My 50 Most Memorable Moments of NUS MBA

2 days ago, finally this treasured journey came to an official end after giving endless memories, and invaluable relationships. I had started this blog to record my experiences as an NUS MBA student, and now will continue to do so as an NUS MBA Alumnus. But before I make that transition, I would like to salute and thank NUS, the Business School, the Staff, our Professors and most of all, my batchmates, Class of 2010, for a lifetime experience, learning & value.

And what better way to do that, than to remember my most memorable moments of the entire experience spanning 2 unforgettable years.

NUS MBA Class of 2010, you rock!!!
Psst...I may not have named you, but you know who you are ;)
This is not an exhaustive list, of even my own moments, but do add your own if you want to...and add to the fun! :)

1. XYZ introducing himself in NP’s class after an all night drinking session -> "I think I am bad at sex"
2. “A” introducing himself 2 months before graduation, " I am A, first year full time MBA"
3. A & B applauding Prof IPM for something in class, assuming people would follow lead...and the entire class turning and staring at them. And then laughing.
4. My first blog writing ever IN-class
5. The ultimate status messages on gtalk and FB, and the 1000s of hours spent on both these mediums; half of those going through Debesh's photography ! :P :P
   
6. Mktg final exam : exam started at 9, i looked up at 9:30. Not 1 person was writing!
7. Kirti cracking jokes via chat/fb/whatever and making us laugh in class, while maintaining a perfect dead pan!!
8. Aperna forgetting her own calculator in a final exam!; using Kirti's and the Prof walks up and scolds Kirti for forgetting his calculator!! :D
9. The only meeting ever with the Stats prof, Priyanka “Powerpuff” Pahwa’s kickass handling of the proceedings and Srini’s constant disappearing act... he was trying to hide his uncontrollable laughter as coughing....and another Prof saw him laughing in the hallway.
10. Marketing project presentation: Wife presenting, Husband listening. Husband asks question. Team thinks it’s placed. They wait for wife to answer. Wife answers. @Prof to Husband: "very good question" @ Prof to Wife: "very bad answer" Turns out the question wasn’t placed after all. :P
11. The Sem1 Tiger Brewery tour, DB whom I barely knew at the time, said to me, "Dont sit next to me, I am drunk and not safe!" :O :D
    
12. The all too popular Jaimin's "Happy Jaimin" state...Happy Jaimin very soon graduated to being an adjective (credits for coining the noun: yours truly, Shipra Gupta)
13. Recounting stories of all daaru parties as the 2nd most favorite conversation topic, first being ofcourse, "bitching sessions!" :P
14. All the "late comer" songs in Corp Strat class; ranging from Canada's national anthem (where we all stood up! :P) , to a nursery rhyme by Rohini & Aperna..all the way to a "mere sapno ki rani" with full(ly made up) orchestra :D
    
15. Jaimin's :"Hail the queen!" greeting.. (The queen of PJs i.e.)
16. Shreya and everything about her and our friendship
17. X’s extremely constipated face in class. I could never figure if she was trying very very hard to stay awake or to concentrate. Or was she really, well, that badly constipated.
18. Rohini’s spontaneous wit, never-ending theatrics and uncanny knack of giving names to people, things and events ;)
19. Other people's hopeless attempts trying to match up to Rohini’s names
20. The makeup, the heels, the laptop, the books and running up the 10000 stairs...all in one go!
21. The morning before Consultant Unplugged - and SK's comment "ghar pe shaadi hai kya..kya shakal banaayi hui hai" (you look as tense as if you were planning a family wedding)
22. The resounding laughter from audience during consultant unplugged
23. The appreciation mails that kept pouring in for days later!
24. Council Presidential Elections 2008 - Face Off
25. Holi dance performance and the cheers “once more” at the end
26. The jokes & goofups during rehearsals; esp Srini's comment to Maggu "Naacho Priyanka!" (boy did she beat him up after that!!)
    
