MBA => Mediocre But Arrogant

With the IIM results being finally announced last week just got me thinking about my own admission last year. Like a true blue MBA (even though a half baked one as yet) i like to hear myself talk. So the naive lil souls joining a MBA course would do well to read on with max concentration and those who dunn particularly like the variety (ie MBAs, justt incase u other morons didn't get it) enjoy some laughs at their expense.

These were the words that hit us, around 270 unsuspecting souls, sitting starry-eyed, straining our ears to hang onto every word of what was being said in the orientation programme. This was the opening slide of Rocky's talk. Now Rocky belongs to the rarest of rare species. Profs loved by students, by most atleast and one of those genuinely good teachers.

Before that Dean Academic had in a rather stern voice and grim manner of long time employee of a funeral parlour, told us about the rigour and challenges that the PGP programme at one of India's leading educational institution throws at nincompoops like us. She might as well have been one of Berite's aunts, looking like one who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin (to complete the picture for you). Then there was the Placement Chairman along with 7 of the finest students of the senior batch (Pcom as they are known, more on that in some other post), who reassured us that we will have good placements and they would need our cooperation in that. (I know i'll ahev good placements, but tell mewhere would i be heading to, the trading floors on Wall Street or consulting fortune 500 clients in Tokoyo or London)

Well, now that i am in Placecom and know the system, those were wise words. Infact next year am already dreading that i will have to stand while he speaks infront of the fucchas. But i do find it a bit weird that one of the first speakers you listen to in a new college is the Placement Chairman!!

Anyhow, getting back to the originally point....Rocky told us the right things what every MBA grad needs to hear and remember.

- Use the tremendous resources and infrastructure usefully
- Study hard but equally work on self development
- Utilise your time in a worhtwhile manner
But most importantly,
- Never take your self too seriously (we MBAs are given to such a tendency)

This is ofcourse not his original term. It is the title of a book by Abhijit Bhaduri about his life in XLRI. Haven't read the book so can't comment but heard its decent.

Teachers like Rocky are as rare as a good fielding Indian side. In our regular huffing and and pretending to have a busy life we often forget to appreciate them. As one of my collegues wrote in the feedback form at the end of his course, "The trip to helL was made worth it."