A novel experience!

The last weekend was very special for numerous reasons. First and foremost, I had never stayed in a campus hostel either during my school or college days. Thanks to the 3 day leadership event "LCube" organized at IIM Bangalore, I got to experience the life in a hostel as a PGSEM student. What a beautiful campus IIMB has! Although I go to IIMB every weekend for my classes, I never took the time to roam around the entire campus and admire the greenery. The campus is so serene and peaceful, with absolutely no noise from the traffic woes of Bannerghatta Road. This stay also gave me a chance to meet new people - both my seniors and juniors. It also paved a way to know the fun side of a few of my classmates. These three days were packed with action that I slept for less than 6 hours and yet I felt fresh the whole day.

The leadership workshop brought in a lot of fun and thought provoking activities, games and theatre events. Although I didn't get much of the theory that was discussed, I enjoyed the different activities. As groups, we danced, enacted a short play, composed a tune, wrote the lyrics and even sang in front of the group. There was self introspection and deep thinking to understand ourselves. There was also an activity to write my own obituary which set me into deep pondering about my life. Some of the key take-aways from this workshop are
- A leader is no leader if there is no one to follow him/her.
- Trust is very important between the leader and his/her followers.
- A leader needs to be authentic. His thoughts, feelings and actions ought to be in sync.

I participated in a role play event "Practicing pundits" where different challenges faced by the software industry are given as scenarios and the participants need to put themselves in the shoes of the decision maker. The prelims was just a rehash of the OB concepts that we learnt in the first year which we were able to crack through and get into finals. Although my team didn't win, atleast I didn't make a fool of myself.

The quiz prelims on global leaders was so tough that I could hardly answer 5 questions out of 25. The finals was an interesting watch, with hard core quizzers taking the plunge.

A vacation is one that when you come back, you feel rejuvenated. I felt the same when I returned home after stay at IIMB.