Hola from Burlington, MA….!!

Every state in US has a burlington ..very much like every city in India having a Mahatma Gandhi road..Who or what was burlington is unclear..the first time i came across the word was when i found otto burlington magazine under the mattress of my college/undergrad roomate – “Tribes” (nick)..for those who have stayed in engineering college hostels in india very well know…that what is found under the mattresses is adult stuff…but i was disappointed since it just had skimpy fashion outfits..now Tribes is a very simple and straight-forward guy..and it was fair that he had a lower threshold and otto burlington was as good as it got, for him…
Then there is this chain of stores called burlington coat factory…and again its unclear that which burlington is referred to in the name….all i can say that its definitely not Burlington MA….
Now Burlington MA is a small Boston suburb with the I-95 bisecting it. It is hardly 6 miles in diameter and has big offices of IT giants like Oracle, SAP , Siemens and Sun Microsystems. In fact the campus of Sun Microsystems has a huge campus with a wide road aptly called Network drive dedicated to it. The highlight of Burlington is a huge mall called…no prizes for guessing – Burlington Mall. I am now a frequent visitor to the food court in the mall for a quick lunch. Yeah..quick is the word since work is generally hectic. I am not used to going to office by 8.30 am and working all day long without breaks, so that is one thing I am getting used to. The bright side is that I look forward to going to office and while i do want to zip towards my office on the unavoidable I-95, yet the slow moving traffic in the mornings inevitably allows me to listen to more songs on my tape then I would care to. Talking of songs , hereis a song by a recent graduate from IIM-A and i am not just promoting it because the singer is an MBA , but the song is pretty good.

The other intern this summer at my company is from *. Working and interacting with him, I have realized that KFBS is a highly underrated school. The skills and values it has given me already seem superior to those given by some “hyped-up” schools. While you would hear a lot of bullshit about schools being very collegial and emphasis on team-work etc, yet I believe that only some schools like KFBS are really close to it. Working in teams and co-operating within the same school is one thing, but going out and working with people from other schools is another thing. Apart from the lack of team-work skills, my co-worker had never heard of UNC..or KFBS…which is a shame..since he is doing his MBA from a same tier school. I wont delve into the details but all i would say is that business schools really should educate their students better and provide them a holistic education.

Another issue which i want to write about is the importance of proper use of language. There was a panel discussion addressed to our american classmates who were going on a global immersion elective this summer to india. Unfortunately one of the panel members made a mess of it by talking about how females are treated by frustrated males of india in Delhi and places like MG road in bangalore ..where they are pushed jostled etc. While there may be an inkling of truth to this, yet the way it was conveyed shock among the audience and a negative image was formed. Funny thing is that the person in question has hardly been to Delhi and one of my classmates from Delhi had to make a fruitless attempt at retrieving the situation. I just wish people were more careful on being an authority on a subject unnecessarily. For the next few days it felt awkward talking to the female american classmates of mine. I hope they returned from India with a much better impression.

Summer Time !

It’s summer time in chapel hill. Nice and sunny with cool breeze occasionally blowing. Perfect to chill out and relax. College town loses its regular life in the summer. Business is slow, you get to see fewer people in the bars and restaurants. But all this is perfect for people who prefer lesser crowds. I’am able to see all this courtesy my prolonged battle in getting an internship. Until the classes got over and people started going off , I could maintain some morale but after that I had to dig real deep to keep me going and send that extra cover letter and resume to a job posting or call up an alum and pitch my case. For now things look good. At least I have managed a summer internship. The internship is in investment banking , this is the second bright point. So I have semi-achieved my first year aims in business school.Having missed out on the on-campus process was pretty disappointing and the off-campus process was quite excruciating. I think I took it a bit easy in the sense that i stuck to a narrow focus. All said and done, the war is still in its early stages and I have to do a lot to win it.

Its amazing how people behave differently when they make a breakthrough. I have seen people suddenly developing preferences they would not have thought about when they were literally begging for an internship. Some interesting comments have amused me over this time and this one takes the cake -” I knew I just needed one interview to crack an internship offer”..

The cheating case in Fuqua leaves one lesson for everyone – “A lot is stake so do not screw up valuable time and money especially if you are an international student”. People might have temptation to do something but never leave out the possibility of getting caught and its consequences. Its unfortunate that those people didn’t realize this and will not be getting a second chance.

I am working on a project to strategize the development of eastern north carolina and some counties of north carolina. One thing which I realized was that how the migration of upper class to rural US or smaller cities has driven away some of the smaller businesses and lower wage people. I further realized this when today I went to the Queen of Sheba , an authentic Ethopian restaurant and the propertior told us that they are closing for good this month since the establishment will be demolished and a 10 storey building is going to come up. Unfortunately the propertior will not be relocating since she isnt getting similar lease rates. So there goes our option of eating something food close to indian nearby.

As I move to Burlington,MA next month i hope to have interesting experiences to recount.

In Chapel Hill it Snows

I experienced my first snow fall today. Chapel Hill also does not normally experience snow and I do not know if it was a coincidence but the first years had a holiday on account of the interviews. Some residents of my apartment complex had made this snowman. I was also a snowman and stayed all day at home.

Start of the year – whats in hold?