27. The endless date conflicts for international day 2009!!!!!
28. The 12:45 am bus #30 to boonlay, the potluck lunches & get togethers
29. My first-ever :"awesome cook" compliment
30. The endless girl talk sessions at nights in our apartment
31. Alex's high pitched "Shhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppprrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaa"
32. Non-stop quibbling n sworn enemity with Venuraj..while helping him out with all his event fliers and generally being nice to him. Srini used to call us "tom n jerry"
33. All night long discussions at boonlay interspersed with movies, snacks, even naps!!!, ending with morning tea...followed by sleeping till noon (missed that terribly in the final sem!!)
34. The midnight birthday celebrations in boonlay in Sem 1
35. Getting dunked into the pool as a part of birthday celebrations....it was not my birthday!
36. All the times spent with non MBA friends..who always had to take me out kicking & screaming...and always left me wondering why I didn't party with them more often
37. The food @ Edward’s, the lebanese food counter and Anjappar@PGP, Thosai at Engg. Canteen; Komala's and Annalaxmi
38. A’s winning KY-Jelly in a pop quiz! B’s befuddled look and the need to read the packaging! and C’s comment on how men don't need it!!! now thats what i call a hat-trick!! ;) :D
39. The half an hr 2^nd order differential model in the channels class and the look on ev1's face, as they looked from the ¾ covered board to the 3 people in a class 30 who were actually following, writing and finding faults with it!!!!!!!!!!!
40. Micro Class Presentation - and the group who said MR is NOT equal to MC!!!!!
41. International Day Kathak Performance, the whistling, the cheers, the disbelief when I told people I wasn’t a trained dancer and the first comment right after it "Tumhara sharukh khan kahan hai?" (where’s your sharukh khan: the song was from one of his movies)
42. International Day "Crossing Borders" performance...as I sat there, mesmerized, for the 2nd time, at the sheer talent in the batch!!
43. The same night, Venuraj playing his keyboard, and all of us breaking into "Pehla Nasha" impromptu..and still matching each note!!
44. Cerebration 2010 grand finale...when I sat there and got goosebumps at the thought it was finally done!!
45. Getting my first pay cheque while still at school!!
46. The kickboxing & the salsa classes
47. Reading the email saying I had won the scholarship
48. The Commencement dinner award ceremony where everyone hooted for everyone else : Rohini became Alex, Debesh became Saurabh & Shekhar....Deba! :)
    
    The 2 biggest moments of all....
49. The first time I ever entered the NUS Kent ridge campus, the moment the boonlay shuttle turned the corner, and I saw the Orange “NUS” board at the entrance, for the first time ever.
    
50. The moment where I finally walked up on the stage, and got my MBA degree
    

I keep feeling constantly that i have become a completely different person, that the past 2 years have been an exponential learning curve through & through; personally, academically, professionally; and that every aspect of me feels different. To the point where at times i feel i don’t know myself anymore. Its definitely been a monumental journey and the deep impact it has had deserves to be recorded; I am definitely in a massive transition period where I am yet to find my lost footing with myself. Here’s an attempt at that self –rediscovery.

How did my mba change me?

To begin with, i have become highly adept at managing a household, and though I hardly enjoy it any more than i ever did, so is the general consensus amongst my friends. Sure I had my fair share of burning holes in the bottom of pans while cooking and clothes while ironing; butanyone i didn’t tell myself won’t believe it. Of course i have taken care to get rid of all evidence to the effect ;)

A friend’s father recently called me any household’s future delight as a rare MBA smart girl who can manage the house perfectly well. Needless to say, my mother is delighted. and even more needless to add, my pre MBA friends are just too shocked to believe anything. In their words, “the wild cat has been domesticated!” :P

The obvious, academic broadening of horizons; i know much more than i did before all the studying in MBA; even if i didn’t study as much as I would have liked to. I can do much more in excel than add numbers :D

What else? I guess the gazillion presentations have had their effect. So while I have had quite a history of public speaking, as a debator, compere, even newsreader, I learnt that giving a presentation is a completely different ball game and to top that I know PPT functions I never knew existed :D

