Tag Archives: education

How NOT to Write a Research Internship Application!

Posted on by

After writing this up, I was in two minds whether to post it. But when I received an application that, quite confusingly, began: “Dear professor, my name is [your name]. I am a third-year undergraduate…”, I decided that time for this post had come. So here goes.

*

Dear undergraduates,

Every so often, I receive an email from someone among you who wants to do a research internship with me. They are mostly alike. The ones I do take a risk on, by inviting for an interview and often taking onboard for a piece of work, are different, though. How? Those have a genuineness and care to the writing.

That set me thinking and I listed here, for your benefit, who to do and what not to do (the latter first) when writing a research internship email. This is all based on my experiences with prospective interns like you. Much of this is written in a light vein, in the spirit of laughing over one’s own flaws and picking up from wherever we are. I hope you have fun reading and applying this, because I had fun writing it!

So, here’s what to avoid in your email:

Continue reading →

From the gallery to the well: A Wimwian’s reflections on the journey from student to teacher

Posted on by

© 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.

Towards The CMO’s Playbook – A reflection on teaching and learning marketing strategy

Posted on by

Two months ago, forty-seven eager young minds started on a quest for “the CMO’s playbook” – a journey to understand strategic decision making in marketing. An equally eager but not so young mind (yours truly) joined them, mainly to prove that fun and learning can go together. It was a tall ask from all of us, but we managed to pull it off!

Finally, it was the student teams that prepared their original playbooks for CMOs, and I might have merely orchestrated the journey – a journey through a mix of simulation, business cases, discussions of real life marketing, and minimal reliance on pre-cooked frameworks.

Continue reading →

Business Schools – Training for What?

Posted on by

Business schools across the world are finding themselves in a situation of introspection: what exactly is the need for their existence? More importantly, what do they teach?

Applications for this  year’s Common Admission Test (CAT) that is used as one of the key parameters for admission to the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) came down to a record low of 190,000 this year. For whatever reasons, students seem to be finding b-schools less attractive compared to other options.

To the first question of what b-schools are needed for, there are a few things that business schools can teach. Firstly, there are the business subjects: marketing, finance, operations, human resources and systems, as any first year b-school student would be able to tell you.  Secondly, there is another subject that b-schools try to teach but don’t do so well: strategy. And the top strategy consulting firms end up trying to follow an apprenticeship model so that they fill the gap.

Besides the above, something that b-schools are yet to do well, is being a manager and a leader. That there is strong demand for people who can manage a good business and take all steps required to get things done is very real. Similarly, there is strong demand today for another factor that b-schools are not in the perfect position to teach: leadership.  And women’s leadership as well. Today, all of us – at least those who care enough to have a say in the matters – tend to preach the same old advice about leadership because we haven’t seen what true leadership can do. There is some hope here, though, as b-schools recognize the situation and respond to that.

As the first step, we need to realise that tomorrow’s leaders will face a completely different set of situations today. As I brought up in this thought experiment.

Related articles

Constructive Discontent

Posted on by

There are the discontented who complain of the state of things – they don’t act. There are the contented who are happy with the state of things – they don’t act either. And then there are the creative, imaginative ones who see the world for what it can be, not for what it is – and they act. Because their vision is as real as anything solid. And their discontent does not let them rest till they act.

Very recently, I listened to someone in the development sector who had, about a decade ago, guided a rude, uncared for young boy from the slums of Mumbai and nurtured him into a confident lad who now leads an NGO. Her eyes shone as she described the tremendous faith that she had in the boy when every other teacher in the school considered him hopeless.

Ask her, and she will tell you that she didn’t do anything heroic. All she did was listen to the inner discontent that didn’t let her let go of hope.

 

Tete-a-tete with a Teacher

Posted on by

From a half-interested Engineering student to a passionate teacher and an educator on a mission – this is the transformation that choosing Teach for India has wrought on Prasid. The change in this former classmate of mine parallels the transformation of many of Prasid’s students at Varsha Nagar School in Mumbai. As a regular visitor at the school, I felt that this was one story worth bringing to my readers.

“I had finished my MBA, and could get a well-paying corporate job. But why take the well-trodden path? Why not take up something that would give me the opportunity to make a real difference?” Prasid’s words today, as he explains his reason for joining TFI, strike at the core of those of us who sweat it out climbing the corporate ladder.

Who's the teacher?!

Who’s the teacher?!

