MMM-Masters In Marketing Management
One fine day, 3 years ago, at 19:00 hrs, while sitting at home with the fifth cup of coffee in my hand and no work to do after being back from my office I decided to push on my career and do something fruitful in the time available with me after my office gets over, And since I was in sales I was never worried of having any closure time , cos work ends as soon as you are on the field wink .
So I went ahead and enquired about the MBA ( well it makes sense calling it a MBA instead of a MMM cos people do understand what a MBA means they may not really able to link themselves with the word MMM - anyways MMM Means Masters in Marketing Management - 3 years PArt time course)
I enquired with the NMIMS institute and they said that any tom dick or harry can not qualify this course , you have to be a graduate and should also have 2+ years of experience in a manager category to qualify to give the CET examination of NMIMS .This examination is a grilling time wherein you have to pass 3 levels , Written Examination , Group Discussion and Personal Interview .
I applied to them and then got short listed , and then more short listed till I finally got shortest listed ( I mean selected ) as the top 120 students who will be with the institute for 3 LOOOOOOOOOOOONG years and then come out to be Masters in Marketing .
The course started , it was lovely studying there, Colleagues were good and the faculties were excellent ( but then in the first year every thing is shiny and golden ) and there were loads of things to learn , BUT then one day in the first 15 days , I realised that there were only 54 students in my class and not 60 , in re-checking with the management we came to know that after taking the admissions and paying the fees ( approx Rs. 23, 000/- for the first year ) some students have opted out and will not be continuing the course .
I was surprised that Though this is a Opportunity lost for the college, its a bigger opportunity lost for the students who wanted to do the course and could not since the seats were allotted to some one else, but IF this is a MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE they should have gone ahead and admitted the replacements for the 6 students who were not able to attend the college . After all it would have got 6 MBA’s to the society and may be one of them would have become a society changer . Lesson No 1 - Management is all about being penny wise and society foolish
Then came the mid term exams and I took a religious 10 days office leave for studying for my exams , while giving my exam I realized that some student were using the fresh room ( read as- toilets ) a little more than a normal person uses it, in a span of 3 hrs , on further probing it dawned onto me that the freshroom is also small depository of the text books and professor notes which were kept there by students to be used as reference , cos while writing the exam paper they may forget some important points and they can always refer to them in the toilets. Well this was seen throughout all the 6 seminars and was seen in other management schools also wherein we went to give our university papers Lesson No 2 – Always be a good manager and in work you will have many exams , so do not worry while giving examinations , help is always on hand , oops I mean in the freshrooms
Professors were very good and discreet in their approach in teaching , some professors specified that part timers are no good , since they hardly are as dedicated then the full timers while some professors appreciated the hard work put in by the part timers since its a difficult thing to work as well as study . However the profs who were teaching the full timers as well as the part timers were all ga ga over the full time students , may be the main reason being the full timers never questioned the professors , and even if they questioned the prof would have theoretical answers to their questions and whenever a question was posed in front of these professors they would just answer it the most out of the world answer , which had all the details of all the marketing concepts , but would just not have the right answer . It was lot of gas and no substance Lesson No 3 – Do not ask questions , just follow and only then you can become a good manager in a big firm.
Projects were a life for us , I did more than 50 projects followed by presentations , in the 3 years of studying at NMIMS , at first we were worried about how the project would work out etc , however later we found our way out , the project would get ready in flat 2 days , irrespective of the size of the project it would be up and presented in flat 2 days and on emergency basis we would make a project in flat 6 hours . Well the question is how did we do it – that’s simple – we would just go to the the GOD almighty and call upon WWW and abracadabra the topics are nicely explained on some site or the other and then with the revolutionary technology of “CUT and PASTE” its all there, and the prof thought it was a hard work of weeks and months. Lesson No 4 – If any Project preparation takes more then 2 days then you are a no good on crisis handling nor good at the https://
Timing was everything, some of the profs were very strict on the time of attending the lectures, which is very true, but those of who know Mumbai would agree that thanks to the traffic at times its impossible to reach the class on time . Many professors understood this well and allowed the students late entry but some of the professors never did understand it and were strict on the time may be it was a way for them to assume that they are able to CONTROL the class , They would say that the student must be in the class latest by 19.30 ( the class time was 19.00 to 21.00 ) or else he will not be allowed to attend the class and will be marked absent , after discussion ( read it long drawn arguments ) the professor agreed that they would allow the student to attend the class if he is late but that student will certainly be marked absent . Lesson No 5 – Its all about showing who is the boss , or else what sense would it make to be marked absent when in reality you have attended more than 70% of that lecture ?
Well now how can I miss on the Pearl Gates , the institute has undergone a renovation and now we have a separate gate for entry and separate gate for exit . WOW , its like going to a movie theatre wherein you enter from one gate but you can not exit from the same , the question is WHY ????? why can I not come out of the same gate I entered from , after all its nearer to where I have to go and the exit gate is 150-200mtrs away from the entry gate and why do we do these foolish things ? After all are we not supposed to be in a management institute and which management angle is this , where in you are expected to walk for no reason ? Lesson No 6 – Management rules are RULES , they may not have any reasoning but may just be out of the whims and fancies .
My real and the greatest learning in the course was during discussions , cos we were 54 professionals from different fields in life , mix of FMCG , FINANCE, INSURANCE, SOFTWARE , PHARMA , etc and when we share ideas we got diverse views and different approaches to the same problem .
So this is the REAL learning which I have gained against 3 years of my life , but deep somewhere my heart is asking , isn’t a expense of Rs. 1, 00, 000/-( fees and other expenses ) a little to much for the group gathering ?.
All suggestions , questions , agreement and disagreement everythings welcome . <B/>