Thursday, January 3, 2008

End of first term at HEC

My first term at HEC ended in December. In terms of number of days spent, the term lasted for a little over 3 months (100 days to be precise) but in terms of the knowledge gained, I was introduced to a lot of new concepts and it might take me years to grasp them completely.

It was a great experience being part of the diverse batch that my class at HEC is. The classmates were cooperative, the proffs supportive and the course structure was top-notch. We were exposed to most of the main disciplines that business requires - finance, marketing, supply chain and accounting. Additionally, we had a new subject -Sustainable Business Development which helped us understand the issues of sustainability and we spent a lot of time in class brainstorming on how businesses should be sustainable - not just making profit for its shareholders but benefitting all the stakeholders concerned, including planet.

I was lucky to have already had an overview and understanding of all the subjects, thanks to my reading habits and my previous work experience. Some of my classmates were completely new to the world of finance and it was good to see them keep up with the rest of the class after an initial struggle.

We also had a lot of fun along with the academics. We fought hard with each other during MBAT elections, had a great time celebrating Diwali and were thorougly entertained by the various events organized during the Japan week. Another highlight was the parties we had in Piano bar - which included normal drinking/dancing parties and the informal salsa training session. One such memorable ocassion was the Latin fiesta where the party continued till 3 AM and only a handful of people turned up to attend the 8AM Statistics class :)

If I were to summarize my firt term experience at HEC, I would say that it was a humbling experience. When I joined HEC, I used to think that I know a lot about business but in the last 3 months I have realized that there are more things that I don't know than what I know.

Am signing off now wishing you all a great year ahead and hoping that my coming year is as exciting and fruitful as the last few months here were.

1 comment:

Juggler said...

The joys of insomnia... Sigh!

Happy New Year and hope you have a great term at school too.