Finance in tough times

Financial Management 1- what a hell.........

I agree that the financial situation is bad and there is a dearth of good jobs in the finance sector. But does this mean that we the students should be discouraged from taking it up as a major by our very own professors. What else can explain the exam that i gave today.

How do u answer when u do not even understand the questions properly. Wasting a whole night studying for the exam when I could have had a sweet sleep, and this is the reward. Seriously after my Organization Behavior II exam, that was chill, I am contemplating choosing HR as a specialization. At least then I will be able to fire the guys who will still take up finance and make them realize their mistake

I will have my revenge!!!!!

P.S.- the image above doesn't depict my state but rather wud hv been a good description of my prof on seeing what all crap i had used (truly new methods more potent than ur Mortgage backed securities), had he not been follicly challenged.... 

Exam Update

Well two days have gone by and i have given 4 out of the 7 exams. However this is the first time the exams have been so vague. It started on a very bright note with the first exam being an easy one and also the one that i could complete well within the alloted time after my mid term fiasco.

i hoped things would be better this time but alas!!!!

The next three were absolutely horrible. Operations Management a subject that could have been a lot easier with some good problems but was made a hell by questions which required making some arbit assumptions which would differ between each individual. Can't imagine how will the papers be evaluated... Hope not like the mid term when nothing was even read and marks were alloted randomly...

The second was Macroeconomics. Well when the fundas of even microeco are not clear what can u expect from macro. Spent the whole night preparing for the exam and still the questions left me with a worry about what were the expected answers as the questions lacked proper clarity. And given our instructor who is more confusing than anything and we don't ask our doubts coz she assumes we are trying to ridicule her what can i expect.

And the worst part was Business ethics. Given 4 questions worth 20 marks each how can someone expect so much gassing. When u can easily answer a question in half a page why just repeat ur main ideas and points coz the question is worth a lot more marks. And asking theory in an exam for which everyone has studied for less than 2 hrs (that too is a max, average would be a lot less) what can one write.

Surely MBA involves u trying to convince others about your skills and knowledge by gassing around but this is just not it. You cannot write essays on simple points or make new macroeconomic theories to explain ur way of thinking. Serious revision is required in the exam patterns........

Don't know how will i manage my last three but hope persists for its a trip back home after that. Nothing matters in comparison. Looking forward to Delhi's winters- quilts and hot coffee 

Exam Time

Well its that time of the year again when u celebrate the year going by and anxiously await the New Year. Singing carols on Christmas (well am not a Christian but an atheist, but still do hope for unexpected gifts to be showered on me), enjoying time with friends and family.

Duh! that is still weeks away, its the exam season now. No family here and everyone busy deep down in books trying to scrape through and survive. Sleep is forgotten with more than half the book still waiting  to be perused. Hot coffee is your best mate helping u survive the ordeal but nothing works on the doomsdays. With no idea why a particular question was asked, and more importantly what to write ..........

The only satisfaction received from giving the exams is that you will have holidays to enjoy after the ordeal. time to go home. meet ur family. friends. gud food. no studies.  full enjoyment....

That is the hope we look forward for while sitting in the exams. The results may be good or bad (usually bad) but when u hv such a lovely hope in ur mind can one ever care????

How to think of exams as nothing but a hurdle in your path... (well one difference is hurdles block ur way but exams don't - but how to convince ur mind????) 

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi II

Well finally saw it. Not too great a print or sound quality but what the heck it stars King Khan and i could not miss it. A totally different story-line, which was highly unrealistic, but then nearly all movies are unrealistic. How could a man who on one hand has behaved like a typical ghissu person, suddenly reinvents himself( or in fancy terms gets a makeover) and behaves in a manner totally unexpected of him.

But I am highly biased and due to the dearth of good movies in recent times would give it a thumbs up. The story has its funny moments and Adi' s obsession with Raj and the joke out of it were totally hilarious. Also the songs are good esp. Haule Haule.... And just like all his recent movies this one too has an guest song of sorts with 5 beautiful ladies dancing to some old classics which have been sung on an altogether different note. But all in all it is a romantic movie with its moments but is in no way a tearjerker.

