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After all the hard work in my Engineering College, getting a job and working on the best technologies available, I was getting bored as each day went by. A little bit of soul-searching coupled with a lot of research led me to realise that I had to learn more
about the business and the works. Rudimentary logic led me to a fact that I could, in fact, catch up with the hottest thing these days - MBA. Moreover, I could actually get a taste of the future - operations.

Thank God for making me recognise the only shortcut to success - Knowledge!!! So here I was, at SIOM, Back to school, just a little different this time around.

Faculty, students, curriculum, professor-student ratio, facilities and blah blah blah... these are everywhere. So what makes this college so special? Why am I here? Why did so many people, who were at the peak of their learning curves, quit their jobs and came to understand the finer aspects of Operations? The answer lies in the question - Finer Aspects. Like it is important to have black olives in your pizza, but how many is the key. How to make things work is important, so here I am learning to make them work perfectly.

'360° Learning' is the buzzword here and somehow the whole campus is just 'buzzing' with it! The program develops a crystal-clear, strategic understanding of operations systems, their vital components, contributions, interactions with other functional areas, and the analytical and computer tools necessary to address both strategic and tactical issues.

The emphasis is on having a strong body, an active mind, and how to stay focussed. So we could actually volunteer for a ten-day course of Vipassana, and that was a mind-boggling experience - literally.

My day starts at 6:00, I have a choice of how I want to keep myself and whatever is left of the brain, fit. I can take up Yoga classes, Aerobics, or if I want to pump a bit of iron, there is always the Gym. I wonder how many of us felt the Burnt Out Syndrome, well I did, at work. Anyway, wallowing in self-pity is bad for the system. So here I feel the need to work out before I start my day. Classes and Guest Lectures, Case Studies and Presentations - these take up most of my day. In fact, this is expected out of a B-school routine. But night? What about it? I need a good sleep of 6 hours, so its lights out at midnight. My evenings are spent at the library, café and the courts.

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* Contributed by -
Amitabh Jasuja,
MBA (Operations Management),
Class of 2010,
Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management (SIOM), Nashik.