I have aged 2.5 more years since 2008, so I suppose I probably have matured; though there are aspects to my life where I still feel like the same idiot that I have always been. Only it feels much worse now. Whoever said you can learn from your mistakes and move on...I have got something to say to you.. some mistakes you just keep making over & over. I bet there’s the Freudian theory to it somewhere ;)

A lot of things I knew I was reasonably good at, networking, socialising, confrontations, competitiveness, I have just become more adept at them I guess. I learnt the true value of healthy competition, and the rarity with which competition is ever healthy. Definitely work out more than I ever have in my entire life, though I doubt MBA had anything to do with it; may be except the dozens of Kgs I had put on in the last 2 years churning 1 assignment or email after another from my laptop, getting up only to eat, sleep..and well you know. :P

A natural introvert, something of a rebellious loner, I am much more comfortable talking to strangers than before, though again my first nature still rules. I just don’t detest having the 2^nd one to take over.

I am far more environmentally conscious than I ever was; yup that’s definitely all the climate change studying and work I did in MBA, and the difference I learnt 1 person can actually make!

I have always been a very spiritual person but more of an iconoclast when it comes to traditions. Yet, living in a foreign country with no family to provide the much needed anchor made me more religious than before. With traditions I am still of the same opinion, if they go out context of the times we live in, they must be changed. when traditions start ruling the society, they start suffocating the individuals. and that generates only 2 kinds of people. more on this in a later post...

I have become more conscious of my multi tasking skills, my ability to stretch myself and the weakness of stretching myself too thin at times. I have learnt that I can keep functioning on little sleep for almost a week and also how harmful & unhealthy it is to do so. I have learnt what a workaholic I can become and how important it is to maintain the work life balance.

Many a times, MBA taught me many things I didn’t want to know, but probably needed to. How frivolously people treat their own commitments, the callous manipulativeness, the ruthless aggression, and many such things that I had always refused to believe existed anywhere outside movies. Not that it has gone a long way in changing the way I deal with people, I still start off by thinking everyone is nice, st forward and simple; but I guess I just pick up the signs to show otherwise faster and adapt myself quicker. I suppose I am less naive than I used to be.

But I guess I am still the same person in many ways, I still come across as very approachable to some people and very cold to others...and I still don’t understand why that happens! I just know I act on the vibes I get. :P My instincts are still as accurate as ever.And I am still as incorrigible when it comes to ignoring them and landing into trouble!!

someone a few days ago put this as his FB msg

"if you could kick hard the person responsible for all your problems, you wouldn't be able to sit for a week"

couldn't have said it better myself!!! I always believed in making mistakes as long as I learn from them, grow as a person and not repeat them. I think the marginal utility of those mistakes has long approached zero, I should change strategies now & become more risk averse & start playing safe!

Recently realised that my wit and sarcasm still haven’t lost their touch......

But I guess my biggest learning has been as follows:

The simple teachings of childhood: humility, politeness, honesty, being nice, respect to teachers & elders, love to younger ones, kindness to the less fortunate, contentment, trusting in others’ goodness of heart, dedication & commitment to your duties....the simple practical things that my Mom taught me as I was growing up...those things are still as universally applicable as ever; and definitely more in need in today’s world than ever before.

Legal Issues in Business

When I was in high school, our school made us take a career counseling test, which was supposed to tell us our ideal career path. Of course it was the right time to take that test, and so I took it with all my zeal. The results were something to the following effect;
scientific reasoning - negative
logical & rational thinking - negative
mathematical, computational, numerical , analytical reasoning - negative
career in science - not suitable
career in business - not suitable
career in research - not suitable
....well you get the point..and just as I was about to give up on my dream of the "high-flying" executive, my eye fell on the word "excellent"

At last! something was right! there was hope. I picked up the paper again, it read:
argumentative & verbal capability: excellent!
suitable career: lawyer, journalist or politician

in my father's words, "nonstop useless chatter - this is why i ask you to focus ...blah blah blah"....

11 years flash forward, I think I can say with confidence that the test was clearly wrong ;)

But the thought that i was most suited to be a lawyer never quite left me; and it wasn't just the test, which was clearly f***ed up; it was because all my friends, school teachers, everyone always thought I'd do either journalism or law.