2 dialogs that i liked and relate with the previous posts and my life:

1. what women really want - Someone who loves them more than anything else.

2. one does not love with the expectations of love in return.

Business Ethics

Business ethics - A subject taught in a few of the B schools hoping that the new age managers would develop into ethical human beings and introduce or be a part of the change to bring business to the levels of a respectable profession. 

But aren't they forgetting that the goal of a business is to make profit. And ethics is not something that is well defined but is just the views of a person or the society as such, which are not absolute. Therefore the introduction of such a highly confusing aspect in which one cannot really separate the right from the wrong seems meaningless. Although one thing that it does is open one's mind to the various possibilities to consider for one's actions.

Here i present a few of the contradictions:

1. Whom does a firm care about the most in terms of its stakeholders?

2. Do u outsource to a country with cheap labour or is it exploitation of labour as the wages are a lot less than in your own country? what are your obligations for your own employees whom u fire?

3. Does privacy matter or company security?

4. What is CSR? How do u account for it in the balance sheets? 

And more importantly if CSR benefits the company too why is it lauded by the govt. when all that the company is doing is increasing its profits.

These and many more dilemmas exist but how do you choose? In absence of clear laws governing the country (laws are unfortunately more ambiguous coz loopholes always exist) how does one exactly decide what to do??? No clear answer exists and it is more of a damage control exercise....... 

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

KAASH!!!!!!

Kaash main bhi yeh keh pata. But alas it was not meant to be. Things did not go in my favor nor did i perceive it to be such. But that is destiny.

Continuing on my previous posts i would like to talk about love. What is it exactly?? No one who has felt it can define it, nor can one who has never had the feeling describe it or dismiss it as just another fad (the grapes are sour, remember it). May be its the same thing in my case. Having had a, what can i say, a not the perfect love life that i wanted or rather wished, i too have the feeling that the same is just a fixation one has to show oneself to be uber cool.

well isn't it just a fad to just show off that u hv smone who cares about u but does she/he (making a general statement, in my case it wud be a she) and vice versa but it is just something that takes ur mind off the bigger picture of life i.e. to do something of your own, to be someone, rather than waste your time worrying about facts that are of little or no concern to you. Wasting your time on mindless things when more important things exist in your life (again many wud disagree with me saying that love is more important than the other things and my eyes are clouded by the worldly affairs, whereas and i am missing on the finer aspects of life but i differ from their opinion as what matters is your contribution to the society or the world, and love has little consequence to one's real role in life.

But again things may be different and i would be on the other side of the river had things been different. Had i been a little more courageous to describe my feelings a little earlier i would not have regretted as to what the outcome was and my views would have been totally different.

Well now hitting tangentially to all that i have said above i can't wait to see Rab NE Bana De Jodi, the combo of King SRK and Adi after 8 long years. With only a few gud movies being released in this tough year for bollywood (when will directors learn that what ultimately matters is a gud script and gud acting instead of mindless item nos. and foolish stars). Also with the release of Ghaijini coinciding with my holidays back in Delhi, i hope i will be able to contribut to the film industry (not seeing both the movies instead on my mac as pirated copies).  

Crushes

Crushes are innocent feelings a one feels about the other sex (or maybe in some cases the same). i too have gone through these pleasant emotions but the incidents have been few. 

the first one was one of the most common ones, something maybe everybody experiences, a crush on your teacher. Maybe not a crush in true sense for then i did not even know what crushes are but that is what  i do remember.

A few others may have occurred and passed away which were of so little consequence that i do not even remember them. The next major one happened not as a consequence of my being infatuated by a girl but rahter by a book. The famous and lovely Harry Potter Series. The book places u in a fantasy land with u imagining urself in the shoes of the young boy wizard. and just like he comes across Cho, i too imagined someone to play her part in my dream stories. Well after the book ended and reality dawned back the feelings remained albeit for a short duration.

The latest one was rather the longest and perpetuated to a higher level known as love, but this one too was a one sided affair. The effect still lingers though for i cannot get myself to look at anyone else so long as her memories still exist. More on this may be later but wont promise anything. 

