Term 4 at IIM Ahmedabad
The last three months made up Term 4 of my MBA degree at IIM Ahmedabad. The end of it marks the 67% progress stage of the programme for my batch, which is daunting because time is passing by quickly.
Term 4 was perhaps the best I’ve had thus far at IIMA because all the subjects were ones that I chose for myself, and I didn’t have any finance courses to slug through. In this essay, I will give a brief of the electives I took up, and the time in between.
I am a marketing girlie with a background in public policy as most people here know already, and the electives I chose were along these lines. There is one compulsory strategy course we are required to take up, and including that, I took up a total of 7.25 credits. Seeing as the term started right after my summer internships during which I had been away from campus for two months, I was super excited to go back. My schedule was packed pre-mid-term, with five classes each for three days of the week. This roughly translated to being in class from 10AM to 8:30PM. However, the fact that the electives I chose were from my areas of interest, it did not seem as exhausting as it would have in the first year (when a singular corporate finance class would obliterate your will to live). Also, making up for the loaded days, the second half of the term was very light, and I got a lot of time for myself and for coffee outings.
I turned 22 in July, and it feels old, I have to say. My friends were super nice and came to celebrate with me. We also had a spa day in that week which was very new for me. I liked it. I made time to read a couple of books which seemed impossible during the first year. For any PGP1s reading this, hang in there, it gets better. I went out for coffee very frequently and explored cafes in the vicinity. My favourite were Mleko Coffee – it is a small house-cottage looking situation and it has a cat that keeps to itself. It reminded me of Subko in Mumbai (which had a huge queue the time I visited and made me go elsewhere because I was starving at the time. I took the hazelnut cappuccino, which was lovely, but my friend was not impressed by the cold brew. The banana cake was also quite heavy. I don’t know why I loved the place, to be honest. I also really liked Toska Chocolate House because of its outdoor-but-indoor seating area and the skylight, and Café Venture which is a part of the Ahmedabad University campus. We did the Barbie and Oppenheimer double feature one weekend, it was fun.
Here are the courses I liked out of the ones I took up, the projects I did for them, and other information.
Qualitative Research Methods for Understanding Business and Human Development in a Network Society (QRMUBHDNS)
That is SOME NAME. The course itself is relatively uncomplicated. My motivation for taking this course was the professor who had taught us in the first year and really resonated with most of the humanities students. The course also aligns with this in some ways. It challenges the theory that qualitative work is supplementary to quantitative research/data, and how math does not account for circumstantial influences that often make up a problem. The classes went on with great discussion on observation without translating them into value-judgements. This was a drastically different perspective from what is taught as an unquestioned fact in other courses. It ended within a week.
Elephants and Cheetahs: Systems, Strategy, and Bottlenecks (EC)
It would not be incorrect to call this one of the flagship courses at IIM Ahmedabad. Everybody raves about it in the second year, and to a large degree I agree with that assessment. Elephants and Cheetahs gives you a very structured approach to defining organizations (or their “soul” as the professor calls it). It is an operations area course but does not run like one. The discussions were mostly guided by the professor themself, and the showstopper that they are, I think students were more than happy to listen to them. There is a lot of learning involved. The final projects were individual (I love individual components), and I made it on the contrast between the luxury houses of LVMH and Kering.
The Indian State, Democracy and Accountability Institutions: Rethinking Good Governance (RGG)
As the name suggests, this was a public systems area course, taken up by an esteemed faculty that I am still in awe of. We look at different government institutions and check the validity of their initiation, execution, and evaluation on constitutional standards. We discussed controversial issues of public concern from an objective lens. I hope it awoke some sensitivity and awareness in the takers because the population of IIMA is a bit lacking on that front. I loved it except for the group project where a couple of my group members were very rude and unprofessional. Eh, we move on.
Managing Creative and Lifestyle Businesses (MCLB)
Coming to my FAVOURITE course of the term! I think I have found my calling, mom! I want to work in the lifestyle business industry! We took up interesting cases from across the globe – Fabindia, Louis Vuitton, Chateau Margeaux – you name it. I applied the insights from this course to many other ones in the marketing area, and it was very much fun. Adding to it, my group was the sweetest. Our final project was with Jamini Paris – a lifestyle brand with Indo-French influences set in Paris. We got great feedback too! *insert happy happy happy cat*
The other courses I took up were as follows, happy for a chat on any of these.
Social Entrepreneurship: Innovating Social Change (SEISC)
Product Growth Hacking (PGH)
Strategy Capstone (SC)
Privacy Paradox: Artificial Intelligence and Digital Platforms (AIDP)
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Marketing (DEIM)
Of course, no stretch of time is all happy. I spent multiple nights working on projects till 5AM, but that comes with the job description, I guess. My anxiety got very bad again a few weeks ago. For personal goals, I am working on learning to keep my mind more present instead of worrying about things eight months in the future. I have started meditating daily for this. I will write another essay on that. For now, a few of my friends have left for the exchange programme to various cities across the world, and new people are coming to our institute for the same, which I look forward to. Thank you for reading!