CBS Batch 2016-18 : Story for the year 2017- from its student

Article by : Shalini Singh, Student Batch 2016–18

We have all heard that ‘Management studies is not only about getting the job’. Management study builds your personality and helps you learn how to tackle various jobs at one go with diligence and responsibility. For us this experience of management studies have been like a roller-coaster ride with tremendous pressure, different roles to play, and to keep up with the pace at class and other co-curricular activities we were involved in.

This year brought in amazing experiences starting from the opportunity to listen to Prof Vijay Govindrajan’s Strategy Edge seminar at J W Marriott, Kolkata organised by Confederation of Indian Industry in January 2017 on his best-selling book 3-Box Strategy. We were five students selected to represent our college to this seminar. Following this our trip to IIT-Kharagpur Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES 2017) on February 2017 where we stayed 2 days in the KGP campus and got the chance to broaden our network and experience the fest organised at a global level by the students. This learning was taken by us and applied in the 1st International Conference on CICBA 2017 which was conducted in Calcutta Business School in March 2017. We, students, volunteered the same and participants, volunteers, cultural-program participants and guest-speakers made it a huge success. Thus, the first quarter of the year was full of academics and lots of opportunities for Batch 2016-18 students and ended up with internship offers in the hands of students by March end.

The second quarter of the year was a completely different phase where we were exposed to learn corporate culture by working in the companies as a summer intern. Our internship period was from April 2017 to June 2017. Students did their internship in companies like Ernst & Young (EY), Berger Paints India Ltd, Britannia Industries Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Securities, Edelweiss, Cox & Kings etc. It was an exquisite experience for all of us. We successfully completed our internship project and now we were equipped with industrial experience to add to our profile.

The third quarter of the year was again full of excitement since we were back to our classroom training and hostel. We had to choose our specialization subjects as we were offered dual specialization so we had to make our choice and initiate our domain knowledge learning. This term was exciting to everyone from the academic point of view as we were learning the subjects in which we were interested to advance in our career. Professors from IIM were visiting faculty for some subjects of HR and Finance. The end of the term examination concluded on 23rd September 2017 and we were all set to go for the International Study Tour to Malaysia sponsored by our college. It was a 7-day study tour planned to make us equipped with the international business practices and corporate and education culture.

The fourth quarter of the term started with full of positive spirit and enthusiasm after an end to an excellent trip to Malaysia which was full of experiential learning and excitement. With the introduction to subjects like International Finance, International Management, Service Marketing our Term 5 classes were full of learning opportunities from the faculty of the college as well as faculty from abroad like Prof Kalyan Chakravarty and Prof Prithwiraj Nath. After our mid-term examination, we were taken for ‘Outbound Leadership Practicum’ to Manali in October 2017 for 7 days during puja vacation. This was an ultimate experience where we were marked by ‘Travel arc’ our trip planner on every activities/task we were given by them to do. Our tasks were designed in a way to give shape to the leadership capabilities in us and make us realise our strengths and weaknesses. We did the treasure hunt in the jungle at night, camping in the forest in day-light, we lived in tents, struggled with cold, we did river-crossing, Burma-bridge walk, zip-lining, rappelling etc. The trip concluded with a lot of learning about our inner strengths and weaknesses. I was among the four Research Associate appointed by the college at the end of our first year of PGDM program in July 2017. So I was involved in research work in finance domain assisting my faculty guide Prof Indranil Ghosh and our principal Dr Tamal Dutta Chaudhuri. I along with my colleague Sayan Satvaya wrote a research paper titled ‘Establishing the relationship between Business Efficiency and Business Sustainability- A Study on Indian Companies’. We participated in the 3rd International Conference on Economic and Sustainable Development in Mysore at SDM Institute of Management. So we travelled to Mysore in November 2017 represent our college and present our paper at the conference at SDMIMD, Mysore. We were obliged to hear from the eminent speakers who gathered from around the world to deliver there thought in respect on the topic of the conference. Almost all the paper were from the PhD students and only 4-5 papers were there from management students. We learnt about the contribution of researchers to our society and the need of good research work to be done with the fruitful recommendation to the Indian industry for a sustainable growth. We presented our paper and explored Mysore concluding our trip to Karnataka from Bengaluru airport to Kolkata.

In this way year 2017 concluded with a lot of experiential learning and industry exposure. With this, we are looking forward to the year 2018 with lots of hope and expectations since it is the outset stage of our career which has to be initiated with placement offers and apply our learning in the field of work with diligence and responsiveness.

With Warm Wishes.

Happy New Year to all!