Of MidTerms, Bad scores and Campouts! September 28, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 7 commentsI know I have not been good at blogging this time around but have been working around to get some interesting stuff for you readers! Hope you all will like it… I shall try my best to put up something ‘good’ in the near future.. but ‘near’ is a relative word coming from a B-Schooler! LOL!!
MidTerms got over and before that sank into our systems, we had to deal with the exam timetable for the Final Exam! LOL! Haha, and the next day, You get the Orientation Meeting for the Term 2. Yohoo.. Arent you enjoying this ride! ^0^ Anyways, I realized that I am not in that ’smart’ bracket of people though I have worked hard, so that means a lot more focussed work in the near future! It is difficult to ace a paper when everybody in class is doing so well too! Now, that silent person who sat in the last and never said a word - he got the MAX score, can you beat that! Nah, I am just kidding but if it really happens then, I wont be surprised! In a team kind of school like at Fuqua, it is very difficult to be in a class and not be loud enough! The atmosphere sure helps you to come out with your opinions and thoughts 
Thats the selling part.. 
Most of the Indians who are not used to the Locker system, its fun to watch. Your Exam result gets posted online and your answer sheet is put in your lockers. You cant say which happens earlier, so each time you walk up to the locker, you dont know what you will find in there!! I will talk about the pros & cons of these lockers at some other time when I am in a much relaxed mood! And you can see some sad, pulled down faces around the mallway when the results are found on the mallway! Some ‘great aliens’ who max the scores, well, you dont see them grinning but they look relaxed and they dont walk around asking for scores! So you know whos who when you just stand in the mallway looking at people come out of their locker cubicle! LOL!
Campout! I am not the right person to talk about it. I am not qualified enough to talk about this but I will see if I can make sense. Any Fuqua grad reading this - Pl let me know if I am totally wrong! You are welcome to leave a comment, else just ping me offline! Okai, we have a tradition which is really really HOT for all the Dukies. Its the Campout! I was not part of it but I was there for a while and thought it was crazy and fun!
Story behind - Duke Basketball is great to watch and its exhilarating for Basketball fans! So, getting tickets while having fun is like double lottery, right!? So, there is the campout. One day is picked as the campout kick-start day which was Friday 7 pm. So all the students from Duke - undergrads, grads, MBAs what not.. will just assemble in this huge ground and tent up in RVs or some kind of temporary set-ups! They need to hang in there for 36 hrs and have fun! Get anything u want- music, food, games! Sounds easy right.. nows the catch.. You arent getting any sleep for the next 36 hrs! LOL! How do the coordinators manage to get this - well, there is a whistle system.. which can happen during anytime in a gap of 1-2 hrs.As soon as you hear the whistle, you gotto go and give your names at one particular point! You cannot miss more than 1 whistle! Or you are out - in the sense, you can stay back and have fun but ur name wont be qualified for the lottery of FREE Basketball tickets! Most of the people who make it thro the campout, usually get the ticks as the no. of qualifiers keep dropping during the 36 hr period! Many of my friends who were in this were not there just for the tickets but for the thrill of doing something like this! Something outrightly zazzzzzy!!
Yeah, I was the wet blanket.. didnt make it to the campout but still had fun on one of the evenings. Just went in, danced a lot and came back home whereas my sleep deprived friends surely hated me that min for having fun & getting sleep!! Me without sleep is like a glutton going on a diet.. Sorry, bad comparison! LOL, one more thing, Campout ended on Sunday morning and our section had a Stats quiz on Monday morning.. LOL!! 
Hehe!
Mid Terms here! September 17, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 7 commentsLOL! I know, its just down right crazy! Didnt I just start classes a coupla weeks back?! Ouch! Welcome to Business School! Actually, here we have 6 week terms and at the end of 3rd week, we have the Mid-term. But I am liking it.. studying for endless hours without a damn idea about whats happenning in the world… even if the Hurricane passes my door, I would not notice it! BTW, I am safe.. I guess the Coastal areas of NC have had the Hurricane!
