A lot has been said and written about the exciting academic life at a b-school. However, the hostel life is equally exciting. Every day in your hostel is interspersed with many to be/ not to be moments. This article would unfold few such moments that happen in course of a typical day in hostel life.

Early morning

 

The first to be/not to be moment that greets early in the morning is the wake-up moment. Every b-school has its own criteria for minimum attendance which allows for a limited number of bunks for every subject. Also, you never know when a Professor feels like taking a surprise quiz. Nights that extend till 3-4 AM make it a herculean task to wake up within few hours of going into sleep. At the same time, bunking a class would potentially bring down your grade owing to attendance shortage or missing a quiz. During the first few months, the decision usually swings towards attending the class and by the end of first year, we get accustomed to snoozing the alarm indefinitely.

Morning

The next and the most difficult one is the breakfast/bath moment. The continuum of choices ranges from taking both to taking neither. If your permutations class has told there are 4 (2x2) ways of doing this, you are wrong. There are many intermediate choices and you realise it only after you come to a b-school that taking half breakfast and half bath is also one of the exercisable options. This option is exercised by those who do not have time but feel a moral obligation as they contribute towards communal hygiene of future managers and CEO’s. The percentage of people exercising each option on the continuum depends on where your b-school is located at. Students studying in North take excuse in cold climate and feel it is more OK for them skip bath than it is for their counterparts in South. But the fact is you spend so much time pondering over the question that you can actually finish both in that time.

Evening

 

This is one of the most encountered moments, especially for someone who worked for a couple of years before joining the b-school. The 6-pack resolutions and fitness targets are the main cause behind this moment: The gym moment. A rare breed of fitness freaks manage to squeeze some time for a work out or jog.  But for most others thoughts oscillate between hitting gym and utilizing the same leisure time to have a quick nap. For a good part of first year, this oscillation usually ends up in the latter. But towards the end of first year and again during the last few days of second year, the gym and various other sports facilities are usually crowded with all such people who have been postponing their fitness plans.  

Night

 

If you measure the productivity of every activity, academic and non-academic combined, the one that ranks the least is project discussion. You discuss everything except project in those project discussion meetings. And there is a to be/not to be moment involved in this too. Some of your teammates want the discussion to happen in hostel as you can have it at your convenient time. There is at least one person in each group who wants it to happen at a reading room or academic block. He is a perfectionist; he doesn’t want his teammates getting disturbed with non-project affairs in hostel. It is not that the team does not get disturbed in classroom, but he just hopes so; more often in vain.

Mid-night

 

Late night birthday parties, which you used to look forward to back home, will now become an unpleasant obligation, though not in case of your close friends. Usually the cake cutting happens at 12 midnights and that is the time when your concentration levels are at peak. Our professor once humoured that he can have full attendance in his class if he keeps it between 12 to 2 midnight. Because, no one sleeps at that time. At this time of the night (though we call it an extended day), you don’t want to miss studying your favourite subject for a birthday party which usually lasts for long. Sometimes, you are obliged to take part in after-party cleaning activities which take up some more academically-productive time of yours. -- Sasi Kanth Sasi Kanth Pingali is a PGPM  student at MDI-Gurgaon. Previously, he worked as Sr. Business Analyst in one of the world’s largest pure play analytics companies. His interests are Analytics, Consulting & Marketing. He is a foodie, loves traveling and blogs at http://saladthoughts.wordpress.com/ His recent article comparing some IPL teams to Political parties. Follow Sasikanth on sasi.insideiim.com