FM3 - My classroom

Hi

I am back after a long weekend (had Saturday off as well!). It was a fun weekend, probably the best one since I reached Bombay. On Friday, I went from Chembur to Thane to meet my friend. Took the train and had an unforgettable journey. Could not get down @ Thane because the crowd would not let me out. Not to exaggerate, but was crushed among the mass of people to the point of feeling suffocated. Kudos to the Mumbaikars - they have the spirit to live through this mess. Went for a movie on Friday night. Met up with my NUS friends on Saturday @ Hard Rock Cafe. Rohini's b'day - was good fun. Thought that the Hard Rock in Mumbai in better than the one in Times Square, New York. Confirmed my views about Mumbai (more on this in some later post).

Touching base once again with my past. During my first term, I belonged to the FM3 section for all our modules. I literally lived with these guyz throughout the term. So, busy was our first term. The class was diverse (more on diversity in my next post) with students coming from Germany, Sri lanka, India, China, Pakistan and all across South East Asia.

As generally happens with any class, initially everyone was friends with everybody. Then the polarisation process started. Sometimes it was caused by similarities - same nationality, same project groups, sitting beside each other, same peer group, etc. Sometimes it was caused by differences - problems with project group members, problems of other shapes and forms, genuine differences in interests and preferences, etc. It was fascinating to see how this polarisation started and progressed. And I don't think I can explain the process within this space. It needs to be seen to be experienced. Of course, I made my own group of friends and have enjoyed every moment I spent with them.

In course of our interactions, the stars slowly emerged. We came to know the creative ones, the studious ones, the lazy ones and the toppers. And as the term progressed, project groups began to form on the basis of this segregation. Some wanted to associate with the toppers. Some just wanted to have someone who would do all the work. Others wanted people who were creative and would be willing to divide the work equally.

And how did I fare in my subjects??? I struggled with Statistics. The professor, though a good man, had an accent I couldn't understand. I enjoyed our Marketing Classes. They were highly entertaining (with instances of 'below the belt' humour) and to an extent informative. Initially, I enjoyed the accounting classes. This was a subject of special interest to me because I came from a family of Chartered Accountants. My initial enthusiasm turned to frustration because of the way the prof handled the subject. You know that something has gone wrong when the prof starts singing in class. The Financial Management classes were brilliant. The prof, Ravi Jain, had great authority over the subject and linked the theory to the real world. Never missed his classes. Microeconomics is a brilliant subject - the prof was the perfect example of the brilliant, absent minded professor - and I enjoyed the first few classes. But somewhere along I dropped the baton. Maybe it was because I did not go through the previous lecture's notes but I stopped understanding the Econ lectures. Soon, more classmates joined me in my wilderness, and towards the end there were very few who actually knew what was going on in class. As for me, I stopped attending econ class. The final subject was Operations Management (OM). It was built on the case study approach. I am a big fan of the case study method but it has a big catch. This method requires a great prof because his insights make the class. When the prof is lacking, the case study method falls like a pack of cards. And that is what happened to OM.

So, like any other b-school, the first term had its mixture of good, average and bad professors. And it was a fascinating experience, spending the best part of 5 months with my classmates @ FM3.

Cheers,
Suraj