By Ramendra Singh
IIMA FPM

On May 28th,2005,when I entered the hallowed ‘bricked walls’ of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad campus after 5 years of corporate life and a premier MBA degree, I wasn’t sure if I had taken the best decision of my life. I had been rejected once before in FPM interview in 2003, by the same panel that selected me this year…and I didn’t know how to interpret my merit as a prospective doctoral student. “This would be a U turn in your life….I am sure you may have guessed that already…,” one of the panel members remarked.

I also had a chance to go for a US PhD program, yet something made me stick back (More about the stickiness of the FPM program later).Since the results came out for IIMA early, I didn’t appear in doctoral program interviews at XLRI and IIM Bangalore. So I had no backup, if I chose to quit. I had already bid adieu to corporate slavery, and wanted to enter academics, if I could successfully complete the FPM program…yet that if loomed large, and became larger day by day. I had talked to many FPM students during my application process, and my impression of an IIMA FPM program was one full of suspicion and derision. But few days into the orientation program, and the FPM chair made us realize that things were to change by the people at the helm of affairs. I could already feel being blown away by these winds of change. The orientation program lasted for 20 days and was a honeymoon to say the most and an invigorating climate to build relationships with my 28 batchmates, to say the least. Ours was a batch of 28 FPM students across areas, and largest in the history of IIMA,we were told. In few months, the stipend also rose from mere Rs 7700 to almost Rs 10,000.It didn’t take me too much time to realize that IIMA is not the best place to make friends…it was competitive…and very professional, and to top it all the social distance maintained by some faculty was honorable. First year as FPM student was more like being a PGP.Staying in the same dorm as PGP students, eating in the same mess, doing CP(class participation) just like them,fighting,cribbing and even begging for grades was normal life(Did crack the CAT for all this??).The worst part of my first year life was sitting in the class with PGP students, while trying to differentiate myself as a FPM student. At the back of my mind, I recalled what George Orwell said in Animal Farm, “…all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others!”

My biggest takeaway from the first year was working with people who were more equal than others. There were students who had excelled in their own areas in IITs, NITs, as doctors, and as other professionals. All started as equals, but by the time first year ended, some were already more equal either academically, professionally or both. But the end of first year also brought me the most awaited news…that the 2nd year would be different from the PGP 2nd year, and that the real doctoral program had just begun…

If in the first year, I had read more than 300 cases, I didn’t read less than 1000 research articles in 2nd year, by choice or otherwise. I had lesser number of courses in 2nd year, yet the effort put in was more than double to that of 2nd year. There was a lot that I learnt in the 2nd year, much more than all the papers put together, and often my area batchmates often used to make fun of my use of the word ‘learning’. I must have written more than half dozen research papers, which are called term papers. The discussion with batchmates and faculty in the class used to go on for hours together to the extent that some of my batchmates got so infuriated that they wanted me to bear the consequences for my CPs in class. But if I were to say the largest takeaway from 2nd year, it would be these discussions in the class with faculty and colleagues. In the midst of all the classes, CPs, consequences et al, I slipped my disc and enjoyed bed rest for almost a month. I still remember that I wrote an entire term paper typing away on my laptop, lying on my bed.Incidently one day before I slip disced, my one year old son broke his collar bone and so both of us lay injured in bed…hurt but not out. I completed 2nd year with a lot of satisfaction, much more than I felt at the end of 1st year. Several conference and journal publications added to my satisfaction. Yet the big hurdle was yet to be crossed, that of the comprehensive qualifying examination. Several months of patient wait, and many weeks of writing and typing later this grueling and physically taxing phenomenon also got over. But no sooner was the CQE over that the thesis started looming large again over my head. Thesis is the crown that a doctoral program awards the student and is largely driven by the FPM student himself.Incidently wearing this crown is most taxing, yet pleasurable.I remember a visiting faculty once remark to me that unlike other degrees that are awarded to a student, a FPM or PhD is a degree that is earned by the student. As I stand on the verge of starting the journey of thesis, I wonder what would had been the past two years without the constant support and love of my wife,Anjali,and my 2 year old son Rudransh. I can understand the loneliness that my colleagues in dorms face as bachelors, especially since our PGP batchmates have already graduated and joined the real world. Besides the support of my family, I used to relax and de-stress myself by reading PhD comics. These comics are a real life spoof on the life PhD students, and reading them are like laughing at ourselves. But on a more serious note, I would surely recommend the FPM program to all budding prospects who are more academically inclined and want to do more than just join a corporate job.

Let me emphatically say that a FPM degree more than justifies the 4.5 years of your life. It is a worthwhile investment for your intellectual development, and grow personally and professionally. It is also a license to academic career, which is stimulating and enriching both professionally and personally. An academic life gives the flexibility and freedom to work as you like in an area of your choice, from home or from office. It gives enough freedom to watch your children grow before your eyes, while being able to make your mark professionally as an expert in your chosen area. But it require courage-the courage to break away from the clichéd corporate life, from the hearsay of everyday humdrum, but above all to rise above the mundane living to one full of enriching profoundity.