They say every story inside an IIM is a success story. Truly so. Here is the story of Ritesh Agarwal. Ritesh is currently a PGP1 student of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. I know Ritesh from the very early days in this course.
29th June’18, my first day in this jaw-dropping beautiful campus of IIM Indore. I will not be exaggerating when I say this has been a dream and still is. For this first time in a long time, I finally felt this is where I belong. The struggle has been hard and real. (Pro tip: A degree in Computer Science and Engineering and working in an IT mammoth is not is everyone’s cup of tea.) Elated, I entered the premises, very confident about my abilities and proud of the fact that I have finally proved myself. I was on cloud nine. But little did I realise that so were 559 other people.
It is no understatement to say that getting a PPO or not does influence one’s second year on campus to a large extent. Whether the PPO is one that you will accept is quite often beside the point. If not your preferred career choice, it does certainly provide you with a strong bargaining chip during placements. Let’s see how life after a PPO pans out on campus for most of us.
If ambition and passion were two Venn diagrams, a popular notion is that in a B-School, the two never intersect. So when you convert a call, you hear a myriad of “Congratulations!”, albeit with a clause. This clause hints at you having to put aside your hobbies; your passion, and dedicate all of your existence to your B-School in the most celibate fashion.
After all the tough times, sleepless nights solving the multiple aptitude books and mocks, memorising and revising the vocabulary and formula, clearing CAT or XAT or the numerous other entrance exams and then clearing those nerve-wracking GDs and interview. Finally, you make it to the B-School of your dreams!
Dr. R. Sesha Iyer, Faculty at SPJIMR Mumbai, was recently voted by the students of SPJIMR Mumbai as the InsideIIM Professor of The Year! He was kind enough to answer a set of questions we posed to him around his experiences as a Professor at one of India’s top B-schools, teaching some of the brightest minds in the country. Here is what Dr. Iyer has to say –
Coming to IIM-K with great trepidation, the institute was an enigma for me. Countless stories and anecdotes from friends and acquaintances painted a picture of a place so beautiful, yet exhausting; so collaborative yet competitive. On reaching the Kampus, I could subdue all the canned thoughts and buck fever, for the Kampus is exceedingly great for its zealous surfeit of wisdom and beyond. The very first ground rule in IIM-K is that everything is K and K is everything, right from the Kampus to Konquest to Konsult. The lush greenery of Kampus spreads over 100 acres on two hillocks, and we live literally among the clouds. Every day we are used to waking up to these views...
On 20th July 2018, I arrived in Mumbai. My Enfield was low on fuel and I was low on patience. What should have been a short ride of 4 hours from Pune to Mumbai had turned into a nightmare. I was drenched in rain, had no place to stay, I took a wrong exit near Navi Mumbai and spent nearly an hour in a traffic, and to top it off my dad forgot to send my luggage to Mumbai, which meant I had to shop for new clothes. So when I stood outside Plaza, Dadar; all I could think of was the expectation vs reality sequence from 500 days of summer. The rains washed the color right off of my rose-tinted glasses through which I adoringly looked at Mumbai.
They say every story inside an IIM is a success story. Truly so. Here is the story of Ritesh Agarwal. Ritesh is currently a PGP1 student of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. I know Ritesh from the very early days in this course.
29th June’18, my first day in this jaw-dropping beautiful campus of IIM Indore. I will not be exaggerating when I say this has been a dream and still is. For this first time in a long time, I finally felt this is where I belong. The struggle has been hard and real. (Pro tip: A degree in Computer Science and Engineering and working in an IT mammoth is not is everyone’s cup of tea.) Elated, I entered the premises, very confident about my abilities and proud of the fact that I have finally proved myself. I was on cloud nine. But little did I realise that so were 559 other people.
It is no understatement to say that getting a PPO or not does influence one’s second year on campus to a large extent. Whether the PPO is one that you will accept is quite often beside the point. If not your preferred career choice, it does certainly provide you with a strong bargaining chip during placements. Let’s see how life after a PPO pans out on campus for most of us.
If ambition and passion were two Venn diagrams, a popular notion is that in a B-School, the two never intersect. So when you convert a call, you hear a myriad of “Congratulations!”, albeit with a clause. This clause hints at you having to put aside your hobbies; your passion, and dedicate all of your existence to your B-School in the most celibate fashion.
After all the tough times, sleepless nights solving the multiple aptitude books and mocks, memorising and revising the vocabulary and formula, clearing CAT or XAT or the numerous other entrance exams and then clearing those nerve-wracking GDs and interview. Finally, you make it to the B-School of your dreams!
Dr. R. Sesha Iyer, Faculty at SPJIMR Mumbai, was recently voted by the students of SPJIMR Mumbai as the InsideIIM Professor of The Year! He was kind enough to answer a set of questions we posed to him around his experiences as a Professor at one of India’s top B-schools, teaching some of the brightest minds in the country. Here is what Dr. Iyer has to say –
Coming to IIM-K with great trepidation, the institute was an enigma for me. Countless stories and anecdotes from friends and acquaintances painted a picture of a place so beautiful, yet exhausting; so collaborative yet competitive. On reaching the Kampus, I could subdue all the canned thoughts and buck fever, for the Kampus is exceedingly great for its zealous surfeit of wisdom and beyond. The very first ground rule in IIM-K is that everything is K and K is everything, right from the Kampus to Konquest to Konsult. The lush greenery of Kampus spreads over 100 acres on two hillocks, and we live literally among the clouds. Every day we are used to waking up to these views...
On 20th July 2018, I arrived in Mumbai. My Enfield was low on fuel and I was low on patience. What should have been a short ride of 4 hours from Pune to Mumbai had turned into a nightmare. I was drenched in rain, had no place to stay, I took a wrong exit near Navi Mumbai and spent nearly an hour in a traffic, and to top it off my dad forgot to send my luggage to Mumbai, which meant I had to shop for new clothes. So when I stood outside Plaza, Dadar; all I could think of was the expectation vs reality sequence from 500 days of summer. The rains washed the color right off of my rose-tinted glasses through which I adoringly looked at Mumbai.
