Day One Impressions

Today has been a red-letter day: I officially started my management education at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. As I was walking into the auditorium for our introductory session, a sense of fulfillment overcame me as I gazed at the black-and-white picture gallery staring back at me. It projected a vision architected in an India so non-receptive to change, and showed oomphs of inspiration, courage and dedication!

The start of the induction itself was very poignant. Mr Barua, the current Director, walked us through the history of the institute. I was reminded again of how much I love history; it's a matter of pride to be associated to this institute for a lifetime. At that moment, any complains about a hint of bureaucracy experienced by many of us paled into insignificance. The faculty demanded and deserved the respect for their knowledge and belief. It will be interesting to see how our interactive sessions pan out.

I am intrigued by the philosophy of the education that we are about to get though. The stress is so much on making our lives difficult; every faculty member was referring to the experience as "the grind". Any suggestions of student involvement in extra-curricular activity was mildly interjected with this reference. This is in contrast to my interactions with various US b-school students about their experiences. But then Indians always have been driven by "an aggressive quest for knowledge", and the world does recognize that as to our advantage.

Another awe-inspiring experience is diversity of my class' work-experience. Though technology professionals do form a sizable number, I am pleasantly surprised that it constituted less than forty percent of the class. All the while, this thought of lack of diversity has had been a dampener. Now I am really happy with the current profile of my batch. I think I will have a great learning experience and am excited about participating in this diversity of thought process, which was so evident on the first day itself.

Now the key goal is to extract learnings from this experience and derive my life's philosophy. Another immediate goal is to organize our group learning process. I will describe the dynamics of study groups in a subsequent post. Till then... adios!