Quarter 11 - Week 1

Damn it, I'm still here.

I come in to campus on Friday, and the regular classrooms look much emptier. It's like PGSEM Quarter 7 and 8 all over again... the halls are a little less noisy, the energy a little low, the mad scramble for the attendance monitor at ten minutes before class (I never really understood that, we have like 15 minutes to swipe... why the hell was everyone waiting till the clock struck T-10 anyway??)... anyway, I miss that. I think I was actually happy last year this time... it looked like more space to breathe now that those 'damned seniors' were gone, felt a little lonely this time around.

Would have stayed that way, had it not been for a couple of things. One was the small bunch of us 2009ers who hung around for yet another quarter. A couple of them were sneaking back into class, hoping to do an audit (they'd be mad to actually take more credits and go through the pressure, even if it was just one more quarter!), a couple others actually willing to undertake the extra credits because.. well.. they're crazy... and finally there's a bunch of students who just took up the freedom and kept some credits for one more quarter. So they kind of made up for part of the melancholy. Then... a few juniors were walking around confused as usual like we tend to be, see me and walk up to me. "What the hell are you still doing here? Why can't you get out and leave us in peace!" they ask, another guy asks "Failed, aa?". As I correct whatever misconception comes across with a tinge of despair, confusion and glee... the remaining gap was filled. Home, sweet home.

New Enterprise Financing

One of our profs from first year happens to be teaching this course, he's the prof who did the first half of corporate finance for us. This course was really given the two-thumbs-up by many seniors (personally, I think to spite us and make us go through one last round of pure hell), and I just had to attend this one... especially since it says "New Enterprise". Imagine my shock when the prof outright says "Guys, I've gotten feedback from your seniors that many join this course thinking that it's going to be about entrepreneurship. This is not about entrepreneurship. This is hardcore finance topics, where we study the numbers of new ventures.. and study the various aspects of the same. You better like numbers, and better remember corporate finance and FinAcc, else you're in for a load of pain... there's the door, get out while you can". Here I'm thinking that let's save one course slot for this guy, it'll be good.. and here he deflates any entrepreneurial learning bubble that I had within the first five minutes. Yet, the introduction of the course still sounds interesting. Appears to combine the concepts of FinAcc and CorpFin to understand issues that come up while dealing with new ventures, both from the perspective of the entrepreneur and the investor, leaning more towards the latter.

Of course, the standard drivel about it being a heavy course... lots of reading, lots of numbers, standard pain and relative gain etc. I'm going to give this course atleast a looksie, before considering if I should make a switch. The prof doesn't gain anything out of this course, I do... and seeing him plead to us to really think if we want to be in this course if we don't appreciate numbers much is worth giving it a rethink.

Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Learning

It's a mouthful, and I'm thinking of just calling it REIL next time onwards. Why oh why can't people come with less complicated names. In any case, there was some botchup by someone either in the PGP or PGSEM arenas (I'm betting it's the PGPs.. the PGSEM office makes their plan way out at the start of the year and it's far too simple to screw up. Think about it... 10 weeks classes, 1 week break.. repeat 4 times... really, how could we POSSIBLY screw up?). Thanks to that, our classes will only start next week.

This totally spoils my concept of a weekly update, but I guess we'll just have to get around it... one week I'll probably write up a double-sized account for the week that was.

It's good to whine again. It's good to be back, even if it's just for one more quarter (hopefully).