the reigns in their hands from the start. Right from pointing out various blocks to giving out announcements through the day about the events lined up for us and acting as our bridges to the IIMB campus and community. Our day started with a welcome session by them where a lot of practical and useful information was given out regarding many things concerning out 2.5 year sojourn. It was more reorientation that orientation as we tried to dig up words like grades, GPA, assignments, group projects from our past college experiences. Through the day, we were appraised of various committees that co-ordinate activities for the PGSEM students. Before the orientation we had received an assignment and had been given a week to finish it. Somewhere I was secretly hoping that it would be something to just warm us up but they actually brought it up in the session and used it as a basis to discuss various aspects of classwork. To top that, the assignment marks were going to count towards the House Cup!

The House Cup is an event comprising of various activities – academic or otherwise – that we all are undertaking in groups over these three days and the group scoring the maximum points will lift the Cup. Just the task of coming up with a name and war cry for our group turned out to be quite a task commanding extensive discussions in our group. We ultimately got it done only at the last minute feeling quite stressed about it! But that was only the start.

The welcome session was followed by our registration process and an extensive discussion with the PGSEM Chairperson Prof. NM Agrawal. In the evening, the batch was officially inaugurated by a distinguished alumnus from Samsung, Mr. Dipesh Shah, followed by an Alumni interaction session. Each of these sessions convinced me that I had made the right choice with this course, going by how fondly each of these alumni spoke about the PGSEM experience. This was just our first day and already the slope of the learning curve seemed to have gone up a few notches.

The time post dinner was filled by the Student Affairs Council with more activities for the House Cup that began at 10 pm! Just when we were feeling we couldn’t even move a muscle after such a tiring day, we were able to pull out energy from some secret reserve and everyone participated enthusiastically in the know-your-group contest, Antakshari and Dumb Charades. We were behaving like a bunch of unruly school children that I am sure the seniors had a tough time dealing with. All the same, it was amazing to see our child egos resurrected, a concept Prof. Agrawal spoke about in the afternoon.

Just when we thought it was a wrap and time to hit the bed, something we assumed was our birthright after spending such a hectic day, that we realized that our seniors had no intentions of letting us sleep peacefully anytime in these 3 days. And so were given out more tasks to do – House Cup activities like writing blog posts, making a skit as well as an official case study! It is a godsend that the eat-outs on campus stay open till late and we prepared for a long night ahead by ordering some munchies from Park-N-Eat and getting down to discussion.

So yes, it’s 2 AM and I am determined to meet the deadline of 7:30 am for this blog post. Somewhere in these beautiful corridors, my group members are scheming for a skit. It is just a snapshot of things to come and it is going to be an exciting and gruelling time but it is also a time none of us will ever forget in life and this is nostalgia in the making. It is a Herculean effort working on this rather than be sleeping on that comfortable-looking bed but I’d prefer to be nowhere else but here right now – sleep deprived but excited in the hallways of IIM Bangalore. As a student of the 14th batch of PGSEM. Actually, just as a student. Let the good times roll!

~ Anupama 
   PGSEM2011

We wish the new batch the very best!

CSITM Participatory Workshop

As you may already know, the Participatory Workshop on Moving up the Value Chain and Managing Non-Linear Growth, organized jointly by CSITM and PGSEM is on May 28, Saturday. Please find below the detailed agenda for the day

Two years into the PGSEM programme

Two years ago, a bunch of people met each other for the first time, ready to embark on a journey. Well, not so much as ready, as excited. I remember my first class. This prof with a resounding voice comes in, introduces himself, and begins to take a class on Microeconomics. And I couldn't help marvel at the technology in that class, at the prof, at the people around me, younger and older, at the thought that all of us were here by choice to better ourselves and not just out to get a job. I felt like such a greenhorn when a few of the guys in class already knew stuff like Assets and Liabilities, others knew stuff related to Marketing and quite a few did a LOT of reading, of books by management gurus.

A quarter later, I was nervous. Results had come out, and you get to see how you've done. Now here's the interesting bit. You're not bothered about the grade, it's useless as you don't get placed. But you are reminded of where you stand in class, and of an apparent notion that many others understood the subject the way the prof intended them to... better than you. And you vow to do better.

A year later, the moment the exams got over, I just had to rush out of Bangalore to take a break. All the work, all the study, it gets to you and you just want to clear your head. You come back from your break, and get to work. And you see how your friends and colleagues look differently at you. That 'clearing of head' allows you to see what you're doing differently now, compared to a year ago. It's a little impressive... to feel a change coming over you, like you know a little more to face the world than a year ago. And you're ready to attack the next year with renewed vigour, and in the knowledge that... something's... working.

Two years later, the exams get over, and you feel a sense of relief... but it's not as pronounced as what it was the first time. You're thinking "I can do this, this has happened before. Now it's just another two more quarters". And in office demos and customer meets, somebody throws "What's the value proposition?", you're comfortably able to explain how your product is 'adding value', it almost becomes a familiar thing. Someone else throws a business problem at you, and you identify a couple of new angles that weren't on the table before. You're not fixing a problem, but you're helping identify other potential scenarios that your team will together deal with. You suddenly realize that you have some knowledge that others around you might not, but unlike a newbie, you have the experience to know that you don't get gold stars by hoarding info and being the go-to-man. People look to you to be a part of a team, and if you fulfil your part, your team and you are the better for it.

And then you wonder that you know this much more now, does that mean you're a better person than you were before? I remember the engineer I was, the way I thought... I don't think that way anymore. Is that a good thing? If I speak with a technical lead today, and we face a problem... I often find myself on the side I would vehemently oppose a couple of years ago. Was I right then? Am I right now? Does this new understanding of 'value' and 'role of corporate entities' distort the way I should be? I know a lot more now, I've opened myself to accept what the profs teach, to the extent that you accept them to be true with minimal questioning. I've become a lot more calculative, is a certain action worth the cost? Is that a good thing?

Two years down the road, I might be a lot more clear on what mistakes corporations have done in the past. I might not repeat the same things. Why then do I feel a certain uneasiness? Now that people look at me differently, and I have more understanding than I did a couple of years back does it guarantee right decisions from me in future? Looks like some old problems have made way for some new ones.

Two years back, I felt excited. And nervous. The feeling isn't that different today.

A 'Good' Friday

PGSEM 2009 student Sanjeev Kumar PS has a unique experience to share:

We have got inspired by them, We look upto them, we are proud of them... They are our Armed forces!
There is a program ongoing in IIMB for officers from Armed forces. Participants include guiness book record holders, commandos, brigadiers etc.  

PGSEM students hosted a buffet lunch for these wonderful people on Good Friday. The day really turned out to be literally a "good" Friday. PGSEM students met them in person to get inspired, listen to their leadership thoughts and of course to increase their networking.

As the armed forces shared their stories with pride, PGSEM students listened to them with great intent. There were stories of valour that were heart wrenching and at the same time inspiring. 

At the end of the day, it was PGSEM students who felt more proud to have spent some quality time with these great country men who have offered so much to our nation!

Thirty-Sixth Annual Convocation on March 31, 2011

This year's annual convocation is scheduled on March 31, 2011. Chief Guest is Mr Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, and Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Government of India. 11th batch of PGSEM (2008-2011) will be graduating this year. The diplomas and fellowships (PGSEM,PGP,PGPPM,EPGP & FPM) will be awarded by Shri Mukesh D. Ambani. 

All are cordially invited to attend the event or you can watch the ceremony live @


http://www.webtv.in/iimb_live/webtv.html