The past month has bene very hectic. It has been full of fun activities, academic pressure and internship search.
We truly celebrated HEC Paris' diversity in March by celebrating India Week, Africa Week and China Week. For three consecutive weeks, we had some or other events to showcase the culture and diversity of our participants. These events were not just fun; Every week had a roundtable event in which there were discussions about doing business in that particular region. Finally, one common event that marked the culmination of every event was a fashion show where our classmates walked the ramp showcasing their colorful cultural diversity. These events were fun and informational.
On the academic front, we are close to the end of 2nd term here. We have already had final exams for two subjects and with three final exams next week, we will finish the 2nd term on 10th April. After that, we will have one week for Vision of Leadership events. More on that later.
The past month was also stressful because of summer internship/elective related work. I interivewed with DHL for a Corporate Strategy profile but did not get the position. So as of now, I don't have any internship offer and as things stand now, I will take electives till June end and will spend Jul-Aug in India. But it was good to see some of my classmates get internship offers although not everyone got what he/she wanted. Overall, this has been a tough time, especially in the financial sector. Not more than 5/6 people have landed with core finance profiles for internships.
I am leaving for London tomorrow for a career fair exclusively organized for HEC MBA students by JP Morgan. There will be close to 20 companies present and I am interesed in 3-4 of those. Lets see how this event goes.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Bear down! who's next
The fire-sale of Bear Stearns at $236 M was the most talked about topic at HEC yesterday. Everyone was wondering who the next casuality is going to be and if we could pool in some capital to buy a bank ;)
In our Economics class y'day, the professor showed the following video which is a spoof on Bernake's monetary policies. Awesome video I'd say...
In our Economics class y'day, the professor showed the following video which is a spoof on Bernake's monetary policies. Awesome video I'd say...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Trip to Prague
I went to Prague last weekend and it turned out to be a great trip as expected. I was part of a group of 50 people, all residents of fondation "Deutsche de la Meurthe" who had gone together by a bus! It was a 14 hour overnight trip and even though we had sore back/neck after reaching there, we thoroughly enjoyed the journey and the stay in Prague.
Prague (or Praha as it is locally called) is a lovely, small, developing city. Most of the tourist places in the city are situated in a 3-4 km walking radius and so we spent most of our time walking rather than travelling in trains. The city with its cobbled streets makes for an awesome walking expereince; the streets are beautiful, old and I really liked the colors of the apartments and buildings there.
On the first day, we spent most of our day in Prague Castle, walking around the place and visiting churches, museums inside it. The evening was fabulous - we were treated to a traditional Czech dinner with folk dance. Because I am a vegetarian, I did not enjoy the traditional delicacies but definitely enjoyed the folk dance and songs.
We spent the next day travelling around Old City and visited places like Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge, Petrin Tower among other places. We spent the evening in Karlovy Lazne - among the biggest discotheques in Central Europe. The disc has 5 floors and each plays different genre of music. I really enjoyed music there and we left the place around 2 AM and walked for over an hour to reach our place by 3:15 AM!!!
Since Prague is a small place, we had covered almost all the important places in the first couple of days; on the last day, we just walked around the old Jewish Quarters, sipped coffee in Franz Kafka Cafe and then left Prague around 5 PM.
Overall, it was an awesome trip; Now I want to visit more places in Eastern Europe which I think is relatively unexplored. Looking forward to many more trips around Europe...
Prague (or Praha as it is locally called) is a lovely, small, developing city. Most of the tourist places in the city are situated in a 3-4 km walking radius and so we spent most of our time walking rather than travelling in trains. The city with its cobbled streets makes for an awesome walking expereince; the streets are beautiful, old and I really liked the colors of the apartments and buildings there.
On the first day, we spent most of our day in Prague Castle, walking around the place and visiting churches, museums inside it. The evening was fabulous - we were treated to a traditional Czech dinner with folk dance. Because I am a vegetarian, I did not enjoy the traditional delicacies but definitely enjoyed the folk dance and songs.
We spent the next day travelling around Old City and visited places like Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge, Petrin Tower among other places. We spent the evening in Karlovy Lazne - among the biggest discotheques in Central Europe. The disc has 5 floors and each plays different genre of music. I really enjoyed music there and we left the place around 2 AM and walked for over an hour to reach our place by 3:15 AM!!!
Since Prague is a small place, we had covered almost all the important places in the first couple of days; on the last day, we just walked around the old Jewish Quarters, sipped coffee in Franz Kafka Cafe and then left Prague around 5 PM.
Overall, it was an awesome trip; Now I want to visit more places in Eastern Europe which I think is relatively unexplored. Looking forward to many more trips around Europe...
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Ethanol as biofuel - a viable alternative to traditional fuels ?
In recent times, we have witnessed a lot of talk about biofuels in general and ethanol in particular. Biofuels are being promoted as alternatives to traditional fuels primarily because they produce fewer poisonous and greenhouse gases that harm the environment and cause global climate change (global warming). Governments everywhere are subsidizing startups in biofuel industry and leading energy companies are also investing huge sums of money to develop biofuels.
Some recent studies have pointed out the ill-effects of using ethanol as a bio-fuel. I recently came across a very good article on Economist debating the use of ethanol as a biofuel. The entire article can be found here:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766882
Another article from CNN talks, among other things, about how ethanol could add to the food woes of emerging countries. This article can be found here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/24/eco.biofuels/index.html
It will be interesting to see how the biofuel industry responds to these challenges. I will try to get some industry responses on this and post them here.
Some recent studies have pointed out the ill-effects of using ethanol as a bio-fuel. I recently came across a very good article on Economist debating the use of ethanol as a biofuel. The entire article can be found here:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766882
Another article from CNN talks, among other things, about how ethanol could add to the food woes of emerging countries. This article can be found here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/24/eco.biofuels/index.html
It will be interesting to see how the biofuel industry responds to these challenges. I will try to get some industry responses on this and post them here.
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