Fun amidst Hardship:

Final days are getting closer. Everyone is busy with their final dissertation and projects. Since we don’t have daily classes anymore, it became increasingly harder to meet our friends. My university accommodation became almost like my mini jail as I need to sit in front of the computer for almost all the time and do the work. We finally found some ways to come out of our den and spend our energy.

Common room - All for us!!

After almost 10 months, we thought of using the accommodation facilities like gym, snooker board and basketball court to meet and greet. To our luck, our friend Mahesh (who is also staying in our accommodation) turned out to be a national basketball player. With his nifty teaching style, everyone honed our skills and started to play professionally ( we believe) . Our accommodation became a meeting spot for some of our friends where we met and played funny games. And gym is highlight as it became the chat room as we were chatting more than doing actual exercise. Since almost the accommodation is nearly empty without undergraduate students, the common room and other facilities became all ours.

We all know that this university life will last only for few more days. But I believe we will rejoice thinking these small moments in the future.

Project Time:

The Law firm

After having a lot of fun in the college it’s time now to start our real time project. After learning lot of theories and case studies, now we were asked to soil our hands by experimenting in a real company as a business consultant. All our class mates were introduced to different clients based on our skill set (past experience) and our preference. The good thing for the company is that our service is totally free for them which they relish a lot (The minimum market price for a consultant like us starts with 300 pounds per day whereas we do our work for weeks and that too free). Being a win-win situation for everyone, we were all left to ourselves.

I was lucky to get to work with the largest law firm in the world (DLA Piper) where I was to fix their marketing issues. My contact point was the regional marketing manager for northwest and she was more than happy to have me to analyse the market as she is busy pitching for new customers. I was given full support by them and was provided a seat amidst the busy working environment of the company. After a year break from my IT profession, working again with professional people was too inspiring and I felt I was back to my best. Thought I don’t know much about law, the management issues and marketing problem remains universally same for all companies (whether small or big).

I am learning a lot more than my project and this experience is really boosting my confidence. I can clearly see the way ahead of my prospective future.  

Third Semester!!

Am now in the fastest and finest days of my MBA; the final and last semester. In contrast to other post graduate students, our MBA curriculum includes a final month of taught class which means we are the only few students who had taught classes in the whole university. But being the last few days, we spent our last month in a more unique way.

Preparing for the innovative pitch!!

This semester was designed so that as a MBA graduate, we get to know about leadership and build Entrepreneurial skills that can be utilized later in our life. Also the importance of innovation in business is concentrated. Almost the whole semester is so practical where we need to come up with our own idea and formulate an innovative plan which we might use in our later stage of life. The innovation presentation involves in discussing our future idea which will possibly make every one of us a multi-millionaire.  It was fascinating to hear and help friend to generate ideas. One thing was made clear from this course. Ideas are easy to generate and very easy to implement when worked together as a team.  

Our final pic!!

In addition to learning we had lot of other good moments. Being together for almost a year, a kind of bonding was built within our student and even with the inanimate objects like chairs and computers in the class. Some of my sweet friends even prepared food for the whole class and distributed during the lunch. Our last month of final MBA passed so fast that we all even felt an 2 year MBA could have been much more enjoyable (As we can be a student for an year longer J).

Whatever said and done, we had a wonderful year of MBA. We have a practical project left for the semester where we need to go to a real time company and solve their management issues with our past experience and newly acquired knowledge. A long way is there to go and I believe our MBA gave us the right signpost for a successful future.

Paris Trip – Part 3(Continuation...)

Paris from the top

Finally came our moment of Paris. The Eiffel tower became bigger and bigger as we went closer thru the bus. After a point it became impossible to capture the Tower fully with my tiny little camera due to its massive height and breadth. With our adrenalin pumping faster, we jumped from the bus and started to run towards the tower entrance.  While wondering the beauty of Eiffel tower, I also realised the reason for it being selected as one of the world Wonder.   We had an option of going to the top with in few minutes in the lift. But we chose to have a ride thru stairs.

Within few minutes almost all of us started panting and started to look for a drink to quench our thirst. We reached the first floor (after climbing some 25 floors I guess) and got relieved to see some shops selling water and energy drink. But being in the top of the world, the prices were also found to be skyrocketed.  But who looked for it. We still had another 2000 steps at least to climb and we know that the price of these drinks also will climb still more as we reach the top. After the short refreshment we started our mission above. But our pace was greatly reduced.

Moments captured :)

The fun when we go in a group especially during these kind of climbing (or trekking or Mountaineering ) is that we can find at least one person in the group who will take more rest and will give all others reason to  rest. And he/she will be the one targeted by the group. We too had such people and after loads of funny moments with them we reached the second floor (up to which we can walk). Again our photo session started and looking the world from the top of Eiffel tower is always fascinating. We tried to spend as much time as we can there and finally came down. We spend so much time around the tower that it started getting dark (it was almost 10.30 pm). Suddenly the glittering lights were turned on and the tower started to sparkle in the darkness.

Actually the tower is too far!!

Glittering Behind!!

As we were too exhausted with the long and wonderful day, we started to look for a restaurant and moved away from Eiffel tower (saying a final good bye).  Later an enjoyable Indian dinner and funny games back in the hotel, night walk in shorts and t-shirt and what else??. We finally finished the longest and loveliest day by around 5 am with a small nap.

