New aspect of my MBA life

OK, first of all I know I am blogging after what seems to me like a century; it is all thanks to the internship cell of my college I am a part of. Now that is a lie, not the fact that I am a part of the internship placement cell but the fact that it is taking up ALL of my time. Well it is taking up all of my afternoons and evenings for sure and I have been too lazy to blog at night. But yes, today I have found the time and the subject (most importantly) to write.

Now let me elaborate on what is this placement cell; it is a seven member team, each of who are losing their minds to place the remaining 44 in our batch. This is for the summer internship that is a part of our course. It is supposed to be a 6 weeks thing where certain lucky organizations are about to get 6 weeks for free labour. And we are the ones responsible to search for these organizations.

Well initially I was extremely excited to be a part of the team. Very enthusiastically I had given the interview and was extremely thrilled to be selected. Little did I know what was in store for me. The first month went by smoothly as we were all waiting for the company database to come to us and did nothing, until a bomb fell upon us informing us that the database would not be forwarded from the Pune to the Bangalore campus and that we had to generate our own database. With two months to go and 44 people to place, it was time to fasten our seat belts.

Now started a parallel BPO equivalent job where the telephone was our best friend and google and afaqs, our soul mates. Since then all we have been doing is calling up every tom, dick and harry possible just to reserve one internship. Now this, very frankly is an extremely interesting exercise though frustrating as well. You get to talk to all kinds of different people, from the ones who say they are not looking for interns to the ones who say "Sorry, not interested" (as if we were calling them for setting up a new caller tune). Not to forget ultimate respondents who, after about 10 minutes of asking all kinds of questions and finding out information finally ask “What do you mean by interns?” (OMG seriously, are you kidding me) In such cases you have just no other option than to just hang up and curse under your breath. While there are few others who before even finding out what the call is about, say in an extremely imperious tonality, “We do not pay interns” (Wow you really are an inseparable part of the industry, aren’t you) And because we on this side of the receiver are the ones who are desperate for placements have to say, “Yes Sir, that is no problem at all”

The ones though, are the ones who think they belong to the royal family of Queen Elizabeth and that it is too down market for them to come on the phone to talk to unimportant people. Believe you me, I have come across such people as well who hop from one meeting to another every 30 seconds and finally when the same excuse becomes too trite, the assistant would reply, “She just left the office” (yea right, mein toh kab se jhakk maar rahi hoon yahan par) and then you swear some more to ease the frustration and dial the next number in your long list of prospective target organizations.

Finally it is only when you lose all hope as all the companies from A-Z in afaqs have been contacted all including phone been banged on your face to extreme sweet rejections, also the poor telephone requires some maintenance service is it also has borne the brunt of some of your frustration, that from some where you find some ray of hope. Suddenly life seems good again as in a jiffy you get a bunch of people placed and I am saying this with no afterthought, the feeling is truly amazing, it feels awesome to hear the immeasurable happiness in the voice of your friend or colleague when you tell him/her they have got placed. That is when you feel that it was all worth it.

So that is how the entire process goes and now I have to get back to making a list of some more agencies who would be hanging up on me in the near future, but there is no escape as my job is not yet over. So ciao!!!

Life...

The beauty of existence,

As pleasant as a musical rhythm.

But some truths of life,

Are very hard to fathom.

Expectations being a part of the journey,

As simplified as they may seem.

Not always are they fulfilled,

No matter how much you hope or dream.

Life is an unfair game,

As many wise men have stated.

As years pass by you realize,

How closely with us is this fact related.

Adjustments, disappointments and compromises,

Soon become a part of life.

Everyone learns to live with it,

Until they think otherwise.

All know there exist two sides to a coin,

Not many understand the true meaning.

When hopes begin to sink in,

They often overlook a new beginning.

As oblivious as it may sound,

As cliché as it may be.

“Everything happens for good”

Is something not all foresee.

A saying told to me when I was little,

Never had I understood the depth of it.

Until opportunities came and opportunities passed by,

Which is when all the broken pieces began to fit.

So whenever you feel down and alone,

Never lose hope my friend.

Always see the positive side,

And everything will begin to mend.

Try and see the other side of the coin,

As life is too short to brood.

And that is when you will see the glass half full,

And you will never feel life to you is rude.

As quoted by someone wise,

“It ain’t over until it really is”

So never give up, cuz if you do,

The sweet fruit of victory you’ll always miss.

Fantabulous four days

ROUTINE, this is a word that each living being is stuck with, no matter who he is or what he does. A millionaire is stuck in his routine of making millions while a poor man in his routine of probably slogging somewhere or the easiest option begging. Having noticed keenly, the two extremes including all the middle men (mainly us) have this unavoidable “Routine”. So was I, stuck in this very similar routine. Lectures dragging along from 9-5, the same old assignments, 75% attendance (rumour has it, it is going to be 90% soon) including the mess food timings. While amidst all this and beginning to get really frustrated, there popped out a plan... Chennai.

