MBA @ ISB = 12 months = 8 terms = 45 days/term = exams every 22.5 days (unlike engg. college, midterms are important here since marks of mid terms make up anything from 35-50% of the final grade)

Its been almost 3 weeks of full time classes/studies here in ISB and so predictably, its time for the first exams, the Term-1 mid-term. Since these are the first exams everyone is giving over here, people are pretty high strung and worried over what sort of exam we will get and what sort of grades as well. Relative grading is another sword hanging over everyones head, since by definition itself, someone has to come last.

This weekend, all the previously well attended club presentations on Technology/Entrepreneurship saw empty halls with like 5-7 attendees. Predictably, all the meetings were rescheduled to next week when the attendance will be better. Even the traditionally well attended dunkings have been affected. We had a section dunking yesterday where hardly 20 people turned up, which is like a new low record.

The LRC (= Learning Resource Center == Library) is seeing record attendance, especially considering that most of the reference books are really expensive foreign authors only available there. There have even been reports of people trying to sleep in the LRC at night to cut down on the time it would take them to go back to the rooms. 😛

Should we spend all our time getting worried about exams? As people like to say, ‘It Depends’. And that too on what your priorities in life are. A lot of people are in the rat race trying for the dean’s list, to try for the top consulting companies when they visit campus for placements. Is this something that should be encouraged? I believe this is a personal call which everyone has to take. Do I want to spend the next year stuck to my books and missing out on all the things an MBA at ISB can give me other than pure studies? Or should I try to balance the two and trust in the fact that doing other things which I find interesting and getting to know various people and their experiences will be more helpful to me in the long run? Thats the question everyone of us here at ISB need to ask ourselves.

This has turned out be a long and rambling blog post by now.

PS: Wondering which category I come in? The very fact that here I am a day before the exam writing a blog may prejudice you, but now I am off, gotta hit those books! 😀