Finally the time has came to say good bye to FMS-IRM, so definitely writing about my complete experience will not be easy and possible. But I will try my best to make it more comprehensive as much I can.
My initial expectations from FMS-IRM
As any enthusiastic MBA student I was so much interested and curious before joining the college that I searched for the orkut community of our college and joined it in order to become it's part as early as possible. I thought that the same curiosity will be there among other students too but it had taken no time to me to realize that I was wrong. The feeling what I got from community form was of like," as we didn't got any options so we are joining this college". People were curious with the questions like,"it seems you have got a good profile than why are you joining this college?""Are you happy about your decision of joining this college?"
Questions like these and the temperament and mood what I had perceived at that time had really disappointed me, but as I had certain individual plans as a student so even than I was ok with my choice. Importantly, the placement at that time and the profile what the students had got at that time was really good. But yes, the quality of students I have seen at the GD/PI time in the college was of really concern to me.
I expected that it will be the college where we will have classes from 8-5 in the evening, we will be doing lots of assignments, we will get the chances to see lots of businesses in Jaipur, a healthy interaction will be there between the students, most of the students will be proactive in certain aspects, a healthy competition will be there between the students, I will get the chance to discover lots of places in Rajasthan, than yes, there will be lot of gossips and stories to share between us :-) But everyone know how much all this happened in our college except the gossip part.
My experience during the college time
IRM has done one thing very good to us that it had given all of us lots of time to do whatever we want, except the time and platform to do some stuffs as other MBA students do. The faculty were not up to the mark as expected in a college like FMS-IRM, there was no assignment in the classes to break the ice between the students and to develop some skills like team participation, generation of ideas,etc. The personal development of each students wasn't there and I must say, neither most of the students had tried to work on self grooming. I tried out something of my own but failed because I didn't had the bike initially (so if I would have tried in city buses than i would have wasted lost of time in travelling itself and I believe in frugality) and secondly I didn't get a dedicated partner to explore those things.
But my biggest disappointments was students who had always seen the problem in college only and failed to chalked out any alternative if they were really concerned about their self grooming. Anyway it is also the fact that most of us are just the fresh graduate pass out from the college and may be the motivational factors must come out from outside according to them. Finally, there was a time in the 3rd semester when most of us were busy in one thing-that this college has ruined our two years. But I must say my dear friends, that by just discussing the problems we just get attached to that problem and we forget that," we are the creative force of our life". Blaming everyone and everything else for our problems and challenges may be the norm and may provide us temporary relief from the pain, but it also chain us to these very problems.
Cynicism only gives me a status quo, so I believe that we should be more creative and innovative about the environment in which we are living.
But still I have lot of love for this college and for my batch mates. There were certain incidences which were really shameful but incidence like these are important in life as they also teaches us lot about the group dynamics, organizational politics,etc. I know everyone will forget these incidences after 6 months( at least I think so :)). I had really got some nice friends in IRM and hope this relation will continue for long. Every student is uniques to me and i appreciate the fact. My last days in IRM of the 3rd semester were of very boredom, as I was having lot of time but no work to do. Every morning was very heavy to me with the feeling," Gaurav you have lot of time today but what you are planing to do, with it?" I was helpless during these days as I wasn't having any fixed schedule of works and I was already sitting on the internet for 5-6 hours a day surfing different kind of stuff and no social activity to get involve within or outside the college. My part time company was on holiday and the owner was busy in some other bigger project work, hence i was jobless and nothing creative to do in my hand.The college was under long winter holiday from the start of 3rd semester and the morale of students was just too low to attend any classes, as if by sitting in home they have completed the Vedas :). The attendance was never more than 60% on any day except exams ( so you see why I love exams this much :-))
My childhood fascination was animals, forest and mountains but after staying in the Himalayas for7-8 long years I am in complete love with it. So when I have joined the college i was sure to go for the microfinance sector as most of the companies that have been regular to us were MFI's and secondly, as I had seen the corporate world I had lost my interest from it. (In the corporate world they recognize just one thing primarily i.e. your brand. Which you should get it by studying in colleges like IIM, IIT,etc. and yes if you are not a B.E than you have to work really hard to get recognized in the organization.).Therefore, after the first semester what I did was that I searched out for the MFI's working in these Himalayan region and I came acrossed this MIMO Finance. It was in Dehradun and I found out that Mimo was doing good in this sector, so decided that I will do my summers from here. I also got the internship from some big corporates like ITC Ltd, Bikaji, MDH, and some other interesting organisations but my intuition and heart was there with Mimo :). I was in great pain and dilemma weather to join these or should go for Mimo initially. Still I don't now how much it will materialize further, but I am sure if i would get a even Rs. 15000 job there i would be happy to do it initially. Finally, I must say I am happy to join Mimo.
The placements have just started in college and I hope all of us will get settled in some good places. As I am leaving the college I am getting nostalgic and feels happy about the fact that at least i had participated in each and every events of the college except dance and singing, which is definitely not my cup of tea. In rural development we study (sorry guys :)) about the community development and it talks about the volunteer-ship of the members and the participation of the members in any community/development activity such that the ownership and the sense of belongingness of the people in that activity/development/institution should increase (Thanks Rishi Rajvanshi sir).
I know my experiences will not help anyone, but still I think if we will read such experiences of others than it will help us in understanding the missing link between us. Now don't ask me how? :-)
Cheers!
Kumar Gaurav Singh,
http://unhub.com/KumarGauravSingh
(9/12/2009)
