Update: 2 weeks into Year 2

I’m working on a small term paper which requires me to mine wikipedia for some data. Somehow I’ve ended up downloading the whole of the Simple English wikipedia and a script is currently injecting the XML into the MySQL database as we speak. I think it’s going to take a whole day!

That proves perfect for the blog though. I just went through the entire blog – “eyeballing the data”, as a prof here puts it. I’d made a point about how the whole thing here is a machine, and the same stuff happens to students over and over again. Well another batch has entered while the previous batch has left, and the cycle spins again! We have another batch of 22-25 year old male engineers who worked in software sprinkled with a few girls who did the same. If you look hard enough you’ll find those accountants, economists and mathematicians, but only just. As they come back from the Student Store with a bucket in their hand with a broom and a pillow in it, I can predict their future better than any astrologer. And so can any one of my batchmates. It simply is a problem of binning. These are the bins

1. Middle ranked guy who mutely attends classes, studies before the exam and watches sitcoms
2. Top ranked dude who manages to study, takesactive part in clubs and is able to have a girl-friend, all at the same time.
3. Student admitted via the quota who struggles to keep up with academics
4. “Cool dude” who has given up on going to classes and sleeps, eats and watches sitcoms all day
5. Top-ranked studious dude who reads up all his cases, marks them with a highlighter pen and takes notes that everyone will use. This pretty much takes up all of his time.

I didn’t mean to undertake such an important classification in such an offhand fashion, but I think this list is quite decent. Maybe I’ll work on it and publish a more comprehensive one.

Anyway, once you have achieved this binning its quite easy to say, for example what his rank in the batch will be, what kind of jobs he will be doing etc.

Apart from that on a personal note, this term has proven to be really tiresome in a way. Though I like almost all my subjects (except the stupid Product Management!) they all are run by very exacting professors. I shall write more about them and the courses later. But one course, for example requires us to learn econometric modelling using R in the passing! But its turned out to be an asset in the skills armoury.

As I sit in the library typing this, the place is surprisingly empty. First years, scared as usual of the Qualifying Math used to fill this place up, studying and escaping the ghastly Calcutta heat all at the same time. Its empty now, because they are all attending a batch “crasher” organised by my batch-mates. I kinda like this place like this. With a couple of really serious students dotting the floor – rather than large groups of maniacal first year students with an almost obscene amount of enthusiasm for study. Hopefully it will stay this way for the rest of the year.

Lastly, this year will be described as “pre exchange term”, “exchange term” and “post exchange term”. Hence there is no escaping talk of my impending exchange term at Louvain School of Management in Belgium. Little has be done and much remains!

But what is life without the promise of an exciting tomorrow and the trail of an interesting past?

June 18th, 2009 / 3 Comments / Tags: update / Trackback