On last wednesday, we had a number of black suits & leather cases around the Mallway! It was the Investment Banking - Symposium. Had all the biggies coming in. A symposium is basically a showcase where you get to see what the real-world job looks like. You have people coming in and talking about their day-to-day work! Its interesting if you are really passionate about that field! The General Management Symposium was something on my lines! We still havent had the Consulting guys come in. Phew, yeah, the official recruitment season has started for the First Years for internships. We are having number of companies coming in which was kick-started by Morgan Stanley. I wanted to know what was behind these black suits and briefcases, so managed to book a spot in their SIP. I could count the number of hopeful & enthu faces in the audience… people sure are BIG about IB! All I can say, though, is its not really my kind of work!
Every Friday, we have Fuqua Friday where we get free food and drinks. Its good to hang out as its a relief to welcome the weekend after a tough week! Esp this one as Mid-Terms from Monday! Today, the Fuqua Friday had a twist - it was the Casino Night! Yeah, a mini-LAS VEGAS at Durham! But we really didnt have too many people as all the first years are hiding behind the books.. me included! Haha!
Okai, am so tired now.. gotto end another long day…
Hustle and bustle… September 10, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 7 commentsmakes you wonder where you are heading! I have been into 2 weeks of actual classes and am already done with 2 quizzes. I really wish I could put up an intellectual write-up about how the courses & profs are but I just cant becoz, I find it romantic to sound intellectual! Ah.. my friend uRmad is brilliant with this kind of stuff.
Been out of the study mode for so long (well, keeping aside my perennial unsuccessful war with the GMAT!) that I have to really try hard to stay up or wake up early. With age catching up fast, man, I just cant go on a 4-hr sleep mode for more than 2 days. I need atleast 5-6 hrs to kick start my pea-sized brain & keep it running all day long! Haha, guess that gives u an idea of how I am faring at the school. I have ‘Probability’ - this thing just gets to me.. its like the monkey that will never get off your back! I am working real hard on that! We have 4 courses - Managerial Effectiveness, Stats & Probability, Micro Economics and Computer Skills. The first one is a totally different league together.. I am still figuring it out what it is all about, so just stay with me!
One thing for sure, I am lovin’ the Eco, it is really so awesome. Its fine as long as I am not tested.. its great to shoot all sorts of weird questions in this class. Frankly, this is the only class, I guess which I will be happy to do the pre-assignments! LOL! And coming to the innocuous looking Computer Skills. I thought I am just gonna walk through this course with eyes closed! Ah, theres so much you can do with that Word and Excel! Phew, I have this renewed respect for these Microsoft guys! ::-)
Do grades really matters in a B-school considering that you are not hired by the companies only on your grades? The answer is - “It depends” (Haha, we were just discussing yesterday, how everything in a B-School has this answer as “It depends!”). But if you are someone like me, who doesnt want to land up in the bottom half the class, then you need to work hard. I am not one of those nerdy people who will ace all the courses, I am not that smart enough & I need to work hard to reach up to some of my classmates who are ‘born’ fab! I am not scared to work hard and lose my sleep over the tough parts. But I will be damned if I dont see results after working so hard!
And then, I went ahead and signed up for so many clubs that people sure thought I am weird! Anyone who knows me personally can vouch for me as the one who streches myself so much that at the end of each day, I can say - ‘I deserve that damn snooze!’ But out here, I need to play my cards well. There is so much to do and if you end up in all, you will not be able to contribute to some or all of it! Now, did I maketh sense there!?
We have some awesome people who do our resume reviews and you come out of these sessions saying, ‘Oooh, Am I really that good?’ But yes, its so true that every company who goes thro the Resume book or my Resume alone wont spare more than 20 secs to make a decision whether they call me for the interview! So, you better keep aside that ‘the’ and ‘a’s out of this 1-page concise CV. I have got some work on that, we have Fuqua releasing the Resume Book of the Class of ‘07 in another 2 weeks. We have companies coming in from the next week - for their small presentations called ‘Special Interest Presentation’ or SIP to give us a bird-view of what they are! This is a very formal event and if you interested in one field, say, General Management, its better you dont miss out on an GM companies’ SIP!
Ok, too much gyan transfer for today. More later.