And though I didn't, when I saw this course being offered, more for temporary gratification of "studying law" than anything else, I took it up. First class was phenomenal. We talked about criminal law, murders, evidence, witnesses...wow! it felt like the movies. Everything, from Damini's Sunny Deol's famous "tareek pe tareek" to legally blonde's solving a murder through knowledge of hair perming to Jeffrey Archer's novels to even Agatha Christie's murder mysteries flashed in front of my eyes . Already I could picture myself making a fiery, passionate closing statement to a jury that would exonerate my innocent client from the murder charges he was clearly being framed for!

This was going to be exciting!! :D

Alas! Fate..err the Prof had a different thing in mind..

The subject was about contract law. And for the rest of semester, every word in the class sounded obfuscated, circuitous and sometime even senseless. It took me forever to grasp the concept of consideration. A promise of exchange, where a $1 offer is considered sufficient economic value for a fresh consideration (exchange).??!!!!

"Frustration" caused me a lot of pain & frustration! No matter how frustrated you are, unless lightening strikes u on the head or Katrina's (the storm) sister blows ur company away (pun unintended), you cant claim frustration to get out of a contract! Why not call it "I cant do it because I am dead!!" instead?

CISG, the full form of which I still dont know, took 10 years to form, does not cover services & half of the goods or anything thats too complex for a 10 year old to understand; cannot be reinforced and hasn't been updated in 30 years since it needs majority of 74 member states to sign the smallest of amendments!! ...Errr and its still being used...The world has changed in 30 years, and you need 74 members to sign putting a fullstop to it..err i mean on it, and businesses r still using it!! No wonder things never get done with governments and international law!

I still don't understand why if B breached the contract, and A was efficient enough to cover his losses, A is not entitled to damages from B, & B gets to go Scott- free. A is penalised for being efficient!! If I ever felt confident about using the word "ridiculous!!" it was at this instant. So confident I was, that I actually used this in front of the Prof, when she was teaching it!!! Oopss!! tch tch...nows thats over confidence, thank God it was not you-know-who ;)

Many times I suffered Frustration, the english one, and went "arrgghhh!!!"
And in the end no matter what the case and what the evidence was, the judgment always...Alllwaayyyssssss depended on how convincing the argument of the lawyer was to the judge.

If it wasn't for the ever so patient, smiling, kind and knowledgeable Prof Kah Leng, my final addition to the list of 10 Best Profs @ NUS MBA, I would have given up long ago!!

Ya ya, we need this subject. Its contract law, and its surprising how many business people make mistakes because they don't know this stuff. I was surprised at how many times I saw the terms I studied in this class, spring up around me. They had always been there, but I had never noticed. And yeah my level of awareness has gone up manifold.

And through this increased level of awareness, my 3 key takeaways,

1. stay away from getting in trouble with the law
   
2. if you get stuck, hire the darn best lawyer you can afford
3. and lastly..the golden advice a friend passed me on a chit in class,
   

"always bribe the judge"

;) :D

Channels of Learning

After writing about the best profs, is it time to write about the 20 odd subjects I studied in the past 20 odd months? No, not really, not unless some one asked for it! But as I near the end of this once-in-a-lifetime journey, I thought it would be nice to share some key highlights of my academic experience at NUS MBA.

My courses:
A no brainer isn't it. At $$$$ per class, this better be a key highlight!! :D

During my MBA, I made a deliberate, conscious choice of touching as many diverse aspects of a business as possible. While the Finance people worked well on their way to get mini-PhDs by doing every possible finance course offered by NUS MBA, and ditto with Marketing people (though they had very limited choices to be honest).... I tried to get as much breadth as I possibly could.

I tried to strike a balance between pure strategy courses, supply chain, finance and marketing, and quite a few off-beat courses. And while the learning from the typical courses was immense, I think that to me at least these courses added a whole lot of value and new dimensions to my business & behavioral understanding.