*the timings and names have been concealed for obvious reasons. 

First biking trip and a broken hand

well my first biking trip proved to me a mix of heaven and hell. from Kozhikode to Bandipur (~180 kms) it was a picturesque journey. And to add to it Kerala is almost dust free so driving with the wind blowing on ur face and no worry about dust entering ur eyes, it was absolutely great. also the timing cud not have been better, right after the mid terms so no worry about studies too, at least for a couple of days. 

Although the safari at the national park proved dissapointing with only some deers being visible, the bike journey through the park proved to be gr8 with wild tuskers and an Indian bison seen along the road without any restraining barriers separating the man and the beast.

Then we proceeded over to a day's stay in Mysore to spend an evening at a disco( planet X), my first. There was also a go karting track which unfortunately proved to be a bane. i suffered a high speed crash on the very first lap injuring my right hand but in that moment of adrenaline rush completed the race. Post race however when the pain kicked in it felt terrible. the night in the disco was a big pain, as i cud not dance nor enjoy the atmosphere. There i actually realized the futility of things (a revelation i will keep for some other post). 

the return the next day was a painful journey with my hand shrieking at every bump on the road. what i suspected to be a muscle sprain turned out to be a hairline fracture (again a first). although the plastering process was not painful but worrying images ran thru my mind as i imagined how i wud be able to manage my daily activities as well as what i wud tell my parents. 

i managed my first aspect because of the gr8 company i have at IIMK, and my new found friends at Mysore who showed me what hospitality is. and for the second aspect it still is a secret (and i request all readers to let it remain so). 

Open book exams

i came across the concept of an open book exam during my recent exams at IIMK. Although not a new concept but it was never tried by our university at undergraduate level (one reason could be that we didnt have many books or more importantly everything asked was a simple regurgitation of  the what all we mugged up).

So what makes an open book exam special. well for one it always affects the already tensed mind in a negative manner. Gosh!! its an open book therefore the paper wud be such that even the books won't help. it wud mostly be an application based paper..

well true. it mostly is but it saves one the hackles of mugging up formulas and all. but sometimes it also introduces a complacency in the mind as to why to study when u have the book open in ur hands. And to add icing to the cake we are even allowed to refer to our class notes(which although are not prepared, but can be photocopied from the toppers).

My experience with the open book concept has been great. Last term we had an open book for quantitative management and i read up how to interpret an excel ANOVA output right there in the exam hall. Also this term we had open book for accounting (we r not here to be accountants, the main focus is on learning the interpretation and so mugging up accounting entities is not required) was like heaven. with ur notes open do u even need to think how to make accounts, which side of the balance sheet a particular operation comes under??? HA u just look up an identical question and just replace the values and voila u hv answered the question. 

What to write??????

well i thought a lot about starting a blog of my own but always rejected the idea for the dearth of topics. what cud i write about???

my life- nope, i consider it too personal to lay out all that happens to me. typical life at IIM wud have been a gud idea but then again that is a topic which a lot many of my friends do write about and i feel it is a life that cannot be expressed in words and has to be experienced to cherish...

worldly affairs- well why shud i waste my time as well as urs if the things are of no direct consequence to me. this also explains my disinterest in politics.

my beliefs and feelings- why bore u with what i feel. i am a pessimist and favour dictatorship. anyone remotely interested in what i thnk abt how things shd work.  

sports- yes that cud hv been a really gud one. for i like them. unfortunately i am not good at most of them and don't believe in givin expert comments where none is needed. but i can always appreciate a gud game but u have sport sites for these stuff..

bollywood - Ahh i love movies. with all my course work i still end up watchin 6-7 movies a week. wondering !!! only one or two bollywood releases a week !!! well that's coz i watch hollywood movies too which i think are far superior to ours except for the fact that sm of them try and use such cunning plots which will put the writers of our very own 'Race' to shame.

well 5 options already exausted and still thinkin abt what can i write about. 

i think i 'll just write random stuff, but still i need smthng to write abt.......

suggestions are welcome but owners choice prevails.......