Blogger gets mocked!
Caution: This entry would is longer than usual given that you haven’t heard from me for a long time.
I started the quarter in midst of moving apartments, giving me another reason for not keeping up with the readings – my books were packed in cartons. This quarter is different with four courses against the usual five we’ve had in the past three. By now, you’ve known Rotman enough to resist thinking of lesser courses easing the workload. The quarter has a lot of team work in store and different modes of learning. Unlike always – I welcome this change. We were made to read two novels at the start of the quarter (no M&Bs!), which I’d say were one of the best reads of my life (haven’t read more than a handful anyway). Class discussions are often based on these two readings: “The Goal”, and “Into Thin Air”. Operations management has an online simulation in which we run a plant for four simulated months, making decisions on equipment, inventory, operational flows etc. It being graded, takes away some of my experimenting spirits. Another notable change is one course, Global Managerial Perspectives, being taught by three professors (recall a course meets only 12 times). Talk of student to faculty ratios in those B-School rankings … boy, Rotman rocks !!
These last days of the first year have also seen me make a paradigm shift from a grade hunting to knowledge-seeking approach (actually I gave up!) towards the program. This has helped me make my take-aways less measurable as knowledge isn’t tested on exams – exam-taking skills are. Just helps me lead a better life, thinking of concepts on my recliner (prolonged thinking with eyes closed … zzz!). I’ve also started trusting the faculty to an extent that I bought all the required textbooks and then returned all but one. Let’s do things differently this time.
Another comforting factor is the strong study groups I have landed in this quarter. In fact our first deliverable, the managerial accounting project, was so smoothly executed that we fear banking a bit too much on the group’s strength and not thrashing the case to the extent we should have. What scares me is that my bright(er) team-mates are willing to listen to me, asking for my opinion – guys, learn to cut the crap !!
The best thing that happened to me was the Rotman Ski-day. Thanks to Klein, our then class sports rep, quite many of us hit the Collingwood mountain slopes on a Wednesday morning. Having put on the skis for the first time in this life, I did pretty well by the end of that day. Only that Klein wasn’t there to see me make four summersaults on a steep run, with the skis flying in opposite direction. Other than some blues on my legs, I’ve been in single piece.
Another highlight of this quarter is the mentorship program we’d enter into, as we approach the second year. We’d be connected to eminent industry professionals in a mentor-mentee relationship. Nothing’s a cake-walk here so you wade through a selection process for this too. I sometimes wonder, how skeptical the Rotman adcom was in admitting me – they haven’t trusted my abilities yet (do I ???). The interviews are scheduled for next week and history tells me that the moment you give even a tad shorter than your 100% into anything in this program, you lose your seat. It’s just that people around you are so good.
To explain the title of this entry, the Rotman Talent Night saw me get shredded on stage for a long-enough 15 minutes. Some of the “stronger personalities” at school presented a skit, mocking some of the not-so-strong-personalities around. One of those guys played me (Romit Malhotra), and did his job well to make people laugh. (Un)fortunately, I wasn’t present to see the much talked-of event. My peers were kind to tell me the next morning that I was pretty much a celebrity the last night. These smooth talking MBAs !! All I had to tell them was that had the organizers approached my wife in advance with the agenda, she'd have even financed the entire event to see it happen. I’m trying to locate the script to find what exactly was said – it’d be good fun. However, in hindsight, I prefer being infamous to being unknown … |
