Birthdays and time zones

I somehow end up being at random places (read countries and cities) on my birthdays since the last 3-4 years. Places which either have a different time zone from India or even if I am in India on my birthday, it somehow ends up being celebrated in strange locations. Weird locations are still acceptable since I don’t have to worry about celebrating my birthday according to various time zones where some friends wish me when its 12PM according to their time while it’s still late evening at my location. Let’s see how time zones have mattered in 2 of my last 3 birthdays and how the only remaining one was celebrated in a bus

24 September 2006: Singapore, 2.5 hours ahead of India meaning that it was 12AM of 24^th in India when it was 2:30 AM in Singapore. So I got calls from friends in India at 2:30 AM in the morning. Of course their argument that I was born in India and not in Singapore justified the time of wishing. Fortunately I was celebrating my birthday at a beautiful beach in Singapore so I dint have to wake up to pick up the calls. But yeah, that birthday was nice, serene beach and a bunch of friends to enjoy with till wee hours of the morning. I think it was till 4AM. But confusion due to time zone made many of my friends to wish me twice, once according to Indian time and once again to Singapore time.

24 September 2007: This time I was in India so no confusion due to time zones but I was travelling on a bus from Bangalore to Kozhikode that night. Fortunately had 4 friends with me on the bus and we did make sure that the entire bus wakes up at 12AM with loud noises and celebrations. A makeshift cake in the form of a chocolate bar was there for me to celebrate my 24^th birthday. Of course, that meant that I was saved from the customary birthday bumps. Lack of critical mass to do that

24 September 2008: It was the turn of Germany this time, 3.5 hours behind India. In simple terms 8:30PM here meant that my birthday actually started in India. Taking things a bit ahead, it meant that it was 2:30 AM in Singapore. So while I was getting ready to cook something to eat for my dinner, I got calls to wish me from sleepy friends in Singapore who wished according to Indian time. It would have been easier for them and much more complicated for me had they decided to choose Singapore time (was in a class at that time). Indian friends were confused as to should they wish me according to Indian time or European time. Some wise people decided to use the German time and other stuck to the logic of “You were born in India and not in Germany” and wished me according to Indian time. Of course, I am talking about chats and pings and scraps, since not many people called from India. Maybe rising financial crises and falling rupee is the reason. And even I was confused in this time zone mix as to when should I stop feeling like a birthday boy; according to India or according to Germany. And I decided to extend the day by 3.5 hours on both sides, start by India time and end by German time

A quarter century of my life which started in India and ended in Germany was spent with not many friends. No birthday bumps and no cake on the face to make you smell of egg for days. It was simple, sober and different. Silver jubilee celebrated in Frankfurt with an Indian dinner at a Pakistani restaurant. Truly a globalised world!!

Life at a European Business School

It’s different, very different from what I was used to back home at IIM Kozhikode where the boundaries between days and nights, between weekdays and weekends and between courses and exams seemed to non-existent. Even if they did, they were too blurred for mortals like us to realise. It was a constant engine, where every inch of your horsepower was used to move yourself ahead. Time was a luxury and pressure was the best friend people had.

Here, life is simple. I still have 9 courses and will have to pass all of them but I am sure of many things about them. The professors are different and to a certain extent I like their way of teaching better than I liked at IIMK. The pedagogy followed is less demanding and I have a lot of time to spend beyond reading cases and worrying about quizzes. A short reference list with differences between EBS and IIMK:

1.       No classes on weekends here compared to just 2 weekends free in the whole term at IIMK.

2.       Classes generally don’t end at weird times and neither do they start at weird times. The duration of classes is also manageable. Back home, I can’t tell you how ridiculous it became sometimes.

3.       Very small class strength compared to humongous 65 people at IIMK.

4.       No cases to read and prepare here. This I feel is worse compared to IIMK where the cases were sometimes good but many a times there were too many of them. Its difficult for me to transition from infinite cases to no cases. J

5.       Slides prepared by the profs are very very professional as compared to slides prepared back home with weird backgrounds and funny animations which almost always became a pain to be printed. Here professors provide the print-outs of the ppt before every class.

6.       No set textbook prescribed in almost all the courses and hence no textbooks distributed by the school for the students to mug-up. I like this system of multi-reference studies (though haven’t studied at all till now)

7.       Students come to class very nicely dressed up compared to us where we would just get off our hostel beds and rush to the class with red eyes and dishevelled hair.

8.       Most of the students would have read the reading material or cases (if any) definitely for the class as a home work. I don’t remember that happening back home very often.

9.       Teachers respect students’ time and end the lecture on time with appropriate breaks. Back home, the teachers took pride in making sure to extend time.

10.   Students don’t do CP just for the sake of doing it, no marks for CP, hence they speak only they really want to say something substantial and valuable.

11.   Very few components of grading compared to infinite components back home. No surprise quizzes, no graded assignments, no midterms and in a few cases, no end term.

12.   No compulsory attendance. Back home, people lose a grade for missing 2 classes. I particularly like this system since in a post graduate course like MBA, students can decide what is good for them and what is not.

13.   Smoking not banned in college though there are non-smoking zones in the college. Same maturity principle applies here as well.

14.   Students here take submissions and presentations very seriously. They would prepare the ppt 2 days in advance and would have had at least one dry run even when the submission is not a graded one. Indian students would laugh at this J

15.   Haven’t seen people free-riding here. In India, we find plenty of them.

I am not going to say which system is better and which is worse. It’s a huge change for me and I love it. MBA can’t get easier than this for people from India. J