The international placements are in full swing and quite a few have been shortlisted by the international Ibanks which came in pretty early this year. The opportunities available here are tremendous. This has led to a lack of focus and sometimes there is confusion as to where I wanna go. There is also very less time to think. Already Term 6 biddings have started. I managed to get all the courses I bid for in this term. Some of the finance courses are in very high demand and lot of people stand a chance of not getting what they want. Again a lack of focus?

Last Monday I alongwith some batchmates went to dinner with an executive of an Indian Software company from UK. He initially gave a presentation on the different activities of the practice he hailed from and the different roles available. It was great interacting with him and knowing about different openings available in the organisation. It remains to be seen whether those roles will come up during the placement week.

One course which continues to intrigue and surprise session after session is the marketing Services course. The prof really leads the class slowly and steadily to new insights through structured case discussions. The different "mental models" that he seeks to imbibe with relation to funcioning effectively in an organisation are really different and thought provoking. Most of the things are not what they seem at face value when you look at it from the organisation view point. The various different activities/processes established by an organisation seem trivial and of no consequence when seen from the perspective of an employee. This course gives the point of view from the other side and its truly amazing how all these things matter from a strategic perspective and makes the organisation truly what it is. The Marketing Services course seems more of a strategy course than a marketing one. For the aspiring ISBians, this is a must have in term 5.