Post Purchase Consonance

If you are a graduate, looking for post-graduation especially MBA, I am sure you would have seen innumerable brochures and pamphlets showing tacky models in a blazer with nerdy glasses, shaking hands with a fifties guy again in a blazer and both of them are grinning right back at you.You might even have seen a lush green campus with a tree under which students in a professional attire seem deeply engrossed in a conversation, laughing and having a time of their life.Well I am here to tell you that MBA is NOTHING LIKE THAT!!!

I am writing this blog post after one week of fun activities coupled with "mild" academic rigor and to think 12 hour classes await us next week I could safely say that sleep is a luxury people of our kind could rarely afford.

My course officially started on June 2,with a two day induction program. Induction programs are purposefully planned to be boring.They are designed to be boring and then implemented meticulously according to the design. In my case however I was taken aback with the vigor and zeal with which it was conducted. When you see people putting in so much effort into an induction program to make it work, you begin to wonder that the reason isn't always straight forward.

My thought was seconded by our director in class the next day when he said the induction program was a ploy to quell what he termed as "Post Purchase Dissonance(PPD)".PPD is a conflicting feeling you get when you see a product,something that is out of your budget but you still buy it and then start wondering whether its really worth it . The product in this case was the college itself .The director was spot on and whatever PPD I had turned into PPC(Post Purchase Consonance) :)

The week following the induction was fun exemplified.It is designed to build rapport among students,improve your oratory skills and more importantly shed your inhibitions and boy was that achieved. I could never in my wildest dreams imagine playing a dancing Thakur(Sholay) along with a dancing Gabbar(which incidentally was a girl..:) AND a very good friend of mine) in front of the entire class or throw Tamil slang (some of which I would have hesitated to use against A.Raja) at my fellow student in the name of dramatics. I even attended a Salsa workshop which by the looks of few of the girls watching I could tell that I was not meant for it . My only sadistic pleasure on that day was that the other guys who had come for that workshop looked equally ridiculous. :)

The first few classes that took place post the group exercises was intriguing to say the least.Every class had to be backed up by hours of preparation both from the students as well as teacher's side.Though exhausting I was relishing each and every moment of it. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time and now its here, right in front of me and to be honest it feels unreal.

There were times in the past when I have questioned my own perseverance, my ability to work hard.But today when I sit in the class and look around I see only a mixture of talent and ambition. I could see people who draw with an ordinary pen a stunning fine arts image in a matter of minutes, people who click photos which you could stare at all day and still dont get enough of it, people who put across ideas that are ridiculously innovative and I sit among them thinking that this is probably enough to keep me going for the next two years.