Classroom Antics Part-1

Some classroom incidences over the course of last two semesters......

Among the more practical ones was an Organisational Behaviour class, wherein I remember students of the entire class running helter skelter in the academic block, around the juice bar and Sweety stores(both on campus stores) to get together 12 specified items like Soaps, Cotton, College Brochure etc. at one place-the objective being to understand group cohesiveness and group dynamics. The aim being, whether people make a plan and run or they directly come in the action mode.

The Chief Learning officer, who teaches the subject also makes sure that she sends the person who is caught napping, to wash his/her face mid-class by publicly pointing out. My batchmate Subbu, who is among one of the people who, 6 out of 10 times is in deep slumber, was caught a couple of times by her. LAter I think even she has given up on him.

The classes brought to limelight people who have perpetually slept in class and it has many a times has been a tradition that these intellectual brains would immediately get up from their deep slumber and ask a brilliant question to the professor. One of the senior guys of the class, Gaurav has achieved some sort of mastery over this technique.

Marketing and Market research classes were one where the professor, an IIT-IIM, made the class rather interesting and addressed us as "Kindergarten students and potential CEO's', with the use of cryptic names for well known entities, some eg, being RELTOK for KOTLER, GKK for HLL and also some acronyms like UBTC- Under The Breath Comment for which I had been jokingly accussed quite a few times.

The class also makes me stretch my memory to the one wherein I learnt concepts of segmentation, targeting and postitiong. The professor really gets excited teaching such fundoo topics---and I distinctly remember his lines-"the market leader will never segment the market, it is the no 2 or the challenger who will try to segment the market."

Also the classes of the subject-government and social influences, reminds me of the presentation that one of the grps made using photos of mates from my class(included me too) to explain on what topics they were talking abt. As in..They showed pics of "marus from calcutta" of the class, to explain how this particular community had migrated to this city.

Some of the class presentations were really the ones, we in class waited for, as in for one of my friends Sriram, who perpetually has the habit of using the F word, as in WTF! The way he carries himself in front of the class during ppts, made everyone in class forget everything else. People use to rise from deep slumbers, introspection and all other modes to listen to what he had to say, since people were sure of some funny incidences or lines to happen.

Among the people who sleep in class, Subbu(who shares the name with the director too) tops the charts. Afternoon Sales and Distribution classes are the time for him to catch up with some siesta. He has a knack in this too, the strategy being, get hold of one of the seats in the last three rows, make sure he has his laptop so that he can nicely position himself behind it after opening the screen fully. This made sure that he does not have a line of sight with the professor. The professor though was one step ahead, after sometime he would point out this saying "Subbu has nicely gone away to sleep"

The professor though has given up on him and the other day while giving instructions for Viva exams for Market Resarch made sure he tells Subbu to not fall asleep while he asks him questions in the Viva, since he would not repeat it for him.

These are nothing, the moment that took the toast was when The elder Subbu(aka the director) caught the "chota subbu" napping in the third row during a guest lecture on rural marketing. During the break the guy really had it from the director and became the laughing stock for the entire batch present there......with our director asking him sarcastically If he even knows the Spelling of Dabur (The company where he is going for Summers!!).

Technically speaking,Classroom sleep hangover is normally on account of sleeping late nights after some assignments,presentation preparation or may be even after a late night movie on the laptop.

To be continued....
Next a take on the "Class Participation record makers"

~My Mumbai Winter Days~

Bombay- The land of dreams, the city that seldom sleeps, the city of the Gavaskars, Tendulkars, Manjrekars etc...that is where I was based for my Winter project with South African Breweries Ltd, a.k.a SABMiller Ltd. (Makers of Castle Lager, Haywards 2000 & 5000, Knock out and Royal Challenge)

Travelling was a dominant component of the Project to retail outlets across the suburbs..my area covered Bandra to Andheri, which included Khar Road, Santacruz, Juhu and Vile Parle. I must admit that the public transport system in the city is really commendable and definitely needs accolades.

Travelling in local trains at peak hours and reaching newer places in some time span was a challenge in itself apart from the task of meeting retailers and culling out all the information that I need from them.

The weekends though were spent in Pune, on campus giving the weekend FCQ, i.e. the quizzes, which though are surprises in terms of subjects but are predicted with Six Sigma accuracy by my batchmates out here. Rarely has the prediction gone wrong on the subjects that appear and I really pity those Professors, who are constantly bugged by us to know whether they have submitted the test papers to the exam department for the weekend.

In the midst of all this, one more Valentine's day went by, seldom making a difference to singles like me. I also caught up with Ashish (my ex-room mate and close buddy during my Torrent working days in Ahmedabad) at Andheri. I am really happy for him, since he has come out with flying colours, infact topped at from Shipping Corporation Of India, Cochin and will soon board the Ship for his first 9 months on sea.

The hectic schedule and travelling in Bombay made sure that the one fondest thing I do after reaching back at my cousins place is to eat well and then catch up with sleep. Inspite of this, I somehow managed time to get online and get to my favourite addiction PaGalGuY.com and the latest rage amongst the batch~~orkut.com.

PaGalGuY.com is a passion with me now and It really feels satisfying after I started off with a genuine urge in me to pass on the right information to MBA aspirants.

I was pleasantly surprised and taken Back when our Market Research and Marketing faculty, Mr. Prantosh Banerjee, referred to moi in class as being online on PG a lot and giving Gyaan to people.

Well, but jokes and fun apart am really glad how PG.com has come abt and how scmhrd aspirants were at ease this year. My batchmates all put in their best and the admissions process went on very well at all the GD/PI centres, the reviews on PG, said it all.

All said and done, as far as myself am concerned, am adjusting back to the campus life after travelling the length and breadth of Mumbai, having seen life at Pali hill and also at Dharavi Chawls.

The kind of experience that the project generated was unparalled with respect to the kind of buying and selling taking place across different segments. To hear and read is another thing, but being there in person when all this happens is an all together different experience.

With mid term exams declared for the weekend within a notice of 3 days, I am the only one writing a Blog at this time, others if not studying are atleast catching up on something important, i.e Sleep.

Cheers!!