Each day at IIMB begins with a battle. The relentless sound of the alarm beeping. Losing the battle and yet hoping to win, we wake up only to embark on the hunt of finding that perfect attire that balances a classroom and a fashion ramp audience perfectly. Rushing to get insight into the opinions of think-tanks and some eye-popping decisions in the world, we hope to grab a decent breakfast in our often criticised but mandatorily loved mess.
As students of IIMB, we put a lot of thought into the courses we opt for during the term. This requires us to apply the principles of game theory to carefully allocate the limited points we are given to bid for the courses we want or need! Each day and each class at IIMB is therefore a real test of how good our forecasts were regarding our learning capabilities for a particular course.
Days range from students presenting rigorous case analyses to a class full of students playing critics, participating in games like King-Pin or Monopoly to understand concepts of negotiation or accounting, watching funky videos only to see daunting management concepts being put to practical use in the most interesting and creative of ways or simply listening to the professor and having that Eureka moment when a concept you have been struggling with for days becomes clear.
Of course, the hours spent exercising your brain are made bearable with delicious and usually unsustainable (at least budget wise) doses of coffee, tea and fried snacks. The break in these breaks is limited to just getting out of the classroom as, more often than not, discussions extended to the breaks.
After a gruelling, though-provoking, insightful and informative phase I at IIMB, planning for phase II starts. The agenda for this part includes or rather squeezes a variety of things. These usually include group meetings for various projects, attending a seemingly interesting guest lecture on a topic of interest (for example, a lecture on the supply chain management at Harley Davidson Inc.), attending a focus group or filling surveys for one of your peer’s projects (in the hope that they will reciprocate the favour) or brain storming with fellow intellectuals for the plethora of business case competitions.
Not too much variety above eh? Well, these are the regular entries to the Phase II agenda. The other occasional yet rigorous events include preparing for the few dance and drama competitions, being a responsible junior or senior coordinator for the clubs , attending various placement talks or informal buddy sessions and, most importantly, editing your resume in the right format.
What makes one survive Phases I and II is definitely the food – from the mess, from the invaluable and indispensable eating joints at IIMB, especially “park-n-eat,” and from the various North Indian, Italian, and Chinese outlets around. Other modes of survival are the many public birthday bashes (thanks to Facebook and IIMB’s internal student website).
A day in the life of IIMB is more than just a day. It tampers with your sleep cycle so much that on the odd day that you do have time to sleep (quite surprisingly), you are either too stunned or too happy to actually sleep. A day in IIMB makes you talk to different people every day with each bringing in a new angle or a new perspective to almost everything you knew or didn’t know. A day in IIMB imbues new confidence, that if you survived this, you can survive everything world has in store for you.