Pro-fessors

Just back from an odd party at the ISB after the final exams. It was supposed to be big, wild, with lots of music, lots of food and lots of fun. The fun fizzled before it could begin, as many decided to head out uptown in seach of costlier booze and hep'er crowd at BNC. While downing the vodka's, I made a little mistake that I'll have to fix asap... and fix the loose tongue too.

Anyways, can't begin to describe the time here. Up and down giant wheel? Round and round merry-go-round? Naah, one of those supernova rides that tear you away from earth a couple hundred meters in seconds and let you free fall. It's fast, it's quick, it's speedy enough to be almost painless. The more pessimistic may think, it's the jhatka death as against the slit-and-bleed halaal of the IIM's. Reminds me of a blog post, by Govindraj Ethiraj comparing ISB with IIM's, something that all of us have been cautious about. After all, it's like comparing Kashmiri Apples to... Sw would know what to compare to(!), dissimilar attributes but equivalent utility.

The exams, 4 of them in 2 days flat left me with a mix of humility and reassurance. There are some big dreams that I will have to give up, but there are somethings that I've ended up picking up quite well, things that are of an analytical sort, that require thinking through. ISB's education's big asset is the constellation of internationally acclaimed professors.

Accounting: Fun to know that Enron was all about accounting for (or not accounting for stock options); Worldcom beefed up liabilities accounts (line costs) in its books, Coca Cola Japan's used channel stuffing to meet revenue targets, Microsoft used Unearned Revenues to smooth Net Income, W. T. Grant's accrued huge sundry debtors while keeping revenue's and income still high. All this... all accounting shenanigans as Prof. Mark Finn termed them.

Marketing: I disliked it the most to begin with, then feared it the most as 6/6/6 (Today is the day of Satan) came close; finally liked it quite a bit just before the exam today, when I could see all the P's and C's line up nicely in front of my mind with their name tags on. After my messy attempt at the exam though... I am not too sure. Next term, it's going to get more clear, concrete, credible, comprehensive and I can't think of a suitable 5th C, when Prof Jagmohan Raju takes us through Marketing Decision Making (or Mark - 2).

Economics: One of the sharpest minds ISB must have had the fortune to have on campus, Prof. Rakesh Vohra taught us the game theory and strategic thinking for 2 weeks after Prof. Amit Bubna had set the foundations right. Most of us are still to catch up with the whirlwind that his lectures and the exam paper were. We knew there's lot of knowledge he has given us, and many kept regurgitating and chewing the cud, but before the assimilation could start came the paper. It did me in. I liked to think, and still do, that analytical thinking is my forte... Haah says the inner voice whenever I think of those 2 hours grappling with 4 innocuous questions that required lots of that and little else; no formulas, no models, just maximize the goddamn profit and/or consumer surplus'es... and I kept thinking How?

Statistics: You'd have found by now by the prev posts I liked Stats the best... have already written some about it. There are many here who would concur with me on that one. No one could have taken them CA's amongst us and made them like Stats, other than the two teachers from Wharton, energetic-to-the-point-of-dramatic Prof. Robert Stine and british-cool-humourous Prof. Richard Waterman who also runs AnaBus.

It's gone by real quick... have the term 2 course material lying besides me on the table - still smelling fresh from the cyclostyle - or whatever they've used to churn out the white elephantine Comp Strat and Decision Models books. Time will soon come when I open the Comp Strat big book to its first case, maybe next Sunday... till then let me watch a couple good movies, read a little and write a bit more poetry maybe. Going on a bike ride to Bidar coming weekend. Will be good fun.