These courses were: Legal Issues in Business, Ethics & CSR, Negotiations, Asian Cultures & Religions, Management practicum with an NGO,

And the reason I have shared these specifically with you, is that students often don't realize their significance & either ignore these courses, or take them to get "a light course with easy grades". These courses just show you so many things you have never thought of before, if only you listen carefully.

Simulation games

We had to play simulation games in Corporate strategy, corporate entrepreneurship & Product&Brand Management (though I didn't take this course). My personal opinion, games are a LOT of hard work, immensely time consuming..but they truly provide exponential learning. As close to real life practice as you can get, games are a must, even if you want to kill yourself for taking the subject, when you have to play them every week! :)

Industry Talks

It doesn't matter if you have nothing to do with the topic, or if you don't want to make a career out of it; attend as many as your time permits. You will be surprised at the end of it all, how slowly all pieces start to fall into place in 1 big picture called a "business". I remember attending a talk to Carbon trading; now I am the one of the most Finance challenged MBAs in the history of MBA world; so obviously, I gave up after the first 1 hour. But the first 1 hour was general stuff about global warming, carbon emissions market and so on; and that was a lot of learning. Did I curse myself for the next 1 hour, sure! I still wish I could have slipped out after 1 hour and used that time for something more fruitful, but thats the price you have to pay I guess. Okay with 1000 things to do in your MBA, you can't attend a talk on hedge funds if you are hardcore marketing, & vice versa; but at least give it a try. You may be surprised at what you find.

Professor-Time

Take some time out every week to have a lunch with at least 1 prof you really like. I didn't do it as much as I would have liked to, but that 30 min - 45 min of offsite intellectually simulating conversation can add so much more value to the whole experience. And not just professors, include any one you like, the admissions person, your own career counselor, just talk to the canteen guy...I learned a lot about Singapore season cycle (whatever there is of it..:P) and its links to the various chinese festivals from Edward, the Western stall guy; and the Middle Eastern guy, he told me so much about Golf! ;)


Extra curricular
Especially event organizing. I organised / volunteered for tons of events, whether organised by student council (where it was my job to help!:P) , or alumni or the school; or at times even the university. I was one of the main organisers for Consultant Unplugged 2009 & Cerebration 2010. 2 of the biggest NUS MBA student driven events. And these events taught me so much more about management and people, than any classroom teaching could have. Each time it was like running a mini organisation with a target to meet. Yes, I cursed myself to no end when I was organising them, but honestly, in retrospect, the learning was monumental!

yeah other extra curriculars (aka 2 dance performances, blog editor etc. ) were good fun. They were hardwork too, but through those, it was more about having fun than learning.

NUS Libraries

A truly world class treasure of knowledge, NUS has many many libraries. Each housing 1000s of books easily. Just the NUS Business School library has 4 floors and 1000s of books on a wide variety of subjects. Now I am not much of a library person, all my life I have hardly ever stepped into one except for to pick up a novel to read. And since I started buying books, almost never. So for me the idea of having such a huge collection of books, reports, journals and what not is so daunting that I'd rather prefer google.

But this is where the magic steps in. Not only are ALL NUS libraries interconnected and online, which means that whatever book/journal you are looking for, if it exists anywhere in the 100s of 1000s of books all over the univ, you will find it; but its a very advanced s/w. You can reserve books online, locate them in the library, get them delivered to your dept library, even renew them online. Not just books, @ NUS MBA, I had access & training (!!) to all possible relevant databases, factiva, euromonitor, bloomberg, GMID, Osiris, you name it and I have been taught how to use it.

Too much information?? Drop the library your specific request! the library staff works very diligently to solve your specific queries, not about the library queries, specific info requests. I have written to them asking for complex historical industry data & reports and they have come back with the precise information within the same working day!!!!

I think the NUS Business School library staff can teach everyone a thing or two about customer service!

A definite highlight! and help I am going to miss soon :P


These are all I can think of at the moment, but what I have realized is, I am never able to recollect everything I did in my MBA at one go. When I had started my MBA I was convinced that I wanted to make the best use of it. Sure, I had a different "best use" in mind, but what actually transpired was even better! Its been a roller coaster that nothing could have ever prepared me for.