Pongal was a festival I had been hearing since my childhood from some other friends but never knew some years down the line it would be a delight. I with 3 more friends came up with an impromptu plan to head to the prior Madras. The plan was fuelled further, thanks to Pongal being the festival of the two, involved in this plan. The day dawned and we were off. Away for a good four days, away from all the lectures, the rules, away from SIMC.

The 1^st glimpse I caught was a board on the Chennai station called “Welcome to Chennai” I did not miss capturing that moment in my digicam. One rude shock was the temperature there. Now staying in Bangalore which does not cross 24 degrees even in the hottest hour, your homeostasis gets used to it. But the temperature there was unexpected. I have been living in Mumbai my whole life and am very familiar to the “heat” but this was I can assure more than that. The 2 pull overs I was wearing came off in 2 seconds.

The same day was Pongal so we indulged in a couple of bowls of the delicious Pongal (a sweet dish) prepared in the homes of my friends. The day ended with a trip to a resplendent temple there sprawling over a large area.

Our second day started with 3 Idiots, a 7:45 a.m. show in a multiplex there where they serve mouth watering butter popcorn. The coming 3 days flew by as well as it included visits to very reasonably priced shops (I shopped for a good thousand bucks, no kidding), a mall called city centre (where you would get the best chocolate milk shake ever tasted, and this unheard mocktail (7 up+an entire orange+ an entire lemon). How could I miss mentioning our visit to the beach. Besant Nagar beach, extremely clean very unlike the beaches I am used to seeing, being in Mumbai. I came across a lot of incidents there, some very funny, some being the opposite. To name a funny one, a gigantic paper dosa was attacked by the four of us and vanished in precisely 3 minutes because there was a bus to catch.

Finally today I am back to my much awaited and missed SIMC (duhhh) and writing this post reminiscing over all the crazy things we did there. A much needed change that was and believe you me, I am planning the next one already!!

1st step into the Future

Everybody starts thinking about what the next step is going to be as the graduation years are passing by. I was among the sheep in the herd as well. While pursuing my graduation in Bachelors of Science (a field that did interest me a lot when I took it up) my mind kept wandering as to, is this really going to be my future? A white lab coat which can never remain white regardless of all the efforts put into scrubbing it clean with all your might, a microscope that will never leave your side no matter how much you try to escape, a wax tray,some test tubes and specimens. I definitely could not see myself in this scenario all my life.

That is when the clocks in my mind started to tick and I started thinking about a change in field. I stumbled across the idea of doing an MBA and started looking for more information regarding the same.

Somewhere down my research process, I concluded that finance, HR, hardcore marketing are areas that don’t interest me much. So I thought I’d apply for something like advertising (a tad bit inspiration from Chandler’s profession in F.R.I.E.N.D.S) which is creative, exciting and fun. That tad bit inspiration gradually developed into interest and the interest into passion. This was the time I wanted to get into the field of advertising, come what may. I applied in Symbiosis for advertising as the specialization that was after going through the mundane procedure of giving entrance exams.

Getting selected for the GD/PI (as popularly known) felt like a war was won. But, the war had just begun. The admission process of Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (to get into which was my only aim at that point of time) was an elongated 5 part atrocity killing you 1 part at a time. Starting with the peer interface, an interview taken by 2-3 seniors was supposed to be an ice-breaker but for me became a head breaker when I was asked to sell them a pencil on the spot.

Moving on the next came extracurricular and previous year’s marks checking which was chilled out comparatively as one of the people on the panel started questioning me about my place of residence leaving aside my folder (arranged and assembled with great difficulty an hour prior). The 3^rd part was the assignment submission, 3 assignments given to us 15 days before the interview process which involved a lot of interviews, collection of business cards and the very embarrassing part, taking a photo of you with the interviewee (to submit as proof, extremely awkward to ask “may I please have a photo with you” to I have lost count of how many people.)This was completed juggling time between my TYBSc studies as well.

The final 2 regular procedures left were the Group Discussion and the Personal Interview. The GD went past as the topic given sounded pretty close to Greek but I was flummoxed as to it being Greek or Latin. Skipping through, the final and probably the most dreaded part was the PI. After a good grilling of 20 minutes (NO KIDDING) every second of which made me want to run away without looking back like seeing some evil spirit, I heaved a sigh of relief. I had a gut feeling of not having performed to the institute’s expectations. But still there was hope.

After a long and extremely excruciating wait of about 45-50 days, the lists came out. To my great dismay, my name was nowhere to be seen in the 1^st list which was for the Pune campus. Crushed and extremely disappointed, I started applying to other colleges as well when there was a miracle. I got a call from a good friend of mine saying I had made it through the Bangalore campus, (1^st year of SIMC in Bangalore) I could not believe my ears. My happiness knew no bounds.

Today here I am, 6 months and 1 internship down the course, in an institute which was once a thought, then a dream and now a reality, SIMC. The ocean of opportunities is yet ahead, a long way ahead. And even today I would say, “The war has just begun!”