From the beginning, the 31 students of grade 3 staked claim to Prasid’s life, which revolved entirely around lesson plans, field trips, assessment tests and fundraising. Between teaching his “kids” to independently read the unabridged Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and getting them to understand Pythagoras Theorem, between taking them to watch other TFI children perform The Wizard of Oz and playing badminton in the school hall, two years went by almost too soon. Looking back, Prasid feels a mix of nostalgia, satisfaction and the urge to do more.

I ask Prasid for experiences that stand out in his mind, and he tells me there are simply too many of them. He narrates the story of Priti who has now attained international grade 6 in English comprehension and won an elocution competition among eight schools. Not an insignificant achievement for someone who didn’t know any of the subjects, often resorted to copying in class, and used to be beaten at home.

Atul today stands out by his brightness, and is the wittiest kid in class. As a child who was severely ill-treated at home, he initially came across as disengaged in class. However, when he was given the freedom to be himself, things changed, seemingly miraculously to someone not aware of what Prasid did. Shifa was someone with whom Prasid nearly “lost hope after six months” of efforts. She came from a broken family, and her mother was illiterate to the level of not being able to sign a document. Today, Shifa is a bright student, creative and talented in the arts.

We are friends

We are friends!

These stories illustrate Prasid’s firm belief that teaching is much more than disseminating content, it involves giving attention and love, and truly caring for the children in the formative years of their lives. Which means convincing parents of a girl who dropped out midway to get her back in school, periodically visiting the homes of the children, and getting buy-in from other teachers. In short, keeping hopes high always. Which wasn’t as difficult as it sounds. “There was never a need for a holiday because my work itself was so rewarding and satisfying,” says Prasid, “Teaching never felt like a chore that I needed a break from.”

The kids will miss Prasid bhaiya and he will miss them as well, when another TFI teacher takes over the class this academic year. But then, the change that took place in all 32 lives will have its impact forever. As Prasid now looks forward to managing two schools started by a corporate, let’s wish him and his counterparts at TFI all the best, in their aim to transform India’s education sector, student by student, school by school.

Bad boys, baddy boys!

Bad boys, baddy boys!

Want to know more about what Prasid has done? Check out the Facebook page here. Have something to say to Prasid? He can be reached at prasid@gmail.com and @prasids

Changed but Still the Same (Notes from a Homecoming Trip to Wimwi)

Posted on by

After the awe of seeing the red bricks subsided, one of the first feelings I remember from my day of arrival at Wimwi* is the intense disappointment on seeing the dorm* room allotted to me – old, nearly unfurnished, paint flaking off and falling to the bed along one entire wall. Dilapidated, in one word. To think that this was what I had “achieved!” I was immediately and very kindly allowed to change my room. And after that first day, I don’t remember ever having had a chance to reflect on the quality of my accommodation.

<Before we proceed any further, some comments are in order. In this post I have used terms commonly used at IIMA – these are indicated by * at their first occurrence and explained at the end of the article. This post is also on the longer side, so please be warned. But if it is as much fun reading as it was writing, you wouldn’t notice the length.>

Going back to campus after a hiatus of a year and a half, the overwhelming sense of homecoming eclipsed all other feelings. The dorm room I got this time was no better, but time had changed my perspective so much that campus felt like a nature resort. And the days passed by in a rush. I strongly suspect that time runs at a different speed at Wimwi. Time is also scarcer, and hence more valuable and more valued, at Wimwi than anywhere else in the world.

Fences and facilities

I noticed that the campus seemed demarcated by fences in an attempt to keep away the stray dogs, a vain attempt because the gates of the fences usually remained open. Indeed, there is something about an academic institution that makes spirits far freer than in an organization that pays a salary for working, for keeping your ideas to yourself and for doing what you are told. In the latter, the chaos of enterprising free human minds is mercilessly reined in by rewarding subordination.

It was heartening to see the new sports complex, with an indoor badminton court – so what if it was not equipped with the best of lighting? And the SAB, the Student Activities Block, which has been a long time coming; the new super posh dorms of rooms with attached bathrooms – a rare luxury for the students of Wimwi; two more ATMs, in the right places; more, and yet inadequate, signboards to indicate directions to dorms and facilities in a campus that seems like a maze even to seasoned residents.

Food and fauna

I spotted more eating joints – the expensive but healthy Joos has been relegated to the realm of memories and only the space remains, as if awaiting a new occupant; there is Falafal (think Hindi not Lebanese) aimed at the same I-care-more-about-health-than-wealth customers (I exaggerate, of course); a Nescafe right near the girls’ dorms; an enlarged Nescafe in the new campus. And KLMDC* still sells home-made cookies, these are still just as popular; the fruit vendor still enjoys a monopoly; tiffin deliveries take place as usual, of packed lunches that look unhygienic but taste genuine like only home-cooked food does; the food in the student mess has expectedly gotten worse over the years and subscription seems to have fallen each year.

