I’m done with my last exam today – I’m finally an MBA, though technically I’m only a PGDM. Most of my classmates are sad and sorry that their academic life is finally over – everyone’s taglines are about how they have attended their last class and given their last exam. Sure, I have that twinge of sorrow that one feels when something that one is very familiar with comes to an end – like the last day at school, like the day you leave home to a new place when joining college...
Sixth term has been rather strange and very different – it gives you a taste of what else IIMB could have been. Firstly, it was very short – lasted only about 2 months. I hardly attended classes and am still unaware of what happened in most of the subjects – I spent class time playing sudoku or sleeping. People, including me, freerode on group projects big time. All the things that mattered till now at IIMB – grades, submissions, being in the professors good books, getting into the right groups – all that has gone for a toss.
While sixth term has peacefully fit in with my usual lifestyle, one thing has been troubling me for a couple of days now. At the end of every term, the QAG’s of each subject would present that particular Professor with a gift (it was usually a book). It was supposed to be a sort of ‘thank you’ from the whole class. I always thought that was a rather nice gesture. This term, we haven’t done that for a single Professor. I’m compelled to ask ‘why not?’.
For the first 4 terms, were we doing this ritual as part of the ‘appease the Prof’ process? Don’t we want to thank the Profs anymore just because the grades they give us this time don’t matter? Sure, the primary concern of every batch is their grades and that is understandable. But does that mean that the minute grades don’t matter, we din’t even bother with common courtesy? I know its a small thing and no one has probably even noticed – but it is a sad reflection on us.
Sixth term has been rather strange and very different – it gives you a taste of what else IIMB could have been. Firstly, it was very short – lasted only about 2 months. I hardly attended classes and am still unaware of what happened in most of the subjects – I spent class time playing sudoku or sleeping. People, including me, freerode on group projects big time. All the things that mattered till now at IIMB – grades, submissions, being in the professors good books, getting into the right groups – all that has gone for a toss.
While sixth term has peacefully fit in with my usual lifestyle, one thing has been troubling me for a couple of days now. At the end of every term, the QAG’s of each subject would present that particular Professor with a gift (it was usually a book). It was supposed to be a sort of ‘thank you’ from the whole class. I always thought that was a rather nice gesture. This term, we haven’t done that for a single Professor. I’m compelled to ask ‘why not?’.
For the first 4 terms, were we doing this ritual as part of the ‘appease the Prof’ process? Don’t we want to thank the Profs anymore just because the grades they give us this time don’t matter? Sure, the primary concern of every batch is their grades and that is understandable. But does that mean that the minute grades don’t matter, we din’t even bother with common courtesy? I know its a small thing and no one has probably even noticed – but it is a sad reflection on us.
