6 Things to keep in mind before joining BMS

UPDATE: This post was a rather satirical/sardonic view of BMS at time when I had just finished college. 5 years hence, people in the comments pointed out my views seemed different, however far from it, I actually implored people to stay away from BMS from the start. Reading the title of this post you’d know that this is a cautionary (stay away if possible) post. Regardless, because of the confusion and the number of comments surrounding my views on BMS, I have just recently put up a post  completely panning the BMS/BBA courses for reasons mentioned therein. Rest assured I have more than 6 reasons. 

BMS or Bachelor of Management studies, is a relatively new course brought out by the University of Mumbai. This is a course designed to give that sharper edge for candidates to manage a business right after they graduate. It’s a very rich course and has a huge advantage over the traditional B.Com degree due to the wide array of topics it covers – from Exports and International Finance to Production and Human Resource, from Finance to Inventory and practical projects etc . This is the all-in-one course designed to make you stand as a ‘demi-MBA’ among the graduates. So if you’ve picked the newly discovered ‘scientophobia’ (fear of Science 😛 ) or if you want to go a level higher than arts and don’t want stick into the rut of Commerce, BMS is the solution for you! All the same you might be that hard-working, talented individual too, but it really doesn’t matter, BMS is a ‘one size fits all’ course.

Before you hop on the BMS bandwagon, please keep in mind the following things. This is just a word of caution for you and all your fellow batch mates so that you don’t find yourself wishing you were doing a simple Arts degree.

Don’t make a mistake following the rat race (by antwerpenR, Flickr)

Caution #1

Got a high percentage? Science may still not be for you.

Which stream will you choose?

There  is a general notion among SSC pass-outs about taking Science as a stream for studies.

Arts, Commerce or Science are the three choices that a student has available to choose from to complete his or her undergraduate studies

Marketing Research

College is ending. And this is the last of the projects that we’ve had over the years. It’s on Energy Drinks and why people prefer them to soft drinks. I’ve covered questions like ‘how do you rate the advertising of Energy drinks’ and ‘would you buy an energy drink instead of a soft drink if the price were to reduce?’.

Our professor wanted us to get a sample size of 100 for this project. After much coaxing she brought it down to 50. Thanks to my friends on Facebook, I’ve got 40 done so far.

Do have a look at the questionnaire and feel free to take the survey right here: http://bit.ly/aRgeTj

The one thing I’ve wanted to hit at through this project is the fact that Energy Drinks are heavily overpriced in India. And if they want a wider customer base, slight changes in their pricing system  could bring them higher sales than Soft drinks.

The whole project was done along with the teaching in class. So there was nothing we were doing that wasn’t taught to us. Our professor arranged it well. But she hasn’t given us a detailed format for the report which we have to submit this Thursday. Hopefully, she accepts what we give her. Fingers crossed.! 😉

This is the last week of college. One of the tightest weeks we’ve ever had! A viva with our DEAN tomorrow on International Finance, a test on Bonus Shares on Thursday, Marketing Research report, and IMTP questionnaires submission on Friday. Class photograph on Wednesday. Life just doesn’t get any worse does it? Prelims a week later. Phew.

Two teaspoons sugar and a pinch of lime

Today was the height of it. We hadn’t got our power point ready at all. No one knew the speeches at all. To top it off, the professor was yelling at us for the presentations starting late. What a way to start my last presentation in college.

About a month ago we were blessed with the audacious assignment of coming up with a new product which you may have read about in my previous posts. We came up with numerous ideas for project: Here are some of the ideas we had for our new product in Entrepreneurship:

1. Space for bands to practice ‘Jam Stations’
2. Broom (Indian Jhadu) with a vacuum cleaner
3. Shoes with Torches on them to help trekkers and villagers see while walking
4. Electric and Portable Tiffin box warmers.
5. Packaged coconut water (it’s available in plenty)
6. Packaged Samosa fillings

Etc.

All of them were sequentially shot down by our professor either because they were already available or because they would be a flop. In the end, one of my group member’s who’d been to a place in Pune, Maharashtra, told us of a sandwich that he’d eaten. It was covered in chocolate and was filled with it too. We thought the idea was yummy and told our professor about it. She agreed! Not long thereafter a friend of ours told us that this product or a variant of it was already available in the market. Back to square one? No, he said he wouldn’t blow the whistle. Thank heavens. 🙂

Chocolate Sandwiches : The best we could come up with!

