“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams”
-Oprah Winfrey
The last two weeks at IIM Trichy have certainly been an adventure while living the dream life of an IIM. Right from the first day of the orientation week till the last day and then the rigorous academic classes – it was a hell of a ride.
The orientation week was a mix of guest lectures and activities that helped us by giving us opportunities to network with the batchmates as well as will be a great learning to apply in the career of management. The guest lectures were arranged with some of the brightest and famous minds of the corporate world. The lectures, well, not lectures to be exact, the interactions with the Managing Directors, Presidents, CEOs and Sociopreneurs, gave us valuable insights about the real management career out there. The lessons on time management, leadership, corporate culture, social responsibility and the bigger purpose in life were one of a kind. It gave us a sense of direction where we should focus on to become the leader of leaders and most importantly to give back to the society.
Various sessions and workshops on case discussion pedagogy, teamwork and simulation activities came in really handy to understand the various aspects of the challenges that one might face in a B-school as well as in the management career beyond. The special mention, certainly, would be the outbound activities that were organized by the institute. The highlight was rappelling where many of us fought our fear of heights and together, with encouragement and motivation, each one of us successfully climbed down the buildings. Now, which management college would let their incoming batch students climb down their hostel buildings with nothing but a few ropes? That’s right, it all happened at IIM-Trichy!
The other activities involved intense teamwork which will certainly be a part of everyday life of upcoming managers. And rightly so, all the interactions with the guests, networking with the batchmates and the concepts during simulation activities, helped up sail through our first week in an IIM.
Generally, it takes a lot of effort and pain to transition from a life outside a b-school to the life inside the b-school due to the quantity as well as the quality of workload. But it didn’t seem so tough to us anymore. We had become a family by the time the rigour started. Though, no sense in denying the fact that all of us were really drowsy at some point of our academic lectures but we helped each other out. That’s where the diversity factor kicked in. All of us had a lot to learn from each other, we still do, we helped each other out with our diverse experiences.
I joined IIM Trichy with just one purpose in mind – to sit in one of those world-class classrooms and gather all the knowledge from the reputed faculties. But IIM-Trichy has a lot more to offer than just that. The peer learning, the competitions, the international exposure, the sports activities, the chance to participate and help clubs and committees grow along with the freedom to pursue one’s own interests– all these I am not sure I would have got in any other well-established institute.
I am living a dream through the adventures that this institute has to offer, it’s certainly not the one I wanted, it’s even better than that.
Which ABG company would you want to work for and why?
If I get a chance, I would like to work for Pantaloons. I have always envisioned myself being in an FMCG sector while handling strategy and finance. Pantaloons is a very popular brand and working there with the team that has made the brand such that it gives tough competition to its foreign MNC counterparts would be a great learning experience. Also, in such a big corporate, the structure and work are quite systematic and it will give me, being a fresher, a solid foundation to build upon. So, yes, that’s why I would work for Pantaloons.
This article is written by Smriti Khare- Class of 2020