Round 2: "still not mature" thoughts on the batch

Just about when everyone settles down and the excitement is dying and people start having fun on the FB group, Round 2 results. ting! ting! ting!! In 2 days, I received 500+ mails from the group. 


Renewable Energy: If "diversity" was the single most used word during Round 1 intros, "Energy" was it for Round 2. How can there be so much excitement? A group of 500 people, about to enter one of Indias most prestigious B-schools, finished their bachelors at least 2 years ago and all of who have hit puberty around a decade ago.... still acting like hyper-active catholic-school-girls, jumping and screaming. 
I know... it's not necessarily a bad thing.


I might be the last: Every one after member number 450 mentions in their intro  "I might be one of the last" if not "I'm the the last". OK. You're the last. I can't afford to buy a trophy right now, I'm jobless. I've made a list of you, and on campus, I want to ask you why you thought that was important in your intro and the best reason gets a chocolate. Don't get me wrong, I said much worse in my intro, it's just that I'm confident you can't find it on the FB group. You see "I was one of the first".


Penny wise, Pound Foolish: 

• Number of discussion on loan - approx 1,000. Number of discussions on laptops - minimum 5,000. 
• Financial implications of Laptop - Rs. 50,000 at most (for people who paid more, the people who paid less are going to arrange for psychiatric help, unless it's an Apple, ofcourse). Financial implication of Loan - Rs. 14lakhs to Rs.20lakhs, depending on how smart you were before ISB and how rich your daddy is.
• Associated time period for Laptop - 3 years at max. Associated Time period for Loan - minimum 5 years.

The mathematics of this is all skewed.

Even in B-school, windows can't just be part of the house: The smart ones bought Mac with Snow leopard, the rest had to install Windows 7. 
Anybody who has installed windows before knows the heart-ache associated with it. 3 days minimum of actual installation (most of it spent hitting your head on the table) + Add to that downloading the OS (another 3 days on a 1.5 kbps connection) + some non-IT folks (including the fake engineers like me) + a FB group = the worlds most wasteful way of killing time. It was like explaining Java to my granny! One man deserves special mention here, he almost made the installation look humanly achievable. You know who you are. 


The cost of Hernia: Everyone coming to ISB seems to have extra baggage, pun intended. The baggage of immediate concern can only cause hernia and a severe depletion in wallet size. Another hot topic on the group. Pay the Airline extra or hire a cargo truck? Well, both have been done, and you'll be glad to know, the best solution is to not bring that much stuff. Moving on to the other baggage......


philanderers and monophobia: The fear of being alone was quite visible in the number of people who wanted to travel together, book the tickets together, book the taxi to go to book the tickets together together... you get the drift. More importantly, a random statistic was thrown out - apparently the divorce rate in ISB was high in one batch many many years ago, but no one knows which batch. All facts in this blog are unverified and not-verifiable, hence verified numbers will not be posted. While I'm sure this caused a lump in the throats of some, others found  it important to compare it with the national average of other countries! Some even found it necessary to make it into a Bollywood love story type thing and spoke about how many more people found love in b-school. I actually do recommend this article, read it along with your mom (whether you're single or married). Apparently, in bschool, the ones who arrive alone find company and the ones who have company leave alone. 


Pre-terms: To revise or not revise that is not the question. Whether to intentionally fail the Assessment tests is more important. Any fool can study a little and clear them and if s/he does, then s/he can not attend the pre-term, hence you must fail. Simple, isn't it.


The questions section: No, The "informative" questions haven't stopped. Yes, this section is now going to be made part of every entry I make. Maybe, next time i'll actually copy-paste the question. No, the seniors will not sell you their left over shampoo. 

Gyan: No matter how div*&se we are, Round 2 admits have asked the exact same questions Round 1 admits did. It isn't their fault, it's Mr. Zuckerberg's. Him and his useless Facebook! Future batches who might be reading this, please have all useful discussions in Google groups. Those are archived and available for the greater good of mankind. 

I need to head out now and load some of my stuff into one of those trucks these guys have booked. Thanks to those who did, I have more stuff than can fit in one car! Be back during the week of 17th Apri 2011.


Disclaimers: 
* It wasn't about you
* It really wasn't. 


PS: If you want that chocolate  Mr/Mrs "I am the last", and you can't wait till college starts, FB-Mesage me why you said it.