My friend Madhu and I, worked our bu**s off last night on 2 year’s vertical revenue statements and 12 month’s sales estimates. Oh and graphs too. The rest of the group covered the manufacturing and promotion aspect of the product in brief. We left Madhu’s place after working together for 12 hours straight,  at 12.30am in the night. That is very late! Came home and slept for what seemed like a moment getting up for the presentation at 6.30am.

New Ideas Trashed

In college we have a subject called “Entrepreneurship”. This subject has a project which requires us to think of a new product. Just think and put it on paper. No one needs to do anything about it. Simple right? Hell no.

This project isn’t one of our favorites because frankly, we ain’t interested. We got plenty up our sleeves with two tests, two assignments, and our regular classes going on. More importantly its making us ‘think’. Something that we ‘find-the-world-on-google’ addicts will find hard to do. Seriously, and we are blessed with a professor who’s equally talented and smart to look up our products there. If she even senses something isn’t original, our hard downloaded work goes out the window. 😀

We came up with a novel idea of making sound proof rooms available for band practices. ‘Jam Station’ is what we’d hope to call it. The whole idea of the project was to create a new product. We pushed boundaries by creating a service, and secondly, it wasn’t exactly new. Someone around was making some good money renting of his room for band practices and we thought “why not do the same, only brand it better”.

We submitted a preview of our project to her today. She was pretty okay with it until one of our great and absent minded friends said in front of her ‘hey i know two Jam rooms in front of Infiniti Mall, Malad’.

That was it. We sensed the smile on her face and the squinting of her eyes. Our project’s headed for the bin. Trashed it is gonna be. It isn’t official yet. She said she’d ‘look it up’, or rather, search it on Google and tell us by phone if we can go ahead or not. So we aren’t wasting time. We’ve begun working on a new product. In the meantime, we are waiting for the call.

P.S. Have you thought about creating someting new that has good utility like a pen with GPS? Please leave a comment. Thank you!

BMS Sem 6 : Battleplan . . . again.

You remember the last time I wrote a post about my study time for the exams? Well I’m at it again. Last time I made some lofty projections about how much I would be able to study. This time again there’s no difference.

I’m sitting right now in college listening to a VERY uninteresting lecture on the European Monetary System. So with nothing to do I took out my notebook and pencil and started charted the time I have left before the next exams. Planning is a good thing. I suggest you try it sometime. They say good planning is work half done. Ahem. I wonder why they don’t mention the other half.

So sitting next to my friend reading the chick flick novel Twilight, i’m tapping away on my phone blogging about what I penned down a while ago. And yes the lecture is still going on. 🙂

My exams begin on the 19th April. 6 papers at one paper a day, no holidays the exams end on the 24th. These are taken by the university. The college holds preliminaries from the 12th of March till the 18.

10 weeks till the 19th. Subtract 10 days from 63 because I don’t study on sundays.

That leaves me with 54 days. Deducting a third from the total for sleep leaves me with 36 days. Deducting a further one fourth from 54 days i.e. 14 for college which takes 6 hours of my weekday. That leaves me with 22 days for studies.
Thats a lot of study time 22 x 24 equals 528 hours.
So say about 500 study hours.
Thats how much study time i got left.

6 subjects, 5 projects, 3 internals, to work for in the 6th Semester of my Bachelor of Management Studies course.

I’ve been totally hammered by my buddies who i didn’t expect to score over me let alone by a mile. I’m raring to go this time. Watch this space for more on the Sem 6 battle 2010. Return of the . . . COMING SOON!

5 Years at St. Andrew’s : Reliving the Joys

I entered the gates of St. Andrew’s in the year 2005. Somehow I’ve remained there for a long time. This year in March, I’ll be attending my last lecture of my college life.

I’ve had some great memories along the way and too bad I didn’t know what blogging was all about back then.

In the next few months, right till results of my TyBMS are out, I hope to cover the small but vital parts of my years in college.
I hope you enjoy it. If you have attended the college too, and would like to contribute, do contact me or leave a comment. God Bless!

This is my College:

St. Andrew's College of Science, Art & Commerce