A fine day in July, half past five, a typical Chennai dawn woke me up without my usual outlook invites, morning reports or any arbitration saga. In spite, there was a sense of urgency; an adrenaline rush which did demand attention though not comprehended by the partly awake brain. The momentary dyslexia settled, and finally the calendar spoke a language which triggered my stimuli. 8th July 2009, first reporting day at the Chennai Business School!
The two weeks of Induction was an ideal preparation for the year’s program. It all started with address by the governing council. Mr. PK Mohapatra’s talk on “Parable of Sadhu” in specific caught the attention of listeners, enunciating the moral aspect of business. Faculty team introduced themselves, and it was a pleasant surprise to hear Prof. Palanivelu sharing his experience on time spent in Bharat Electronics Limited with late Sujatha (Rangarajan), the famous Tamil novelist . The afternoon witnessed students’ introduction along with ice breaker sessions. With neat schedule for subsequent weeks shared, learning for the real world kicked off in full throttle
The phobic accounting basics were touched upon with a feel good factor by Prof. Vijaya. IT for managers was diligently handled by the Dean with his vintage wit. Concepts of MS office basics were covered highlighting the effectiveness of its related tools in official reports generation. The IT session was indeed an eye opener in terms of its application scope. The fact that this indeed would have reduced multiple reporting at my earlier workplace was in itself a big take away for me. In addition, the Dean helped relate all this to resource forecasting, estimations and capacity planning, not to forget the figures generation on a single parent spreadsheet indicating over burn/under burn statistics. I felt myself sitting over a goldmine being greedy of carrying maximum pounds of all that was available.
The guest lectures at such an early stage of the academic year got us an idea on how CBS operates and bridges the gap between academics and industry requisites. We had renowned giants walking in from manufacturing, software and advertising arena, sharing their vast experiences with the students. A brief on the current recruitment scenarios and improving trends in economy, and the emphasis on focusing in academics rather than end results viz placements helped us refocus on curriculum in store. After all, the need of the hour is to make oneself employable by getting the basics right, leaving aside speculations on external market conditions
The group activities pre-conditioned us to take on the business world filled with numbers and dynamic changes. Along with introduction to analyze cases, we also had healthy discussions and debates on pros and cons with purview of the information shared. Assumptions were put to rest and factual justifications were encouraged, inculcating a language of Boolean and statistics based on concrete sources. Application of concepts being the motto, approach to learning was completely pragmatic and thought provoking
And we discovered our “Taj” too; well I meant the coffee shop just opposite to the CBS campus. 10:30 am caffeine along with the optional green chili “bajji’s” have recharacterized our appetite, bringing back all those long lost memories from our under graduation days. The unfinished business of putting things on cellulose resumes as we look forward confidently into the future let alone tuning oneself to changing “constants”.
By M.S.Balaji, HR Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)
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