VI Semester

Sixth semester was our first encounter with electives. We had struggled very hard to choose them in the last semester and it was turn to reap the fruits. But our expectations were shattered with the Sunday and Wednesday classes too. We didn't know that this would be the price of choosing the electives :-( Infact, I felt the pain even though I had taken just 3 credits, and I think of my friends who had taken 4!! Earlier we were spoilt by choice and now our choices were spoiled. But it was a great test of our perseverance and hats off to our families too who stood by us during this busy phase of our lives!

The compulsory credit SM-II (strategy management) needs a special mention (:-). It was real fun to attend the SM-II class especially the cases (Microsoft, Apple, Sun etc) that were discussed were of great relevance to us (the IT guys). The semester was not exciting for those who had not taken DAMD subject :-). The thrill of attending the class (for some of us who had taken DAMD) added zing to the otherwise-dull-semester - it got a little similar to the I sem-MANAC.

And ya, from this semester on, all the SEM results were displayed on the notice boards (with our current & previous CGPA too) :-( Till now, it was just circulated amongst the batch but now it was an open-book in front of everyone. But it had a positive effect too - with no electronic copy one couldn't perform the mean/median/mode/& various statistical tests.!

This sem was special because, first time in WMP history, the WMP charter(!) was changed for first and last time - our semester exams were scheduled in the afternoon 2 pm - 5pm. Everyone, in fact had to take a leave from the office to take the exams. This enraged many of us, triggered many discussions, many vote counts were done, many draft (unsent) mails were written - but the Chair calmed us down that the timings would reverted back from the next semester. Lets hope to get our regular timings back!

We saw the launch of Cupshup cafe (founded inhouse by IPMX students themselves) - Now one could enjoy delicious snacks other than just the usual samosas/patties available at college canteen. Kudos to the students who identified the demand-supply gap & started an entrepreneurial venture that would serve as a great learning too. IIML noida store in campus too got inaugurated which would house the various memorabilia of IIML in the noida campus itself. However much we crib, but there is one thing in common amongst all the students in the campus - we wish to make a difference in the society we live and we want to be heard. The fact that we have joined such a rigorous course clearly exhibits the common 'fighter' attitude amongst us!

For our senior batch this semester was the last semester (their IX) and the excitement of completing the rigorous course got visible. It will be a similar day for us too soon!.


Highlights:
Rupee depreciates 20%
Sehwag's double century!
Why this Kolavari Di - over 20m views!

Fifth Semester

This semester was the last-semester-without-electives i.e. after this semester our class would be broken into sub-classes and merged with the other section after their choice of elective subjects. Birds of same feather would flock together!

Thankfully this semester, we were free from the calculators (aka our bulky financial calculators) as we had theoretical subjects like - International business environment (IBE), Strategic Management-I (SM), Management of Information Systems (MIS) and Marketing Management-II (MM). And almost all were interesting (:) with MM & IBE leading the pack. SM got interesting only after we requested for a faculty change (in fact this was a memorable sem also because the students were listened, we requested for a faculty change and it happened promptly). In the snap below, we can be seen participating in the Starbucks case with our teams participating in understanding components of value chain:

Prof Amita conducting groups for Value-Chain discussion

There was an interesting thing to note this semester. Students attended the class with more sincerity of the faculty who were relaxed on attendance. When teachers are great, students automatically attend classes.

We spent an enormous amount of time on the email-chain for selection of electives for the next term. To the extent, that people got fed-up and stopped checking those threads. It was the immense patience of the CRs and to name a few - Nilabha & Shivashish who co-ordinated well to finalize a list on electives.

Some more highlights:
- Strategy course done justice by Prof Amita
- Guest lecture (Use of MIS in Social Cause) - http://cgnetswara.org
- Prof Wadhwa & the 2.5 mark daily quiz!
- Bikramjeet (our capable CR and a great friend) left the course for a handsome overseas opportunity
- And the ANNA campaign!!

First summer break

After having slogged for almost an year juggling with office and a demanding MBA program finally holidays were here. Yuppie! We had made so many programs but finalized only one - the relaxation event:)

Luckily, I had a not-so busy office too so I felt really relaxed.

