IIMA: The First Week

Q1 Report

Annexure I: The Beginning

Yes, Q1 is over at IIM Ahmedabad! I'm already through half of the first year, and glad to know that I'm still standing. It's also been so long since I've actually posted something here, so I figured I would put in a few words.

I'll start from the beginning - 22^nd June 2009. First day at WIMWI, and I moved into my room in the ground floor of Dorm 15. The room was is quite decent with all the basic stuff - bed with mattress, table, chair, wardrobe, bookshelf - and some more - a telephone, mirror, LAN connection and swivel chair. To my joy everything in it was brand new as I was the first occupant of my room, for the rooms on that floor had recently replaced the old campus gymnasium.

The first day was spent in registration and getting acquainted with the campus (both old and new) - it did take quite some time to find your dorm out of a maze of eighteen in the old campus alone! And the Difteenos' Dorm (15) is pretty much at the edge of the campus, so it was quite an effort to gather your bearings and reach your destination. To top it off, our vision was also clouded since post-registration we had been handed a huge pile of books - a virtual avalanche which seemed more than enough for a year's worth of studying - but which was actually meant for just two slots encompassing a little over two months.

Also, that night we had an informal meet with all the inmates of the dorm. A round of introductions for both the fachchas and the tuchchas ensued. (For the uninitiated, fachchas is the term used for the first-years' and tuchchas, the second-years'). Coming from a college where ragging is the only known ice-breaker between batches, I was surprised to find no traces of old-school 'personality development programs'.

On the contrary, the tuchchas appeared really helpful and imbibed in us, very soon, a few truths of life in IIMA - "plagiarism is a punishable offence, attendance is mandatory, teachers always have the last laugh, and that the 'A' in IIMA stands for 'academics'. On top of that, use your time as you see fit." Wise words, indeed.

Days two and three were set apart for orientation. After listening to a round of speeches by everyone-who's-someone-at-IIMA in the day, we walked into our classrooms for the first time at night to witness the official handing over by our section seniors - Section C and CR-9, in my case. Another round of introductions was followed by our first dekko at the inter-section war-like competition TNite, and also the first experience of tempo shouts; including the soon to be dreaded chant of 'Muggo Fachchon Muggo'.

On Thursday morning we had a first taste of the case study method of teaching which is distinctively particular to IIMA, through a practice case. The first day's case discussion was more or less a remnant of the plethora of GD's that all of my classmates had trounced en route to this class. I remember wondering at the time how I would ever garner any CP points (Class Participation - part of academic assessment) in any of the classes, with such aggressive classmates holding fort. In due course, things did change a lot.

The next day was spent in a marathon session of attending presentations by the different clubs and special interest groups present in the institute. A couple of clubs which caught everyone's fancy included the Placecom and a certain lifestyle club, which boasted of stalwarts like Harsha Bhogle as an alum.

What transpired towards the end of the first week is perhaps best left unsaid, because it is an experience I wouldn't want to spoil for the future generations at IIMA. However, a certain book by an IIMB grad with a reference to clowns and cards has already played 'spoiler' to such a degree that I, for one, was able to see right through the orchestrated extravaganza - but it was fun nonetheless, culminating in a completely unexpected - but deeply appreciated - rain dance.

That being said, the first week was an apt initiation into IIMA - characterized by sleepless nights, rushed deadlines and relentless pressures; all of which have to be dealt with to remain happy at WIMWI.

Refer Annexure II for the report on slot 1..