Little dew drops of joy in learning @ Rajagiri Business School

Since mid of 2010 Rajagiri Business School has been treating me well with a number of activities which were absolutely not in my list of expectations on what my life in a business school would be...

First of it all started with the rural sensitization camp of which I haven’t blogged as there were too many details to be covered and I failed in conveying the essence of it. In short this camp is an initiative taken by the college to introduce rural India to the large majority of students, who have never seen a night without lights, taps without water and plates without food and who always thought that business (marketing, finance, HR and operations) happen in the big cities and metros. The 7 day rural sensitization camp called Disha which meant direction in Malayalam was set up in Kattapana, Idukki district, Kerala where we were given a government school building to spend our nights and the entire space around to live the day. Kattapana is a hill station where the temperature dips to 15 degrees Centigrade at night and drizzles all day. Our days at the camp started at 6 am officially with an assembly but unofficially it started at 4 am fighting for the 3 toilets that were meant to serve more than a hundred girls. If you are lucky, by the time your chance comes there will be water in the toilet otherwise better find your way out today and better luck tomorrow!!! It was meant to be that way...it’s not that the management didn’t know about the difficulties! Resource management is the theory behind it!  We lived amongst the rural residents in Kattapana, working our days with the residents to construct roads to building houses, managed our chilling cold nights on benches that was barely our own size. The rural camp is to date one of my best experiences from college.

Next in line was Vanavasom which was a 2 day camp near Peechi dam. Unlike the case of the rural camp we had a pleasant stay with clean beds, toilets with water supply and excellent food! It was a treat to our body and mind. Vanavasom is an initiative taken by Rajagiri Business School with an aim to make its students managers who are employable. In the quiet and peaceful camp site we were engaged with several personality tests where we analyzed our self and our fellow group mates with an intention to help each other become better human beings. Everyone made the best out of it by taking it seriously and giving feedback that were absolutely certain and constructive. The most exciting part of it all was when our invisible friends revealed their identity! A week before the camp each one of us were given an invisible friend who we had to observe for a week...observe his or her positives, negatives, points of excellence, points of improvement etc. No one knew who was watching them but everyone knew there was someone watching! We revealed our identity only during the camp...there were sounds of joy and tears of realization when the feedback was given by the respective invisible friends. I myself felt as if some sort of a self realization has happened to me! I got to know what people think about me and where I have to improve to become a socially acceptable person!

The last of the three unique activities organised by college was an out bound training camp organized in collaboration with Kalypso!!! It got over last night and I am all high on Kalypso!!! I dint believe it when my seniors said it was one of the best!

Kalypso was organized in Surianelli (Near Munnar)... again an extremely cold place! The main aim of the training was to take us through various ice breakers and games which would help us connect to real life situations and learn what exactly is meant by leadership, team work, an individual, competition, task, trust etc It was simply amazing how great learning were derived from each of the games we played as a group. Books and lectures taught us theories and concepts but Kalypso proved that the theories work and the concepts are simply amazing! The camp did not just end with activities and learning...we slept in tents (with sleeping bags), drank the best morning coffee, ate good food, enjoyed the camp fire and took pictures that would be memories of tomorrow. I had a wonderful time with the Kalypso team headed my Commander R Madhusoodanan and my fellow classmates.

Now it’s just another trimester to say good bye to my student life and discover other ventures in life...Thank God that everything went off better than expected so far  :)