The importance of Saturday's was realized in this summer break. The weekend looked real big. It was as if prisoners were let loose for a month and they had gone berserk with their freedom! In fact, the average heartbeat rate decreased - yes (no kidding) I could feel it!

But IIML had ingrained the habit of reading and working hard that after 2 weeks of holidays I took up a project to (long aspired) development of an Android application. The idea in mind was to develop an application that would keep you away from the disturbing SPAM messages. After few weeks of effort "BLOCK SPAM SMS" was developed and is running successfully on thousands of Android phones. The best part is - it is being used more abroad than in India.


As the summer break was closing towards an end - I felt the dreaded feeling of no holidays for an year occupied the mind..

IV Semester

IV Semester turned out to be one of the toughest semesters because of 2 very practice based (with long term benefits) full units - FM (finance) and MEE (Macro Economics). The 2 other subjects: HR (Human Resources) and QAM-III (Quantitative Analysis) were more class based learning.



 Photograph of the pizza toast (below) of Ankush Ved's farewell who decided to quit our WMP course - IIML for a Singapore job offer. We lost a 'productive' team member for our projects (so selfish!). He will be deeply missed.

The newsletter for IIML - IIML News Letter April 2011.

I dared to take an off during the closure week (a week before the exams) to travel to US for a week!! Result - I missed 3 quizzes - lost 25 marks straight away :( If I pass this sem, I know am not going to repent, else I certainly would :( - Anyway enjoy the US snaps here. Had to really rush up on exam preparation after coming back. Some of IIML seniors said "if one attends the classes well - one can easily pass" but it doesn't apply well for me because I cannot pass the exams if I do not study well :-)

The IV Sem exams are finally over now. Yippie, here comes the holidays after 1 full year of slogging and learning.!! I would definitely not touch any books -- would mainly concentrate on movies / gaming / touch base with people :)

Some HighLights:

• Student Council formation 
• New WMP Chairman for IIML-Noida 
• India winning the Cricket World Cup
• IPL-4 

III Semester

The greatest excitement about the III Semester was that it had 2 half unit courses! Hence less classes and less pressure. There were times when we had just 2 classes on saturdays - and lot of holidays too - hence it was lighter semester compared to the first semester.!!

Prof. Neerja Pandey made a great impression on most of us even with the small number of classes she took. The individual video recordings were highly critical - that made us learn where we make mistakes during speaking in public.

Prof. Rastogi from IIFT tried his level best to make us learn QAM-2. This course showed us some real good examples of how surveys and their analysis is performed in the real world.

On saturdays, we used to have presentations during the half an hour break - Tanay Anand was instrumental in this great initiative - Kudos to him! I attended a few presentations and they were real good - since they were from people having immense domain knowledge. The farewell to their batch too happened in this sem - (i.e. passing out Batch# 4). Parties till now have happened at the campus (IPMX cafetaria) only, be it our freshers party or the farewell. We had started having fun in our super-tight schedules (i.e. learning to manage!)

II Semester

The II semester was little less taxing than the first one. (May be we were getting in tune to the tough demands of the Working Managers Program or could be due to the subjects mix - 2 half credit courses). But had it been the I semester I am sure the students (who left the course after the I sem) would not have left WMP..

The subjects:
MANAC - Managerial Accounting - II
QAM - Quantitative Analysis for Managers - I
LAM - Legal Aspects of Management
DWO - Design in Work Organizations

These subjects were very informative considering the learning involved:
- Costing concepts and the wonderful cases,
- DWO - excellent learning via cases: Onida case / South-west Airlines,
- LAM - was interesting (when slides were not ON:)
- QAM had statistical concepts that could help in future.

Delivery wise I would say - DWO and MANAC were the best.

The class started opening up with each other in this semester. They started sharing their marriage dates, new-born news and other big events that otherwise were not shared in the I semester. Groups for assignments and projects were formed (Remember the norming, storming, forming (not performing) :) for the submissions and tasks were divided amongst the responsible people. The 'others' stayed merry (lot of work you know:).


(Some links floated by Tanay Anand - WMP11 batch - {super senior!} )

Freshers party 08
Farewell ( WMP 09)
Visit to IIM Lucknow ( Main Campus)
Freshers party 09

Videos:
A song sung by Rajeev WMP10 ( Pics from last year fresher's)
A group song ( Just for fun) WMP 11