Week 2 - Building resilience

Week 2 at IIM-A: survived, not unscarred, but surely stronger.

The case studies are hitting harder, the deadlines are approaching faster, the backlogs -well, piling up would be an understatement—we can say they’re auditioning for a mountain range status and somehow… yet somehow it doesn’t feel as intimidating now. Yes, the intensity has increased but so has my resilience. Is this the transformation the profs keep hinting at? Or am I just too sleep-deprived to know better? Either way, it’s been a ride.

IIM-A is slowly but surely growing on me—and so is the management lingo. These jargons are a part of my natural language now. While waiting too long for dosa at Radhika’s, I don’t say the service is slow—I say the cycle time is too high. If someone’s upset about all the hours they’ve wasted, I remind them not to fall into the sunk cost fallacy. When the syndi-mates insists on pushing through long hours of studying, I warn them about diminishing marginal returns. Afterall, one doesn’t want to end up being a bottleneck, right?

The routines are settling in. I’ve figured out that I can roll out of bed at 8:25 and still make it to the 8:45 class (skipping breakfast and occasionally skipping bath). My body can (or at least has adapted to) run on 4.5 hours of sleep like it’s normal. And yet, somewhere deep down the optimistic Parth from past life (pre-MBA) - the one who used to wake up at 6:00, reach the cricket ground by 6:45, all pumped and ready - hasn’t completely given up. I still believe that one day, I’ll catch a sunrise at IIM-A and hit the gym before my morning class. One day... maybe.

They say being a good manager is all about handling trade-offs—and honestly, that sums up the MBA life as well. This week threw my first real one at me. While Dorm-38 was having its first party of the year, I was sitting through a 1 hour 45-minute electoral debate for the Career Affairs Secretary role. It was intense and exciting... but let’s just say the FOMO hit hard. I guess I’ve got some work to do on building my resilience—not just for deadlines and backlogs, but for moments like these too.

This quote that I found at the IIM-A merchandise store pretty much sums up this entire week – “It doesn’t get easier. You just get Stronger”