I personally believe MBA to be training ground to learn all aspects of a business, even the ones you don't know exist & never think about, and if you agree, then in your MBA you should strive for a holistic experience as well

10 Best Profs @ NUS MBA

As the last semester of my MBA begins, and I look at Stupid dodo's status message (I gazed and gazed but little thought, what wealth my MBA to me has brought..)

I realise that perhaps one of the biggest returns for me personally has been some of the stellar professors that I studied under, some great Profs that I got to know...and others who make me wish I had more bandwidth to take more courses!! :P

If you enter NUS MBA, then try to ensure that you take classes with these Profs. If some one asks you your RoI from NUS MBA, a huge element of that RoI will be the genuine opportunity to absorb a fraction of this wealth of knowledge. In fact, if you are one of those who truly look at a value add from your MBA other than a fat paying job at the end of it, or 2 years back to being in college; then this might just be the biggest element of your RoI.

Following are some of the most brilliant professors I have studied under here @ NUS MBA, semester-wise,


1) Prof Srinivasan Sankaraguruswamy, or Prof Srini, as we all called him. The best accounts prof I could have hoped to get. The first and till date only Prof on my gtalk! & FB!! Despite my having no background in accounts whatsoever, he managed to get me so deeply interested in a subject that could easily have felt so mundane; that if he had been taking one more course in the later semesters, I would have taken it come what may! He taught us the numbers..and then taught us how to read between them. He could pick up any financial statement and leave me dumbstruck and awed at the amount of information he could extract out of that one piece of paper in less than 5 minutes!! ;)


2) Prof Ishtiaq P. Mahmood - Stimulating discussions, endless knowledge of every subject, every country, every dimension possible, I could have listened to Prof Ishtiaq just share his knowledge forever. He took one lecture in corporate strategy and taught us so many new things. One lecture in exchange rates, and suddenly they became so clear! His knowledge was like the infinitum...in multiple dimensions, at both macro and micro level. Till date the only person I know who could talk about culture, history, politics, financial practices, and exchange rates in one single sentence and still make sense!! And of course the absolutely yummy Bangaldeshi food at the end of the semester! ;)


3) Prof Elizabeth Boyle - Tough, Demanding & In-your-face. Prof Boyle never sugar coated her opinions, whether they were about corporations, or us. Hands down the toughest professor to please till date ( and I am not talking about just this MBA program) ...she is also one of the BEST! To call her course rigorous is an extreme understatement,..to call her study material useful...even more so. Some of the best cases, the best articles, and the most thorough analysis that I have sat through till date. She pushed us to our extreme limits, and it feels that has paid off. She is the epitome of the teacher who pushes you not because you are bad...but because she knows you can be so much better


4) Prof Sam Ouliaris - By far the most endearing, the most loved professor who enjoys the maximum fan-following from our batch. He was suppsoed to take 1 class in the semester, he ended up taking 2, each with 50-70 students! That's saying something!! In all his classes, the first 40-50 minutes went discussing the news, and making sense of it in Macro economic terms.For the first time in my life, I could make sense of news in FT and link different things. For a person with a zero economics background, and an equally terrifying experience of micro economics, this course was a sheer delight..of course the only course where ALL the work was optional!! His having left NUS is indeed a tremendous loss to the NUS MBA Students!! :(


5) Prof Chu Singfat - After Prof Boyle, the most direct and demanding professor. The number of memos that he ripped apart, and the stubbornness with which our grades refused to move by so much as a point...I was terrified of the final grade! If there was one course I was in danger of flunking in the final semester,...it was this! His passion in teaching, his knowledge of his subject and the fact that his course was so completely different and so tanglibly and immediately useful in our careers made it all worth it! In my opinion, and the opinion of almost everyone who took his class, his course should be split into the basic Statistics core module taught in the first semester and elective analytics module in 2/3 sems...with more depth added to each module


