© Priya Narayanan, Assistant Professor of Marketing, IIM Kozhikode. Views are personal.

This article narrates the story of my academic journey, and my admiration for my teachers at IIM Ahmedabad, and was first published in Writing on the Wall (Issue 5, May 2023, page 53), the annual students’ magazine of IIMA. The full magazine is available at IIM Ahmedabad’s LinkedIn post here.

Caution: The article contains an inordinate number of references to I, me, and my, and is best suited for fans of Priya Narayanan!

Late in the summer of 2009, I officially became a Wimwian by enrolling in the PGP and received the keys to my room in the “dungeon” of Dorm 3, where the sun hesitates to enter and a sweater is needed even at midday in the peak of winter. What followed was a hustle of classes in the gallery seating of b-school classrooms – for the first time ever in my life, I was not on the first bench! – and a life packed with activities and placements. Later, the place felt home enough to return for a second stint, this time for a doctoral degree in a topic that had become my favorite over the years, consumer psychology.

Now, as I (try my best to) patiently ignore the sleepyheads in the classes I teach, I find a renewed respect for the faculty of IIMA. In my MBA students, I see myself – eager, anxious, frustrated, capable, enthusiastic, bored, creative, jaded but curious – and I feel a sense of responsibility. More than anything, I realize now the relief and pleasure when students laugh at a teacher’s jokes!

*

In the second year of PGP, despite the usual RGgiri, RCP, and the boredom of soporific classes, there were some academic discussions which caught my attention. And Wimwi was a place where you explored whatever seriously interested you, be it cricket or music, or even research. I plunged into independent projects, exploring two topics that seemed to pose an endless set of questions – why did corporates have so few women moving to the top? And how could ecommerce managers engage customers both online and offline? (this was before Amazon and Flipkart, and well before TikTok!)

With the PhD degree came the power and responsibility of teaching, of having others listen to my words merely because I had moved from the gallery to the well. And so, every day I find myself dipping into the store of teaching styles and techniques that I had unconsciously picked up over the seven years that I spent at IIMA. There were teachers who excelled at orchestrating case discussions, at board-work, at connecting personally with students, at clearly explaining difficult concepts, and often, at all this and more.

Growing up in the midst of these teachers could be why I took to academia like a duck to water! Today I run original courses – one of which is titled ‘The CMO’s Playbook’ – which reflect both ideas and independent thinking that I must have first picked up while at IIMA. Today my research examines questions that are both highly practical and highly conceptual, largely related to consumer decision making and brands. In my research, I am also inspired by the several IIMA PGP alumni who occupy impactful positions in academia worldwide.

*

Coming from IIMA meant that when I chose to sign up for a PhD, I neither looked elsewhere nor asked myself whether PhD was the right choice. After all, a good doctoral degree is never easy, either intellectually or emotionally. But the process is rewarding because a good PhD teaches you about yourself and gives you space to reflect about meaning and purpose, making you (feel) fit to provide intellectual leadership in your chosen domain.

Of course, being a teacher is as much about learning as it is about teaching. My confidence as a teacher and curiosity as a learner stem in large part from the years spent at IIMA, helping me in my attempt to be equally comfortable in the gallery and in the well. While the field of management education is evolving rapidly and the role of an educator becomes uncertain, the responsibility is not any less and I am grateful to my teachers. I hope one day to possess the generosity and humility that the best of teachers at IIMA so effortlessly convey.