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Friday, October 06, 2006

TERM - 4 REFLECTIONS - ACADEMICS

One more term over…..The usual reflection time once again.

Not a bad idea to start with the academics….. Term 4 turned out to be very different from the traditional terms. The stress was on concepts like ethics and the softer aspects of management.

Government, Society and Business was covered by Prof. Mudit Kapoor and Prof A.K.Shivakumar. There couldnot have been better people to teach this topic. Consider any top international social organization, and you can trace Dr. Shiva Kumar’s name…UNICEF…UN…..Policy making bodies of various countries including India…..Harvard….Kennedy School of Government….there is no end to his credentials. Not many people have the ability to mesmerize the listeners with topics like poverty, unemployment and human development. It was a great experience to understand the views of someone, who has first hand experience of the social and economic impacts, happening throughout the world. Prof Mudit was responsible for infusing the initial interest into an otherwise drab topic. An awesome orator….I must admit.

Now coming to IT Strategy, Prof Rajiv Banker was phenomenal while covering the strategies followed in the leading IT companies. Professor Sandra Slaughter who continued the second half of IT has a lovely way of delivering her lectures. The softness with which she deals with people often hides the fact that her name can be traced in Guiness Book of records for long distance cycling…and this is just the beginning of her extracurriculars which includes professional SCUBA diving and climbing mountain peaks.

Management of Organisations was extremely theoretical…course documents were shared by Prof Mary Watson and Prof. Dishan Kamdar…The course was quite unique, stressing on the nature of organizations, negotiations, decision errors and similar stuff. In the hindsight, I feel I should have given some more efforts to understand this topic better.

Now coming to the only numerical course....Investment analysis….Prof Tom Noel and Prof Ramana sonti shared the syllabus. Prof Noel reminded me of the phenomenal Prof Finn, who took Financial Accounting in Term-1. Prof Ramana Sonti is one of those professors who combines elegance into simplicity…very simple way of teaching and yet so powerful.

Thus, in terms of academics, Term 4 turned out to be quite different, yet quite enriching.

Time to close this post now…will be back soon.

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