PGPEX At IIM C – My First 6 Weeks On The Campus

PGPEX (Post Graduate Programme for Executives) is IIM Calcutta’s One Year Full-Time Residential Program for executives with more than five years of professional experience. Breety Majumder, currently a student of PGPEX Batch 11, recounts her experience in the first 6 weeks of study.

The term 1 of PGPEX was THE experience that makes IIMC the place to be at. As they say, time is relative and the best place to live the theory is at a B-school.

There were few of the early starters who could have appeared for the exams the very first day and then there are poor souls like me who even after the end term were left wondering what hit them.

Despite all such setbacks, the classes were what made everything worth it. The superb faculty of IIM C actually initiated us to the world of practical learning, something very distinctive from the routine of learning in our previous academic experiences.

But once you let go of the kaleidoscope of the exam, you actually realise the volume of knowledge you have acquired in just a span of 6 weeks.

The first few weeks were overwhelming for most of us, as we were coming back to academics after a long hiatus and landing straight into an ocean of never ending assignments, pre-reads, case studies and quizzes.

On the very first day of the course, I had decided to keep up the speed and never lag behind. However, by the end of the week, that resolution had already gone for a toss even with caffeine shots at 2 o’clock in the night.

Despite all such setbacks, the classes were what made everything worth it. The superb faculty of IIM C actually initiated us to the world of practical learning, something very distinctive from the routine of learning in our previous academic experiences.

There is so much learning in the classes that even after being awake till 4 o’clock in the morning you can make it through a hectic day that ends at 6 in the evening without dozing off.

Soon enough, we came to love and get a grip on subjects such as Finance, Microeconomics and Organisational behaviour.

The numerous presentations and group activities fostered friendships. Personally, I loved this aspect because I got to see unknown facets of people and a sense of the uniquely innovative ideas they could come up with!

The X-factor of this term was the elections that took place to form the different committees, true to the spirit of the institute- “Everything is student driven”.

We had a whole load of fun campaigning, listening to pitches of the candidates and finally having expected and unexpected winners. There has been so much action around that I cannot recall a single dull moment from the entire term.

Then there is the Management Development Centre (MDC) and then our in-house parties, which are a huge stress buster. Parties at the campus are legendary and we already have our own share of stories to add to it.

Without divulging too much let’s just say we discovered unexpected winners there too. The bonding and camaraderie grow stronger by the day.

I also learned that body clock is a misnomer and that your body is tremendously agile. As one of my friends pointed out after managing on average 4 hours sleep for more than a week, said,  “I thought I can never function with less than 8 hours sleep but now I feel fresh even after 4 hours in bed.”

Reflecting back on the past 6 weeks I can’t wait to experience the next 9 months. I am sure it’s going to be one big roller coaster ride and all 68 of us will come out the better.

(Breety has 7 years of work experience as an R&D professional in Medical devices primarily and in the transportation sector. She is a Certified Reliability Engineer from American Society of Quality.)