SIMSR Highlights - Induction to Midterms

The Swine Flu pandemic has caused quite a bit of alarm in Pune and Mumbai. It's freaky when you walk out on the roads and see half the people wearing surgical masks. Most public and private institutions have decided to close down for a week or two (how is that supposed to help?). SIMSR followed suit on 12 Aug and announced that it will be closed till 18 Aug. I caught a bus back to Hyderabad that evening itself, and reached the following day.

I noticed it's been more than two months since my last post, so here are some highlights from the recent past —

"The Big Debate" - UTVi Business News [29 Jun]

UTVi in association with CII-Yi organised a Pre-Budget Debate on 29 June at the National Centre Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai. The objective of the event was to chalk out a plan for the Indian Government to achieve a 10% growth target (more details about the event here). SIMSR was one of the several B-Schools invited to be part of the studio audience and participate in the discussion with eminent people from the indsutry.

The show was aired on 1 July (8pm-9pm), and since I happened to be sitting right in the front row, I got my bit of fame on national television. This I know because of the random "Hey, I saw you on TV!" calls from friends. I couldn't watch the programme myself as UTVi is not in the list of TV channels our college subscribes to. Damn!

Karthik's Engagement [2 Jul]

I almost forgot to mention this because the whole thing happened so fast! My brother Karthik got engaged on 2 July (congrats Karthik!). His site says "More information on that front will be revealed in due time", so I'll leave it at that here.

Impressions '09 [6-18 Jul]

Impressions was the culmination of a 2-week long induction process by our seniors. The first week was the 'serious' week, where we were given assignments related to areas of our interest. I was interested in doing something related to Branding, so I was asked to come up with ideas for the relaunch of Voices (a newspaper that is circulated to all the 32 Somaiya colleges) as an e-Newspaper.

The second week was the 'fun' week, where the entire batch was split up into groups and assigned to random events. I, unfortunately, was alloted the Group Dance event "Crazy Feet". So yeah, as incredible as it might sound, I actually danced on stage for the first time in my life! And surprisingly, people said I danced well. Apparently I even broke my 'intellectual' image (which I didn't know I had in the first place) at college after that performance. Not bad, eh?

Birthday Bash [20 Jul]

20 July was my birthday, and what fun I had! First there was the midnight celebrations in the Boys Hostel which went on till around 2am, and then later that afternoon there were celebrations with the entire class in the hostel mess.

A big thanks to everyone who called and wished, especially all you US folks! I know how irritating it is to get those calls connected.

Life at SIMSR

PPT is the way of life! You need a PPT for literally everything. If you're doing a book review, make a PPT. If you're doing a Statistics case study, make a PPT. If you're giving the Marketing news roundup of the week, make a PPT. Heck I even had to make a PPT on myself for one of the committee interviews I attended!

Faculty aren't mindblowingly great or anything, but they're good. Classes are fun, especially Operations Management. Our text books are pretty cool too — after all, it's not too often that you get to see stuff like the Rorschach Inkblot Test (from my favourite graphic novel) being mentioned in a Post Graduate text book!

We are locked down in our hostel by 10:30pm, and you're not allowed to go out after that. So much for treating us like adults.

Our room (215) is the Flip capital of SIMSR. Poor souls who enter our room invariably get flipped (as in lifted upside down) by our very own resident Hulk a.k.a. Anand, till their face becomes red with all the blood gushing downwards!

CS is an addiction. I've lost count of the number of "join cs" messages I get on IP Messenger everyday. On exam days the "join cs" messages are usually replaced with more polite, almost pleading messages like "anyone for cs... please..." and such. I have never played CS, so I wouldn't know if the game really is that addictive.


That's about all for now. Hopefully I'll catch a movie or something over the weekend before I go back to Mumbai (I leave on 17th), because a hectic schedule awaits once I get back!