SPJCM Student Blog - A New Avatar

We Have Moved !!!

In our on going effort to share our experiences and learning at S.P. Jain Center of Management (SPJCM) - Singapore / Dubai , we have designed a much more comprehensive and user-friendly blog. This new blog is designed to provide a whole new blogging experience for both the blogger and the reader.

The new blog is regularly updated and maintained by the students of SPJCM.

Please click on the the link below.

http://spjcmstudentblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your patronage and interest.

Apurva Chiranewala
SPJCM - ITM (2008-09)

Some great initiatives @ Leadership Club

Breaking News: Slumdog Millionaire has won 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Score (AR Rahman), Song (AR Rahman & Gulzar). Congratulations!

Slumdog Millionaire @ Cathay – 21st February 2009
Last Saturday, we had an excellent movie event at Grand Cathay. The 20+ of us met at the Cathay Lounge at 9pm for Coffee, Tea and Snacks, sponsored by Cathay Group, with arrangements made by Ahmad Juan (our EMBA student who works for Cathay). Thanks Ahmad!
We then proceeded to the cinema hall at 9.30pm. As expected the movie was excellent and we were seated in the last 3 rows in a full cinema hall. After the movie, we said our goodbyes and departed. All agreed it was an excellent movie and made memorable by the gathering prior to the movie. Be on the lookout for announcements as we’ll have more such events.

Pulau Ubin Trip - 15th February 2009
The previous Sunday, we had our 2nd trip to Pulau Ubin. This time, we chartered a bus, and as expected left campus late – this time by only 15 minutes. We reached Changi Village at 9.35pm, and everyone split up to have breakfast, buy snacks and visit the Sri Ramar temple. And surprise, surprise! Everyone had gathered by 10.15am to take the boat to Pulau Ubin. We reached the island at 10:40am, proceeded to rent out bicycles and hit the road. It was an excellent ride around the island with most of the island having paved roads now. A new addition that was challenging was the Ketam Mountain Bike Park. We hiked up (by foot) to get a clear view of the beautiful Ubin Quarry Lagoon. Part of the group returned at 2pm, while the others explored the island by cycle and foot with the juniors returning at 3.30pm and the seniors much later.

Regards,
Thanneer

Visit to Man Fatt Lam Home for the Aged - Leadership Club @ Singapore

This is a brief report on our first visit to Man Fatt Lam Home for the Aged. Man Fatt Lam Home for the Aged is a non-profit organisation that began operating since 1996 and takes in needy elderly above 60 years old regardless of race and religion. The Home also caters to middle and lower class families who are unable to care for their elders. Their aims are to provide shelter & a good living environment for needy elderly, Help to maintain them in a healthy lifestyle and organise activities for them.

A group of us visited the home on Wednesday, 11th February. We arrived a little late and all the elderly were already seated in the dining room. We started with a few songs in Hindi and English led by Srishtiraj and Kumar on the guitar. Most of the elderly responded to the songs by clapping hands and one even came to dance with our girls! After the songs, a dance was performed by Arunima, Chaitra, Maria, Namrata, Payal and Shreya to “Rasa Sayang”. Not to be left out, the sole representative of the December batch, Kamal, performed an excellent dance partnering with Namrata.

Then, we sat down and chatted with some of the elderly, A few spoke English and a few more spoke Malay. Many of them thanked us for visiting and for an excellent performance. Then, we snapped some group photos. As we were leaving, the lady who was most excited by our arrival waved goodbye and said in Malay,” Thank you coming. Your performance was very good. Please come again and Don’t forget us!” It didn’t hit me then, but later I realised how lonely they must be…

Thank you Anilavo, Arunima, Chaitra, Kamal, Kumar, Maria, Namrata, Payal, Priya, Shreya, Srishtiraj, Saumya, Upendra, Vinod, and Eda for making this visit a success. We look forward to organising more visits to the home.

Regards,
Thanneer

Their website: http://manfattlamhome.com/

At arm's length

With our heads held high we all are eagerly waiting for the time when good news of placements start flowing in...with fingers crossed, keeping in mind the current turmoil, we all are hopeful to end it on a good note.

The last nine months have been full of fun, excitement and not to forget the hard-work that has gone behind making the best out of the limited time available. I am sure most of us would take these nice memories along and cherish them for life long.

With Dubai being the financial hub, the learning was tremendous. The IIPs involved going out during the Ramadan period to carry out the market research, capture as much primary data as possible and then actually sit back and try making sense out of it. Though we did our best to get a lot of surveys being filled, I am sure each of us have their own story to share...Be it being kept waiting for hours for an interview or being ignored completely thinking we are there to steal some jobs.

Coming to Singapore, we all were wondering, on our way from airport to the hostel, that is this greenery for real or has been intentionally brought in from some other place. It took me almost a week to come to terms with the fact that this place is really green, unlike Dubai.
But both places have their own charm, speak their own language and try and teach us a lot as to only vision combined with true will to do things can actually make things happen.

On this note, I would like to get back to my dissertation synopsis, with a promise to come back and write in more.

Peace and Cheers!!!

-Ankit Malhotra
Student GMAY08(IT Management)

Quizzopolis @SPJCM Singapore

13th December 2008 will be remembered as the day when the journey of QuizzopolisII came to an end. It was a fun filled evening with whole lot of enthusiasm in the air and everyone eagerly waiting in suspense for the winner to emerge. There was a lot of hard work and preparation that went behind the successful organization of this event. After Quizzopolis 1 which happened back in Dubai, ClubIT@SPJCM wanted to take this event to the next level and it was indeed achieved. Be it the Quiz software or the online score cards or the prizes given out to the audi-ence and the teams, there was lot more improvement and innovation this time. However, this would not have been possible without the active support and guidance of Mr. AVR Srinivas throughput the planning and the execution of the event.
In addition to being an evening of Business Quiz, QuizzopolisII was also a platform to bring the Alumni, EMBAites and the GMBAites (May’08 and Dec’08 batches) together. As only 6 teams could have made to the finals, pre-liminary rounds were conducted at different times to accommodate all the batches. With the six teams chosen for the final event, the evening of 13th December 2008 saw 3 teams from the May’08 and Dec’08 batch respec-tively. As the event began, the Quizmaster not only kept the teams on their toes but the audience was also in-volved in answering tricky questions. In the midst of intense quizzing, there were some light and fun moments also, with some really ‘creative’ answers. While the teams were battling it out for the trophy, there were goodies for the audience too in the form of souvenir cups and chocolates.
After an intense 90 minutes of quizzing, the event came to an end with the presentation of the Rolling Trophy and the gift vouchers to the winning teams. The guests of honor of the event, Dr. Seetha Raman and Prof Rama-subramanyam gave away the prizes to the teams.
The winning team of QuizzopolisII had two teams from the Dec’08 batch and one team from May’08 batch.
Results:
Winners of Quizzopolis 2008 (Rolling Trophy & $200) – Sidharth Vijay Singh & Hiten Jain *Dec’08 GMBA+
First Runners Up ($100 prize money) – Ramit Sharma & Lokesh Gupta *May’08 GMBA+
Second Runners Up ($50 prize money) – Rohit J. Pulickal & Bikram Pattnaik *Dec’08 GMBA+
The event was a huge success with participation from the audience and cut throat competition amongst the teams.
ClubIT@SPJCM thanks all the participants and the audience for making the event successful and looks ahead to QuizzopolisIII.

- Chinmay Bajpai
Student of Batch of May08 (IT)