 The university trip to France will remain to be one of the best times in my life…. 

Paris Trip – Part 2 (Continuation)

City thru Hop-on Hop-off

After our gathering in hotel, we found we have a very less time to go around (it was 4 o Clock already) and so a quick decision was required for visiting as much places as possible. We had two options. One to use the public transportation (which we were not familiar with) and other to use the Hop-on Hop-off bus service. Since we were awake of our great knowledge of French (lol), we went with the second option which was little expensive. There were various bus services providing this hop-on hop-off service (which is an open top tourist bus which goes around all important places of Paris). With 29 Euros as premium which is quite high for the few hours of our travel in bus, we took our first step to see the most awaited Eiffel Tower.

  

The Concorde

Checking Paris from the top of the double decker was an awesome experience. And since we didn’t have much time, most of the pictures were captures from the bus top. But again to our disappointment, we had made another big mistake. We took the bus in wrong direction which means we will see Eiffel tower only after 7 o Clock since that’s the last stop for the bus. The good thing about European climate is that in contrast to Asian countries, sun will never set till 10 pm during the summer. Therefore, 7 o’ clock seemed to be ok for us. Starting with St. Madeline church, we covered Auber, Palais-Royal Comomedie Francaise, Museum d’Orsay, Arc of Triomphe, Norte Dame and finally Museum du Louvre.

Museum Louvre - Am enjoying

World famous Museum du Louvre was amusing as it welcomed us with the glass pyramid (which I saw in the move Da Vinci code). Our real photo session started in the museum.  Especially with my friends expensive Nikon SLR, giving pose to the picture was a pleasure.  The only disappointment was we were unable to see the world famous picture of Mona Lisa due to our time constraint. After checking all around the museum, we were so determined that our next spot will be only in Eiffel tower. After an enjoyable ride around the city in the bus, we ended up in Eiffel tower. To be continued…

Paris trip – Part 1

Standing tall - Taken from our Bus

After a week of interesting events in Rouen Business School, the much awaited day to visit the 6^th largest city of the world arrived. A bus was arranged for our trip and we started to Paris after our breakfast in Rouen. The temperature in France in general was so good (around 20 degree most of the time) and the weather forecast also confirmed on our best day to tour around. We were greeted by the Eiffel tower even from a very far distance which stood sumptuously welcoming everyone. Every street was filled with surprise as French architect have shown their competence in every possible building.

Au pied de cocbon - Paris

Our stay was arranged in a three star Hotel – Bergere Opera by the university which was in the heart of the Grands Boulevards. Also our farewell lunch from Rouen Business School was arranged in famous Restaurant of Paris - Au Pied De Cochon. As chicken was not consumed as commonly as we have here in England by the French, my favourite dish remained to be fish during my stay in France since I don’t eat Pork and beef due to religious reason.  To my surprise, the food catered also had their cultural touch where they served whole fish with dressing all around it (French have the habit of eating the whole animal as leaving some part of them was considered to be a disgrace). After a bon appetite, we almost ran back to our hotel to get dressed for our awaited tour. Since we had only half a day left for our exploration of Paris, time became a critical factor.

A warm day ahead - busy street in Paris

 Do wait for my next blog to know about our experience on the worlds prominent places in Paris (Actually, I can’t restrict my experience in few words within this blog). A lot more excitement yet to come… 

Rouen Business School (RBS)

As part of our MBA curriculum, a one week trip to Rouen Business School in France was organized by our university. Being the first trip outside the country and that too with all our class mates, we were very excited. And for me, this will be the first time to France and I have heard a lot about the romantic country and so it added to the thrill. Some of my friends started shopping a week in advance planning and anticipating the events. These planning and discussing was more titillating than the actual trip. After all the ballyhoo, the day for our journey came and with a one and half hour journey through Air France we stepped into the city of love – Paris.

Too hungry - made my plate clean(After a delicious meal)

From the airport, we went to Rouen which is a two hours’ drive through road. Everything is arranged so well that we felt the RBS was like our second home. Individual rooms in university accommodation were allotted to us and even utensils were provided which will be sufficient to cook whatever we want. We even shopped and had a traditional Indian meal (including chicken gravy) together with our friends.

French people were so much fascinated to their culture and they were more than proud to follow all their tradition. Therefore, the only language spoken in France was French and we were made to use the universal sign language for communications. But our sign language was not too successful. For instance, in a restaurant when my friend ordered desert (ice cream with chocolate) they served him with another meal and we all had a good laugh. But it also helped me to learn some words in French like Bonjour and merci which we used in our every conversation.

Too delicious - Red Wine

We had various interesting sessions in RBS and my personal favourite was a mini session on wine tasting (where various wine was served and we were taught to find a suitable wine as per our preference). Also the trip to Port Le Harve where 60% of all French export and imports are carried out was too informative. Other session include culture and international finance. One obvious difference between the usual class and the session we had was that it was attended by our MBA Director and Professor where they participated actively as a student, listening and asking queries as one among us. We met the MBA students of Rouen and had an outing with them too. We had booze, dance, party and every other possible thing to enjoy. It’s true that the time will become golden when friends hang around together.       

     

Hours went like minutes and days became too short. One week in Rouen Business School was one of the best times of our university life. Our exploration of France didn’t stop in Rouen; we travelled then to Paris. Do wait for my next blog to know my wonderful experience on the World Wonder – Eiffel Tower.