Today I think I can take a proper night sleep. The groove session that went on from 16th till the 19th of this month was just a wakeup call. This session, which was just a testing phase was more of a trailer to a movie. Short, crisp but still giving thrill.
The introduction session or the orientation as I would like to call it, made me (and I believe many others too) realize that there are miles to go before I (or we) sleep. And I was desperate to sleep.
16th June, Day one, after the document verifications, some friends and I went for X-Men. Funny, I was pretty sure thats NOT how a B-school experience is supposed to start. It was totally worth it. We were 3 or 4 people who had planned this, but the group became a mamothic 18 which went in 6 autorikshaws. The lady at the ticket counter for a few seconds was trying to comprehend if she heard our request for 18 tickets correctly. The icing on the cake, the movie was AWESOME. But hey, the story for this day is not over yet. The evening consisted of seniors telling us about NITIE and different things about the streams. And then came the all nighter problem. The assignment consisting of a case study, one of a kind that I had never worked on before. So my team(Pallavi, Depankar, Nishant & Abhijeet) and I worked till about 4AM, and tried to finish it .With a few hours sleep, we assembled the following morning for a tour of the campus. I doubt if more than half the people from the previous night’s assignment turned up. But then I can’t blame them, even I had seriously thought of skipping the tour(oh wait, I did part of it). The continuously on and off rain made the trip interesting, although a bit irritating later on.
And then another round of introductions, discussions and group tasks did the rounds post our breakfast. Though the whole thing was interesting, I was unable to comprehend why we were re-doing similar activites over and over again. (Until later on I realized that it helped me make friends with a lot of people. And trust me, in Mumbai or Delhi I say a lot of people, it really means a lot of people)
So by evening, post our dinner, we entered another round of Case study. This time, it was a finance based case study. And I must confess, it was equivalent to a bludgeon attack. It was like something knocked us down (metaphorically of course, but equally painful). With watering eyes I (and im sure many others) cursed those who brought upon us this wrath and fury. The whole thing gradually started feeling like a torture. What kind of sadist would force work like this on innocent lives like mine(too dramatic? Seniors, please read the whole thing before commenting!!!)
But hold on, just when it was all going to get better, it went further down the same road. Another round of activites in the morning, with running for Lunches in between and then a few guest lectures. One might have thought that, all will be well. (I remind Amir khan, that all izz not always well). The tight deadline continued on that day too. We were again under a weird illogical timeline. But this time, we got an assignment of a subject for which I have always carried an aversion. Things could not have got worse. Or so I thought. But then, the assignment seemed interesting. Hey, did I write the last few words correct??? I have always been pretty sure that marketing was not my cup of tea. So what made me feel interested in an assignment that was pretty much marketing? A domain that I have mostly been averse to. May be because the assignment was related to understanding women (something related to women’s clothing line). Yes, I am pretty sure that was it, the WOMAN factor. No wonder I felt so revived. No more feeling of sleep deprivation. We didn’t even feel like going to bed at about 5AM . The next morning, I got up, a bit with some enthusiasm, hoping that the work I put in my supposedly averse subject might prove to be a decent piece of work. By afternoon, the results were announced, and I didn’t make it. I thought, dude what the hell?? I decided that my decision to stay away from marketing stood ground. I thought, “My work was way better than that of those who won”. And then someone pointed out my faults, in my work and in my attitude. Yes, I am human and prone to poor judgment at times. But now I look back at the last 3-4 days and at the whole thing with a big picture, and don’t regret a task or a thing I did. I liked(or let me just say, didn’t dislike) almost everything. I am once again open to marketing. But hold on, I need to think again. Oh man, this is just confusing!!!!!
The final closure of the whole thing came with a pretty enjoyable welcome note and a souvenir (the one that was Richa’s initiative with finger prints and palm prints). Yes, I don’t regret one thing over the last few days. Thanks to a bunch of people such as Varun, Noor, Utsav, Mac, Ravi, Harish, Richa, Nupoor and many more. I really am sorry for forgetting some names, but it is too late in the night to wake someone up to confirm. So I close this post as my first from NITIE. My place for the next 2 years. Someone, please wake me up in the morning for my first class. Don’t think I wanna be late considering that it is now 2AM.
