Mahabalipuram World Heritage Temple Trip

After a long time, got the chance to visit to Mahabalipuram temple. Guess what the temple is just 9 km away from Great Lakes but still it took almost 9 months to come over there. The temple gets closed by 6 PM, while  we guys generally goto Mahabs after 8 PM. Of course, "8 PM" should be taken after 8 PM. ;)
Anyways, finally we are there on 19th Jan, 2010. Enjoy :)

 Hitesh romping with the elephant

 Mukul and me: Jai-Veeru

 

 Let's dance with "Apsara"

 Hitesh got the match through Parrot

 Kirti acting like Krishna

 Too Heavy ;)

 It's a small matter for our Hulk 

Another boulder to push, lot of work-out...huh

 3 intelligent

 Kirti desperate to get married

This parrot was a big idiot...tried hard to scare him...but all efforts in vain

Great Lakes Term 5

Most eventful term. There were so many activities + events happened that I got barely anytime to study and even hit my blog. My whole term just went into organizing International Entrepreneurship Conference scheduled on 13th Jan, 2010. But, it was fun to do all that.
Damn, I think I read least in this term. At least I should pass. :P

Great Lakes Term 5 (25th Nov to 15th Jan, 2010)
Course Name	Facilitator	Positives	Delta (No negatives)	Any Comments
FSAV-1	Gerald Lobo, Professor & Arthur Andersen Chair in Accounting Department of Accountancy and Taxation Houston, Texas	Do anything you want. Calm Prof	A major disaster. I could not grab even a single bit. Boring.	There will be no change in voice tone for 3 hours. Monotonous. Change Prof please. Rating; .5/5
Global Financial Strategy	Dr. Krishnan Dandapani	Among few of the good finance/strategy Prof. Lot of energy and very good lectures preparation and informative notes. Good experience. Nice thing is he tells complex concepts in highly simplified manner.	None	Good Prof. Should come for few more subjects.
Pricing Strategy	Dr. Ram Krishnan, Professor of Marketing, University of Miami.	Energetic, Charming with a great sense of humor. Make jokes anytime anywhere and laughs even on him. Nice teacher. Great course with good concepts and lot of practical applications. Must take for all MBAs	None	Loved the Prof. Would like to do Ph.D - Marketing under him
Strategic Cost and Profitability Management	Uncle Bala (‘Padmashri’ Dr. Bala. V. Balachandran Professor Emeritus of Accounting Information & Management, Kellogg School of Management, Founder and Dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management)	Who else could teach the course better than the Uncle Bala who is among the highest echelon of the Accounting. Touched concepts of most of the business areas.	The lectures were too less to absorb all concepts and get a lot out of the subjects	The energy level of Uncle Bala is just unmatchable. His each and every word motivates you to the core and puts so much confidence in you.
Services Management	Dr. V.S.Mahesh, director of Centre for Service Management at the University of Buckingham, England, which he founded in 1993. Over two decades of corporate experience, at Tata Administrative Service, Board of all Wipro companies as Corporate VP(HR).  A fuller profile is attached.	Good course for MBAs aspiring to go to service sector. Prof is the world renowned for service management research.	Classes are too less and too long.	Lecture on Threshold of motivation was very good. Guess that he can teach Human Resource Management very well.
Strategic marketing	Prof  Xavier, Great Lakes	Great facilitator. Enjoyed his witty comments.  Good classes and great method of mixing students’ presentation with lectures.	Sometime classes got boring.	Good facilitator with a great sense of humor.

Tada Waterfalls Trek : Trip Log

Members: 13 Great Lakers - Ankur, Awhan, Karn, Akhil, Varun, Mukul, Sushil, Hitesh Jain, Arvind Sasikumar, Abhishek Srivasatv, Dhiraj, Neha

Start time: 4:30 AM, Friday, 18^th Dec, 2009

End time: 9:30 PM, Friday, 18^th Dec, 2009 

Total travel: 370 Kms

Total expense:

      Taxi (Tempo traveler – 14 seater) – 8,000 INR

      Others – 2000 INR

      Total = 10,0000 INR approx

What went well:

- Awesome adventure. Among few of the best trek.

- Reached till the main waterfall by exploring ourselves

- Drinks and food

- Best time management in all trips done till now

- Complete Green Trek. Infact collected few more bottles :)

- Great trek team

What went wrong:

- Money collection and members’ participation till last minute

Total duration: 1 day

Going: Manamai - Chennai – Tada

Coming: Tada – Chennai – Mahabalipuram - Manamai

Weather Conditions: Very Pleasant

Vehicle: Mini-Bus

Photographers: Ankur, Hitesh, Varun, Sushil, Abhishek 

Special Thanks to:  Hitesh for organizing the bus and talking to travel agents. Sushil and Mukul for support and help.

18^th Dec 09

Great Lakes, Manamai

05:00 hrs – Departure from Manamai

06:30 hrs – Tea at Chennai

08:00 hrs – Shopping of food items + Daroo shopping + Breakfast on the way. Menu: Omlette, Dosa, Idly. 

9:30 hrs – Reached Tada. Trek started.

