A Professor who inspired

As he walked into our classroom in the first semester of MBA to teach a course titled "Business Environment", he convincingly carried the no-nonsense and intimidating look on his face. I was personally looking forward for his class only because I thought the course was going to be interesting. The course had been designed to help us understand some fundamentals through the assessment of the current business environment. As someone who is too impatient to wait and realise the relevance of any course much later in life, I found it exciting that this course would deal with what was happening around on a daily basis. Little did I know that the professor who walked in was going to be one of the most brilliant teachers I've come across.

Prof V. Ravi Kumar (or "Ravi sir" as we call him) , an alumnus of St Stephen's, worked at various banks for about three decades before switching over to teaching. What's striking about him is his desperation to nudge his students to keep learning. He has often told me that the whole point of higher education is to develop right attitude towards learning and to be more inquisitive of the world. Despite being the placement head of the institute, he has repeatedly lamented over the general attitude of viewing placements as end goals. Also, not many have shown the courage to discuss examinations and marks with him. However, the methods that he has employed to instill in his students the urge to learn, have been a little unconventional, if not controversial.

The popular school of thought is that appreciation and rewards work better than intimidation if you want someone to perform well. Ravi sir cares less about popular opinions. "B School is about raising the bar and getting people out of their comfort zones" he once told me. At the risk of appearing to be belittling us and attracting criticism and anger for being rude, he constantly tells his class that it is a bunch of irresponsible folks who are clueless about a lot of things that they should be aware of. He often mocks his students and is sometimes visibly annoyed at them. While a few criticize him, interestingly, I've also seen folks sympathizing with him for not being able to meet his expectations. Yet, he effortlessly commands respect and the charisma is hard to miss.

Unlike a lot of my friends who've sat through his lectures for multiple courses, I've attended Ravi sir's classes only in the first year, since I didn't pick finance as my specialization subject in the second year. Yet, I've known him personally for these two years through our various conversations. I've repeatedly gone to him to discuss what I've read and he has not only helped me improve my understanding, but has helped me form perspectives. Never have I walked out of his room without learning anything new. These meetings also made me realize how empathetic he is towards his students. Not many know how deeply he admires the efforts that some of his students put in. Technical discussions aside, our conversations have ranged from his corporate life experiences, to higher education systems across the globe, to books, to cycling, running, travelling and nice masala dosa places in Bangalore.

With increasing commodification of higher education, metrics such as pass percentage, placement record, institute's rank and students' approval ratings have taken the center stage for institutions. Students on the other hand, eye on good grades and decent jobs. Although I agree I'm generalizing, I think that these narrowly defined standards for institutions and students have resulted in, among many other things, the gradual erosion of student-teacher relationships, especially at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A professor can play a much bigger role than just completing the course and evaluating the students and students have a lot to gain from professors apart from mere classroom learning. It is up to the students to find someone who can inspire them, guide them, foster creativity, leadership, critical thinking and so on. I'm happy to have found one, and I'm sure there are many others.

Lakhs of rupees, two precious years and a changed worldview

Back in June 2015, when I joined a B-school for my MBA course, the Modi government had just completed one year in office. While there was a lot of chest-thumping on the change in business sentiment and the newly found optimism in the country, there were arguments that there was so much that could've been done with such numbers in the parliament. The most common opinion, however was that it was too early to say. The new monetary policy framework was in place, which brought increased focus on Raghuram Rajan and his team's policies, given the supposedly increased autonomy of the RBI due to the new framework. The Fed hadn't hiked its key interest rate since 2006 and there were talks that it would hike it soon, which they eventually did in December that year. Maggi had just been banned all of a sudden, a textbook example of how external factors can cause quick disruptions in the market. Also, in Europe, all eyes were on the referendum on a bailout agreement in Greece and folks in India were trying to understand its impact on their country. I just finished my course last week, and in two years, a lot has changed. Maggi is back as the market leader, Raghuram Rajan is back in the US, banking and payments system in India are no longer the same, Flipkart's valuation has been slashed to around 5 billion, which is nearly one-third of what the company got when it raised funds in July 2015, America has a new President, and as I write this, four of the Indian states will have new chief ministers.

Without doubts, all of this would have happened even if I had continued to make software for Americans like I did for three years earlier. However, I've seen these events using new lens and with better clarity in the last two years. I've changed from being a passive observer of what is going on, to being able to analyse them and form my own opinions and judgement. In some cases, I've also developed the confidence to predict outcomes. On multiple occasions, I've been pleasantly surprised to realize that some of the domain experts have had the same views that I had on certain issues, the most recent one being on demonetization. This makes me wonder if I've finally gained the ability and confidence to have original opinions on at least some of the issues impacting most of us. I've also been able to appreciate the fact that it is an exciting phase to be in India at the moment and I'm broadly aware of the areas I can contribute to in India's growth story. Pages in the newspapers that I skipped reading earlier are read with much interest now and my reading list has books that I wouldn't have thought of reading earlier.  I also can say with some confidence that MBA has opened a number of gates of opportunities, not necessarily because of its value in the market as a degree, but just because of the general awareness it has brought in. It somehow gives me an impression that I can experiment more with my career now than I could have, had I continued to be a software engineer.

This isn't a fairy tale though. At the end of the day, it is still a race to outperform one another to get higher salaries and better grades, which takes away the joy of learning. Also, given how diverse the subjects are, the curriculum expects you to spend time and energy on a few things that you probably aren't interested in, and that can be frustrating, especially when you are forced to compromise on your other interests and plans. And of course there's peer pressure of needless distractions.  Also, we celebrated the end of the course by throwing away tonnes of papers and other junk in the air at the hostel for about an hour, without realizing that for the next couple of hours, a few folks who are in charge of keeping premises clean for us will have to break their backs clearing everything. To me, that summarized what else is wrong with the system.

In my opinion, what one walks out of a B-school with depends more on how individualistic one was for two years and what the priorities were.When asked about what you've gained while spending two important years to get one of the most expensive degrees in the country, you could make vague statements like "I've grown so much as a person" or "I've developed leadership abilities" or "I think I can now be a good manager" or "I've created so much memories for myself" or you could say that you now have the confidence to manage businesses, if not to start your own business, or that you can explain with ease why the stock market crashed on a particular day or that you can recommend what the TCS or Infosys should do urgently to survive or that you have a strong view on the ongoing consolidation in India's telecom sector  or on why "Make in India" is struggling.

Have I personally made the best use of the course? Not at all. Sheer laziness, negligence and distractions have constantly constrained my learning and I feel terribly guilty. Not many are fortunate enough to afford such expensive education and to not show complete dedication to make every penny count is a sin. Also, given how much you can learn sitting at home today, the excuses that one can come up with for the lack of learning are only diminishing. I think with one's ability to afford expensive education, comes a sense of entitlement that best things should happen easily for oneself. The real challenge is to fight that and replace it with a sense of responsibility towards oneself and society. I've seen some of the folks working day and night to perform well and while I'm not a big fan of the end result that most of them were looking for, I really wish I had that dedication.

The most common mistake that we all tend to do is to view completing a course as an end, while it is in fact the beginning of an even more important journey. We now have another opportunity to try and make every penny and all the time spent count, and I hope I wouldn't disappoint myself this time.