Day 1

The day started with vada, shevai bath and lots and lots of fresh air at IIMB campus. The campus is a 100 acre maze with all stone building looking similar, to solve this maze one need to stay at IIMB for slightly longer period.

First session in the morning was fiery and scary lecture by Prof Shankar. He quotes "you might be CEO of the company but we are the boss here. " Points to be remembered from Prof Shankar's session and Mr Bharathi's (He is Mr. Bharathi ) session on administration, are.

• No negotiation in first year you have to complete all four quarters.
• Make up exams only in case of medical emergency
• One must have 2.75+ CGPA to complete course in 2.5 years.
• No excuses like delay in flight, brother's marriage for non absence in class or exam.
• Be regular (Mandatory 75% attendance), be punctual, be prepared for a class.
• Different evaluation criterion are attendance, class participation, surprise quizzes, mid term exam and end term exam. Professor may choose any combination of these as evaluation for that course. Evaluation criterion will be published before start of the course.
• We will soon receive communication from PGSEM office about books etc.

This was followed by fun games, screaming and lot of gyan. Rahul Kapoor has fantastic energy and enthusiasm to conduct such ice breaking sessions. In post lunch session senior student plays spoil sport by revealing about a case study to be finished by the end of day. This was followed by introduction about OM and Microeconomics. Not much to miss here there was nothing about subjects. Day 1 program ended with session on business communication across different culture. This is my favorite subject; I always enjoy to know about culture differences and ways to deal with it. Takeaway for me is comparison of two ads one of Mahindra holidays and the other of Boeing. At the end of day there was a quiz as part of Lcube, I could not understand much of it. I used this period to read case and get prepared. Luckily I found partners for case study and I could finish my case study in the midnight with very good partners.

Day 2

Reflection of what is stored in future, doors were closed on sharp 8:00 a.m. for a surprise quiz. (Remember breakfast was supposed to start around 7:00 but started around 7:35) Rest is better to forget only mantra is be prepared all the time. This was followed by case analysis by Prof YLR Murthy, The guys, who did not attend if they miss anything then this is what they missed. This was fantastic session. If case analysis is going to be carried out this way then I do not mind to study till midnight. There were interruptions in between due to power break down but I never feel I missed flow. Salute to Prof. Followed by presentation on presentation by Rakesh Godhawani. First time I have seen movie clips for learning presentation skills. Rest is same as what most of us have learned in company sponsored presentation skills program. Finally presentation is more of practice than of learning. Post lunch there was session on administration and on first year courses. For most of the people it is still difficult to digest the words like courses, credits, CGPA, grades etc. It will take time to get used to with system.

Orientation program as well as Lcube program ended with key note address by Som Mittal followed by panel discussion on IT leadership . Som talks about opportunities due to shortage of skills around world, he talked about move to TIER-II cities. He shows lot of nos in his key note address. Panelist for panel discussion were Subhash menon CEO Subex, Sudeep Banerjee from Wipro, Jairaman from SAP, Uma Balkrishnan CEO axcend automation (PGSEMian), Vijay Anand from oracle and Som Mittal. The panel discussion was OK ,there was a lack of passion among the panelist. There was nothing new but only reiteration of some of the known qualities of a leader like be open to learn, be hungry, be high on integrity, be innovative. There was a discussion about product vs services, social responsibility of IT leader, vision for IT industry. Frankly nothing much distinctive path to be drawn from the discussion, it was more of repetitive nature. I was also surprised by very low participation from senior batch students. If PGSEM 2008 students were not there this would have been a complete flop. There was not much media coverage. I was searching in various news paper and online publication but I could not find much about this Lcube event. There should have been much better media coverage when you have Nascom chairman at your door.

Finally day 2 and orientation program ended with nice dinner and informal chat with Prof Shankar on various topics. He was talking about open source SW, innovation, risk, entrepreneurship etc. Those two days try to orient me towards what is stored in next 2 and half years. I am sure I am going to gain some knowledge, some good tips, some good friends and some tough weekends with sleepless nights.