6) Prof Trichy Krishnan - I had heard so much about his xxxxx words per minute speech - speed, among other things such as the immense workload and his infinite love for numbers and differential equations...that I attended just one class for fun in the 2nd semester. I loved his class so much that I didn't think twice before taking another subject with him in my final semester, and I never regretted it. Specially so becuase the work load wasn't nearly as high as had been for the 2nd sem subject...and there was relatively limited scope for differential equations ;) ... I got to enjoy only the good things....his endless knowledge..and the supersonic speed at which it came out!!My brain had never worked at such overtime speed just to catch all the words he was saying! The walk back home after his class usually went in assimilating and digesting everything he had said ;)


7) Prof Bob Fleming - Passionate & completely dedicated to the cause of helping people, ethics and CSR, he taught the importance and the difficulty in being honest & ethical at work and in life. His classes were the common ground for people's emotions to get riled up, as their own understandings of right n wrong..ethical and non-ethical got questioned quite regularly. Needless to say, passionate & at times even heated discussions followed in class. The answers were never easy, and quite often completely non-existent. I always found it unbelievable how many personal stories he had of the conflict of values he had faced in his own career spanning over 30 years His course taught me that the things people take for granted..including their own value systems..fall into easy decay without so much as a moment's notice. A course that in my opinion must be taught to every single student entering the corporate world. And made me wonder if I would be able to stick to my values as unfailingly as he had done.


8) Prof. Dubois - Although I took his classes in ESSEC, as a part of my Asian Cultures module, he taught us Confucianism / Taoism... he is in fact a Professor in the NUS History Department. A genius of a Professor, an expert in his field, he had an astounding ability to capture the class attention. During the 3 hours lectures, no one would ever utter a word, unless it was relevant to the subject. And that my dear reader, in a class of French students @ ESSEC was an unbeatable achievement. And that too for a subject that was pure history... He made the classes unbelievably interesting by giving examples ranging from Chinese folklore to the Feng-shui implication of the architecture of the building right next to our campus. He is a truly exceptional, and genius of a Prof. And one of the main reasons why I am glad I took classes @ ESSEC, without that class, and that course, I would have missed out on studying under such a brilliant Professor

9) Prof Ter Kah Leng: Soft-spoken, kind & gentle. The epitome of patience. Never lost her smile. Sounds more like a mother than a Professor doesn't she! I guess she needed all these qualities, given that she teaches Law to business students. Or should I say, the obfuscated language of Law to the argumentative business students. Where anything shorter than a page is "a sentence demanding explanation". Where consideration has nothing to do with being considerate. Where "Agent" has a different legal meaning, and the Principal- Agent problem is an entirely new concept. Where sometimes, things just dont seem to make any sense at all. And at others, you even stop trying to understand. Where at times, all she could say was, "this is the way law sees it". Her patience was remarkable, given that she had to explain the same concept to different students multiple times. And so was her comforting smile, that often seemed to say, "I know this is hard for you, but stay with me & we will keep trying." A very nice Professor to teach law, and the virtue of patience :)

Another Professor I loved studying under.. was Prof. Siva Kumar..my Hinduism prof @ the ESSEC Asian Cultures course, I haven't included him in the above list since he isn't really an NUS Prof. But is definitely in the same league of brilliant teaching. A lawyer by profession, I suppose eloquence, well articulated, well structured thoughts and the ability to mesmerize his audience, is a part of his job! ;) Add that to his in depth knowledge of Hinduism, it didn't matter to me if I am a Hindu, and knew more than half the stuff he was teaching...it was sheer pleasure to learn from him.

Apart from these, some of the other professors, that my classmates have found brilliant, but under whom I did not get an opportunity to learn... are Prof. Aron Low (Fund Management), Prof. Joseph Cherian (Options & Futures), Prof. Prem Shamdasaani (Marketing), Prof. Cynthia Wang (Negotiations) & Prof. Gurmeet Singh Bhabra (Advanced Corporate finance)

All these Profs had 2 attrbiutes in common, as do all good teachers, anywhere in the world at any level of education..a passion for their subject, and a passion for teaching.

The last 1 slot remains unfilled...I have missed way too many good profs during my MBA, perhaps I should come back to take their classes as an alum ;)