The Dive into a Great Lake!

This blog like many others is about my ‘b-school dream’ and the journey of my realization of the same. I would like to share thoughts on what, in my opinion, should be the criteria to select a b-school. Also, I want to pen down my experiences from the application to the induction phase at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, not-so-fondly known as GLIM.

 

Like millions of you out there, I too was in the dilemma of which school to choose for my management studies. The wide spread choice, only added to my confusion. That’s when I came across this relatively new institute, tucked away in one of the sleepy residential areas of Chennai. In the three years since inception, this b-school has already attained what most others can’t even dream of. From the variety of placements to the sky-rocketing pay packages, from the best of the faculty and a business advisory council that reads like the who’s who of the industry to the most up-to-date course curriculum, this place had an interesting answer to my every question. And the goodies don’t stop there; you get all this and more in half the time! It sounded like a win-win situation to me.

 

The next logical step was making the online application. For the first time, I came across a fully online application (not the ones you print out and send) I don’t know of any other institutions that have this system. I needed two recommendation letters (to be sent by post for obvious reasons) I went to my boss and requested for it. My boss was very impressed with the recommendation format, he said that any institution that has put this amount of detailing into a reco letter, is definitely worth it! It always amazes me as to how different things impress different people. The GD and PI followed shortly.

A few weeks later, I was fortunate enough to find my name on the admissions results list.

 

The next step was to get a bank loan, as I intended to self-finance my studies. The institute had a tie up with the Indian Bank, Saidapet with special interest rates. With the support of the college’s finance department, the loan was relatively hassle-free. Again, my mother was impressed with the pro-active support from the college.

 

Next, I needed to find accommodation, the college does not have a hostel, but the seniors were ever-willing to help us out with this. It took two days of roaming around in the Chennai heat to finally find a place. But it was worth it, Deepak, Ashish and I moved into Rohit’s apartment which is barely a minute’s walk from college.

 

April 20^th, 2007: Registration for the Junior Crusaders (the name of our batch)

There I was, amongst a sea of unfamiliar faces. 165 of us were welcomed with a folder with our names printed on them and schedule for the next one week all in perfect order. The registration of the certificates and the photos for the RF ID cards were all well organized, but then again, one would not expect any less from a “management” institute. Nevertheless, I was impressed!

 

 

 

 

THE INDUCTION.

 

Induction at Great Lakes is a full 10 day affair. And to kick start the process, we has an aptitude test on the very first day- and this was no ordinary aptitude test- our lives and careers depended on this. The PGPM director walked in announced the details of the test-there would be equal number of questions from marketing, finance, HR and systems. And depending on the results, we would be told what specialization to take up. A little confused and nervous, we walked into the respective exam halls and there came an exam paper that looked like Greek and Latin, never had I seen such incomprehendible language-the paper was an absolute killer. All our dreams were shattered. Maybe, I dint have aptitude for anything! The PGPM director and some of the seniors walked in saying that they were disappointed with the results and that the specializations they would call out is what we would have to take up. Everyone was screaming “no fair” and some girls even had tears rolling uncontrollably. One of the seniors walked up to the podium and in a very serious tone said that one day he would tell his grandchildren that he made a ‘bakra’ out of 165 of us!! On the projector there was a ppt slide saying “BAKRA”…the whole thing was a prank! Thank God! What a way to start the course! Well, all I can say is that we will have to better the prank next year!

 

Great Lakes is a student owned, student run organization in every sense of the term. Here, the students are the stake holders. This gives us the students the authority and the responsibility to undertake all tasks from admissions to placements, from the food committee to the honor code committee. I guess this is one of the reasons that the everyone at Great Lakes has this strong sense of belonging and pride. The seniors made presentations about all the committees that they had formed and gave us suggestions on how we should take it forward.

 

No article on Great Lakes would be complete without the mention of our Uncle Bala-the founder and honorary dean. We had the privilege to witness his contagious enthusiasm for the convocation of the senior batch and the inauguration of our batch. The event was conducted in the Chennai Trade Centre (very beautiful place) the governor of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Surjeet Singh Barnala and Mrs. Sudha Murthy presided over the event. Mrs. Murthy gave us a very inspirational talk about managers should be compassionate.

 

We had three tests on financial accountancy, micro-economics and statistics and business math. The college had couriered the study material to our homes for this test. Another indicator that these guys mean business.

This blog is getting too long…so I’m going to skip out on the details and give you all a gist of what followed.

 

I have been here for just ten days and the exposure has already been phenomenal. We have interacted with the Mr. Jamshyd Godrej (Chairman&MD Godrej), Mr. Mahandran (Godrej-Sara Lee), Mr. Shrinivas (CEO -ITC) and Mr. Ranganath (CEO Grundfos Pumps), had guest lectures from a communication expert who also does classes at the IIMs, met with an attitude consultant, a class on leadership management and change management. Went for industrial visits to ITC, Grundfos Pumps, Sundaram Clayton and Brakes India.

 

And of course, we had the ever so popular “outbound” camp. We were all taken to a beach resort on ECR…beautiful property. We were split into three groups and all us had sessions which included management and leadership games, outbound activities like blind volley ball and other fun stuff. We even had yoga, dance (salsa and jive) skits and the trip was what one can call ‘fun packed two days’. The outbound camp helped us get familiar with our batch…a batch that truly defines diversity-there is at least 1 guy from any place you can think of! There is even a guy with 14 years of work-ex, 2 medical doctors, IT professionals, HR consultants, marine engineers…this list could go on forever.

 

In between all this we had an alumini meet and the sangamitra, I must say our seniors put up an excellent show. They have set the benchmark for our performance and its very high! Hope we will be able to live up to everyone’s expectations

 

It really is impossible to put in all the stuff that happened in 10 days into a few pages- because that much happens here!!

 

I think the institute’s first name will summarize the recent events, as they all have been truly “great”!

 

I would like to thank all the CRUSADERS for all the support and wish my fellow JC’s the very best. The year ahead is going change our descriptions for the word ‘hectic’ -lets take up the challenge!

 

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!!