The Transition

It is one week of term 2 at ISB and I have slowly realized that I am almost done with the transition from being a techie to a cold blooded (read “competitive”) management student! It is really term 2 and its subjects that make us feel as of we are undergoing a management program. VV, one of my groupie could not have said it better when he commented that “It feels almost like as if we are playing the Age of Empires game”.
How true. I mean it is not just Markstrat, but the other subjects as well. Probably with the exception of Macro.

Markstrat has been an amazing experience till now, although we are yet to see the repercussions of the decisions made by us as a team, I am sure the learning experience from this simulation game is going to stay with us forever. This will be the closest possible way to mimic the decision making process in an industry and I am so glad that ISB, like the other premier schools, provides us this opportunity. These are the benefits that come with studying in a school like ISB and the fact is that these kinds of advantages are not known to potential applicants and the general public. The professor for the subject is very soft spoken, which according to me is a rarity at ISB!

Then there is CompStrat. The best of the cases out there, explained to you by a professor who takes you through it in a thought provoking manner, covering the salient points and at the same time making us think beyond the surface to actually sitting and computing the monetary effect of a decision point in the case, what more do you need? When the prof makes a point in the case, which is as logical as it would get, it makes you wonder why the hell didn’t you think about it in the first place?

The Decision models class is yet another interesting topic and the MCS is something which I had always wanted to understand, right from when I had read about it when going through some readings on the options, purely out of my personal interest. Now that I know what MCS is, I should go back to start reading about options, which is my area of interest! Although the professor is really amazing, with his enthusiasm and energy levels in the class, I guess most of us are simply not able to catch up with his standards and are still not at the level he is assuming us to be at!

Then there is Macro, my favorite. This is one subject which is the closest to what has always interested me and we are lucky to get a professor who is so passionate about the subject and also of teaching at ISB. Here you can read about students (CO 05) voting him the professor of the year.
Overall term 2 makes the student body feel like they have finally left their baggage behind from their previous careers and now feel a major shift in their thought process. This change which was nascent in the first term has accentuated now and is only going to strengthen!

P.S All the professors mentioned here handle the first part of the term 2.