Spirits were high and so were the emotions on 3rd March 2017. Never could have a vacation been as welcoming as the one that laid ahead of us. While getting away from the magnificent IIMU campus and it’s energetic world for a while was not something desirable, the blissful feeling of not having to wake up at 8 AM to the sounds of an angry and monstrous alarm clock, to rush to the mess and finish our breakfast within 5 minutes, to make a run for the classroom from the hostel premises to the academic block just to make it in time and to sit in the classroom with bleary eyes, making every effort to stay attentive was more than enough to take that step out of the campus premises for a while! A flashback on the last two months would certainly reveal a lot about the life of a PGPX student at IIM Udaipur.
The initial two months at IIMU were a perfect conglomeration of knowledge, pleasant as well as unpleasant surprises, teamwork, fun-filled parties and last but not the least, discipline. When a battalion of 21 professionals armed with myriad industrial skills first walked inside the campus premises on the 2nd Jan 2017, little did anyone knew what lay ahead. The serenity of the campus was certainly misleading. It all started off with the lecture sessions by some of the best faculty members in the country. The inherent quality of these professors and their adeptness at generating interest in the subject matter through real life business situations was enough to provide us with a thorough knowledge of all the subjects related to business. In short, little did we know what ‘we didn’t know!’ before joining this course.
‘Life would have been so much easier without exams and tests!’
The initial few days of an easy going lifestyle (despite the early morning chores and the late night group studies) was short-lived. We’d hardly finished the first few chapters of the courses outlined for the first term when the professors announced the dates for quizzes and the deadlines for assignments! We tried to convince ourselves by saying that it will be alright and that examinations are a part and parcel of every academic course. We also reassured ourselves that it would be just another exam such as the ones we’ve appeared for since the good old school days! Oh, we were so wrong!
‘It’s going to be an open book test! Get your notes, case booklets, textbooks and everything else you can! This is a test of how much you’ve learnt over the last 2 months…Enjoy preparing for the test and answering the questions!!’
A deadly silence followed as the professor uttered those words, wished us good luck and walked out of the class. What was that all about? Why was the professor so generous to have allowed us with this flexibility? Something seemed fishy about it and it wasn’t hard to decipher what it really was when the professors greeted us with the question papers on the day of the exam! A really analytical paper that was meant to test our conceptual skills was presented before our eyes. A set of 5 questions and that was it…Not that bad, is it? Without cursing our luck and wasting our time any further, we started answering the questions to the best of our abilities. Long story short, everybody managed to get decent enough grades and it was finally over!
While we were busy coping with the academic rigour of the midterm, another set of activities demanded our immediate attention, the election for the various clubs and committees. The election process of these clubs provided an opportunity for the various students to showcase their skills and talents. The entire course of activities right from the nomination of the candidates to the final selection was filled with energy and zeal. Various fests organised by the students such as Prarambh and the literary fest were some additional noteworthy events that gave students from various business schools with an opportunity to showcase their management skills and talents on the big stage.
A description of the life at IIMU would be incomplete without a special mention about the parties and fun-filled events that are organised almost on a daily basis organised by the fun club of IIMU, Code Red. These events provide students with the much-needed opportunity to relax after a tough day.
The first alumni meet organised at the Balicha Campus was another event to remember. This event provided the ex-students of IIMU to walk into the new campus and relive their lives as students for a few days. The event also provided the current students of the PGP and PGPX batches to interact with the alumni members and enrich their relationships. The 2-day event organised in the month of February was certainly a memorable event.
Retrospections would reveal that the first module of PGPX 2017-18 was quite an eventful one. While we take a step back and relax over the next few days, we all are looking forward to an even more exciting and fun-filled second module! (No Pun Intended!)
- Written by Amit Sinha, PGPX Class of 2018, IIM Udaipur.
*Published on behalf of Media & Industry Interaction Cell, IIM Udaipur.