Hitesh on the Run

  On the Iron Bridge    The Victory

On the wayWater playThe human chainSome more The 3 idiotsThe Trek                                           Fun time: Sushil and Varun      Chips khaati C'IpsaAwhan and Varun: Gum ka saathi RumNeha: Miss Tada                  Tada waterfallsThe fight with TadaDrinks time

 

After winning

Inside water

Sushil: Nice pic

The team work

On the trek

The ultimate swinging tree

Neha: Fun time

Mukul: The Chudail pic

FRIENDS Temple

Awesome experience. 10 out of 10

Great Lakes Term 4

Very tiring term. Truly, LIP course was the major reason of it but even then this was all worth it. :)

Great Lakes Term 4 (5th Oct to 22nd Nov)
Course Name	Facilitator	Positives	Delta (No negatives)	Any Comments
Business Analytics	Dr Purba Rao	Very sweet and nice prof.  Good documents so that you can always refer later. A good knowledge of her course.	Sometime she starts interacts on one to one basis with students while whole classes of around 130 students are gossiping.	Nice experience to be taught by the Prof.
Consumer Behavior	Dr. Siva K. Balasubramanian Harold L. Stuart Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology	Good course. The book which was given is great.	Unable to relate the course material other than book with the course.	The course could be made more vibrant and interesting.
CRM	Prof  Xavier, Great Lakes	Great facilitator. Enjoyed his witty comments.  Good classes and great method of mixing students’ presentation with lectures.	Sometime classes got boring.	Good facilitator with a great sense of humor.
Distribution and Sales Mgmt	Prof VK Murthy	Best lecturer in marketing we ever got. The prof is the best in class. No gyaan, no bakwaas, only practical aspects and realities of sales job. No big assignment and case studies. Case studies and writeup were small but intelligently crafted.  Very professional too.	No delta	Would love to sit for his class anytime.
Investment Banking	Prof Ramanujam	Gives a lot of time to students to interact and resolve their problem.	Could not understand even a single bit about investment banking. Case studies were too large and made no sense to me. Moreover case studies were more about strategy rather than IB. Moreover, the sessions were meant for finance experts not for amateur like us.	Keep less case study and more basics.
Leadership, Influence and Power	Prof Venkat R. Krishnan	Aah…here comes the subject and the Prof I almost rever. The Prof has an amazing method of teaching. Moreover he is best prepared for his lecture. The course is just not about business but about our overall life of us, organization and society. Few concepts were enthralling that you will just keep on thinking for many days about the same.	NONE except that there is a lot of compulsory reading which make you burn mid-night oil whole of the term. But it’s worth it. J	The subject is the best you may get at great lakes. I will recommend this subject to all MBA students. You understand nuances of working into the organization and day to day politics.
Quintessentials of Doing Business in the 'Middle Kingdom	Prof G Venkataraman	Nice Prof. Some stories about china were quiet good.	Was not interested much to learn more about China.	Such subjects could be great if students here have time. We have no time left to enjoy such arts/culture oriented subjects.

Great Lakes Controversies

Every place has its own history and share of controversies. Writing few of the controversies happened at Great Lakes. Howsoever harsh or bad it looks right now but I am sure these controversies will be cherished by us whenever we will memorize them later or cross our roads after this 1 year meet @Great Lakes.

1. May, 09; Campus going haywire: New campus however many basic things not proper, bad internet speed, no water, AC not working, spamming, conundrums.

Actions: Lot of work happened at majot scale after all this drama. Gradually Patriots got settled at no man's land and made it the home. 

2. 27 May, 09; Scorpion at my room: Mail fragment will suffice thewords:

" Tonight I found a 3-4 inch long scorpion in my hostel room. It was curled up in my laptop bag. To say that I am shaken would be an understatement. At the moment, all I can think is that I am lucky to be alive. I am thinking my stars that I noticed it because I was studying till late.

The only way it could have entered my room is through the gap below the doors. Please get some sort of fitting done in the doors so that dangerous insects and snakes cannot crawl into our rooms. I personally do not feel safe at the moment after this incident.

Patriots: Always make sure you check your shoes/sandals, bags and other stuff lying on the floor before you pick them up.

Hoping for a quick response."
Result: Sprays in campusto avoid snakes, rats etc

3. 28 May 09; Updates and Rules by Stuco: There was lot of spamming happening due to new campus going haywire. Another bomb flashed soon by Stuco. the mail snippet by Stuco:

"There have been lots of unnecessary mails floating around to the class ID and the solution to that is a fine (of Rs 100/-) that will be levied on any person who sends a mail which isn’t of any value to the whole class. The fines that will be collected from this initiative will be held by the Student Council till the Honour Code Committee is formed and thereafter they will be the custodians of the money collected."

The mail got fire instantly and soon there were more spams than ever. The meeting with Stuco after this has been the most heated discussion happened till now. 

Result: Rule overruled

4. Specialization drama: Student not knowing about which specialization to take. 

Result: Spamming and unnecessary meeting with Profs

5. 13 Jul 09; Safety and Medi-claim issue: Raised by me to Stuco

Result: Fire extinguishers kept, Railing were put, mediclim happened after 3 months.

Wait for more as it happens...;)