The Term IV Bidding Process
The way it currently works in IIMC, you do all your compulsory courses in the first year and then you can choose all your subjects for the next year. Basically there are certain rules about the minimum number of credits that you need to take, the number of term papers you can take etc. but by and large you have a great degree of flexibility in how you want your academic life in year two to look.
So, our batch – the first years will decide their courses for term IV now, before we go do our summer internships. Hence we’ve been offered an array of 32 courses to choose from. Now these courses are offered by various academic groups (or departments if you like). Some of these are Finance and Control, Public Policy, Human Resources, Marketing, Behavioural Sciences, Ethics etc. As you would expect a few of the courses are quite sought after – the reasons for which range from excellent professors and course content to the subject requiring minimal effort etc.
It is due to this nature of certain courses being heavily oversubscribed that there exists the concept of “capped courses” – basically a pre-decided limit on how many people can take the course. Now, the way in which these limited seats are allotted is via “bidding” – everyone is given 1000 points in total for the entire year and he has to use these points to bid on courses for all the three terms. In case he takes a course, which does not have a cap then these points remain unutilised.
This bidding process is going on as we speak. The capped subject I’ve applied for did not receive enough applications (over the cap amount) so it did not “go for bidding” – and hence I’ve all my 1000 points left for future terms. Such joy! What is also fun is to see people grapple with this challenge for the first time and figure out what other people are doing. I think its an excellent system – and there seems to be no way for people to coalesce or unify to beat the system. That does not mean that its faultless – there are issues which are too involved for me to discuss here, but which have already created enough of a ruckus.
Apart from that, the other major news from my part is that I shall be going on Student Exchange to the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Louven, Belgium in term V. (ie September to December) We had a large list to choose from (though there is a serious lack on “brand names” on that list) – one which gives enough representation to places all over Europe. From France to Spain and Norway to Italy.
Of course, the objective is to have a fun filled 10 week European holiday. Students will take courses which dont demand too much and spend as much time on the road. My rank in choosing the university was pretty high – and we choose Belgium because it was cheaper than France but equally well connected – with the added advantage that French is still the language in currency. I’m sure that my French will be all polished by the time I get back!
Our exams being from Monday. Subjects for this half-term are Corporate Finance, Strategy, India and the World Economy, Indian Social Structure, Production and Operations Management. And once I’ve written these papers from Monday-Friday the plan is to leave on a weeklong trip to Sikkim before I head back home!
Can’t wait for the next week to get over, and with it my entire first year at IIMC!
February 27th, 2009 / 2 Comments / Trackback