The animal kingdom at Wimwi has not diminished even one bit. At Falafal, a bold squirrel approached till the seat opposite mine, and stood poised to land in my plate with its next jump. I threw a yellowed neem leaf to the floor and the squirrel, well-trained as it must have been from numerous titbits thrown by residents, ran towards the leaf. But very soon it was back, and this time I broke up a corner of my bread slice and offered that. The squirrel sniffed around, but could not (deliberately did not?) spot the meal, and returned to its pose, again ready to jump onto my plate. In the meantime, another squirrel grabbed the bread piece and ran away. I have a feeling that squirrel one often helps its brothers this way. In the land of RG-giri* this was a refreshing sight.

Reading, living and studying

The best-kept secret of the Wimwi campus, VSL, or the grand old Vikram Sarabhai Library, is still majestic and well-maintained. It hasn’t lost its charming effect on me – within minutes of entering the welcoming silence, I noticed and picked up Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ in the new arrivals section and Peter Drucker’s ‘Adventures of a Bystander’ in the shelves, both of which I had been planning to read.

In dorm 3, the same old almost shelf-less fridge reigns over the pantry, but the new microwave oven has stolen the spotlight from the old one; the basement, known lovingly among current and former residents as the dungeon, still has some of the least wanted rooms and the most well-bonded group of residents; the erstwhile cleaning lady has been moved out, but the mildly servile attitude has remained, now shown by the new cleaning lady.

There is no more a WAC run* because electrons run faster and the Internet has taken over the work of fast feet. But Turnitin* does its job just as skillfully. And the 2.30pm surprise quizzes are back in the system (after having been displaced when first year classes were held in the afternoon as well because a new section of students had been added), with the additional caveat that the announcement comes only at 1.45pm! All those who thought it was a good idea to skip lunch because of (the possibility of) a quiz might consider eating because the suspense would not be broken before 1.45pm.

Outside the classroom

For students, placement is still the ‘top of the mind’ question. Professors, as has been the norm, show no recognition that the third slot* is the “killer slot” with classes in full swing, placement talks to be attended and placement preparation to be carried out by fachchas and fachchis* who are only just about getting used to the system. Some courses are no longer being offered but others are being offered in two sections due to overwhelming demand from students. Professors, I am glad to notice, are still sensible and high-thinking as they were in my time! The FPM* students have not moved out but they have moved on, just as I have, and they talk as easily of research as I would of client meetings.

That there was no Onam celebration on campus this year was surprising and unpardonable. Malayalis the world over are known for two things – for quickly bonding with fellow Mallus and for celebrating Onam wherever they are. The best aspect of such bonding, perhaps the one aspect that allows a seemingly insular relationship to flourish, is that the resulting group is very open to non-Mallus. Of course, only those who try joining the group will realise the warmth of the welcome they will receive. In my batch, our Spam* treats often included a friend who hailed from another state in South India.

Outside campus, there’s a flyover under construction, heralded by traffic jams and dusty roadsides; wayside eateries have moved to give way, but the taste of the roadside poha has not reduced one bit! Good old Ahmedabad is still the same – reckless driving on the roads; sarees worn the Gujarati way; a well-functioning BRTS (unlike in Delhi); and the winter approaching slowly, with its cold fingers reaching the dorm 3 dungeon first.

On the way back to the hustle and bustle of consulting life, I realised how true the cliché was: you can take the Wimwian out of Wimwi but you cannot take Wimwi out of the Wimwian!

-~-

The jargon

Here’s my attempt at describing the meaning of the slang terms that have crept into the post. Naturally, it is impossible to convey the complete sense of any slang. I haven’t given away much of the reasons for the terms, although there are traditional reasons for every term, nor have I expanded abbreviations. The terms are listed in the order in which they appear in the post.

Wimwi: IIMA

Dorm: A standalone set of 30-40 single rooms that has a culture of its own

KLMDC: The management development centre in the heritage campus (aka the old campus)

RG-giri: A kind of unhealthy competition prevalent among students of Wimwi, especially in the first year

WAC run: The process of running from dorm to classroom in order to submit in time a printed copy of a particular written assignment in the first year

Turnitin: The software that detects plagiarism

Slot: Half of a term; six slots make a year

Fachchas and fachchis: First year students

FPM: The doctoral programme

Spam: The Malayali students group