I have nothing to write home about at the moment. With i-banks having finished their process, many of my classmates including me are asking – what next? How to get that elusive job of your choice ? Many people have made compromises and moved on to try whatever they can get. But the off campus process will definitely be rough. While most international students manage an off campus job , it is not always the type they wanted. With confidence shaken people wonder was it worth to spend so much money to struggle so much. The fault I think lies in the system of recruitment in US. It all boils down to networking, schmoozing and god knows what. Throw in a bit of other factors which I dont want to mention, and it becomes an uphill task for a normal international student to secure a great on campus job. But this adds to the experience – and I’m sure people will come out stronger after this. While I embark on another strategy for getting a job , I hope this time i am not wasting my time and effort.

Kya Dunk Maara hai – What a dunk

Dunk is putting the ball into the basky hoop as well as a sting in hindi. The tar heels did both of these to the bucks last week. I had the good fortune of this being my first real basketball match as a spectator. The atmosphere was great with “UNC” being chanted. It was a match in which tar heels were losing for half the time but they came back in style to beat ohio 98-89. I also had the good fortune of watching this match with nice hot undergrad babes all around me. I am glad that despite my screwed up schedule I could spare 3 hours to watch this one!

Timbuk2

I lost the bag i had won. Yeah you can manage to do so. Pretty much like the indian cricket team loses matches from winning positions. It so happened that in the operations class on wednesday , our prof was discussing how custom made orders for things had grown to be liked and how they are operated. To press home the importance of lead time in custom orders, he ordered a large customized bag from www.timbuk2.com worth 120$. I came out of the class wondering what he would do with the bag.Probably donate it to a auction for charity.Turned out that he was planning on a lucky dip in Friday’s class.The bag got shipped and delivered within 24 hours.Amazing lead times i must say.Anyways , on the spur of the moment i decided to miss today’s(friday) class to go for a visit to Red Hat organized by the business technology club. The trip was no good as Red Hat was reeling from a double whammy of Microsoft tying up with Novell for linux and Oracle deciding to support Red Hat linux themselves. People seemed demoralized and there was hardly any discussion on the MBA’s responsibilities etc.When i came back to school in the afternoon for the marketing class, my section mates had a whale of time telling me how my name was the first one picked by the professors and since i was not there the next lucky person got it. The prof stuck my name to the board since I had missed the class.Agony!!!
Hemanth, my roomate pacified me thus – “The bag was not yours.If you would have not gone , your name wouldnt have come up.Since you were gone , your name came up”! I couldnt agree with him more. quite a bit of lousy luck.

The Tale of Two Treks

The first “trek” was to New York city. If I had doubts why it was called a trek , then they were dispelled when i found myself walking from bank to bank in midtown manhattan.The career trek was organised by the finance club and almost 80 first years thronged the banks.I wont talk about the presentations etc at the banks as it was a lot about schmoozing and networking.What I will talk about is New York city.Midtown Manhattan has towering buildings with most banks housed in them.Downtown Manhattan is graced by the Wall Street , where only few banks now operate.Although downtown manhattan seems less crowded and more spread out than midtown manhattan.An integral part of New York is the NY subway.Old and dirty are the words for it.Several places have a strong stench and homeless people loiter about.However some parts like the NY penn station are ok and you can get nice coffee for only 1.2$ with milk and sugar added.I will have to say that is what kept me going for the first part of the days in NY.As you come out of the station, you can observe the buzz and the life of the city.With corner eateries and roadside shops it is a one to be seen.I guess the best thing about NY is that you have so many options of places to buy things and eat at.However parking is very expensive.I observed the rates at a place and they were like 24$ for an hour.One of my friends told me that some people give their cars for oil change which costs them 12$ and the car is parked for a day!
I visited the World trade center site and it seemed unbelievable that I had been inside that place 18 years ago and now it was just nothing.When in NY , two things should definitely be done. Watch the Manhattan skyline from Newport NJ and vice versa.It seems that jersey city is generally a very bad place to live in and in jersey city the best place to live is Newport.I stayed in Edison NJ , which has the largest concentration of desis in US.As tushar joked, if you set fire to any building or complex there , there would be only desis except the fireman.Oak street market is a total indian style market , with sari shops and nice eateries.
I found times square to be hyped up.Nothing great except that they have put lights in most of the shops and it just looks lively. New York is for those people who love the fast paced life and love to live among crowds.
Charlotte on the other hand is for the country lovers.Nice city with a small downtown having skyscrapers.People tend to own nice big houses and have very little commute time.If you want to own a piece of grass then charlotte has the advantage over NY.I think i felt a little sad in Charlotte as memories of those 4-5 months when my dad used to take me around charlotte came flooding by.
The treks were very tiring and i am glad at the two days of rest i am having before the next mod starts.This is supposed to be the toughest one.I saw the remake of Don.It would be unfair to compare it with the previous one , but as my stats prof used to say its an illusion that life is fair , so comparision is inevitable.First, shahrukh is a misfit to the role.Second , the movie has major logical flaws.But i will give credit to farhan akhtar that he twisted the plot a bit to keep the audience guessing.I feel the performances were all short of the orginal ones.Shahrukh was not convincing as the don and priyanka did not portray the hatred she had for don so well as zeenat could do. However , the look and feel of the movie was nice. Remember Anant, when we had seen the movie more than a decade ago , i had asked you which amitabh did you like more – and you had said – Don,because he was always in control. I was wondering during the movie..if in this the don was better , and frankly  shahrukh is better essaying the more easy-going and romantic role of vijay..however , i was also wondering that shahrukh was slipping back into the don mould while in the oringinal amitabh was portray the lost look of vijay very well , in fact he had us convinced that the don was dead. Whether the slippage by shahrukh was incidental or not , no one knows.However the movie is engrossing and should be seen.