ELP was tagged as the best experience that we will go through over the 16 months at HKUST. Did it live up to it? Not exactly. But it was fun and painful at the same time.
Got a good taste of how hectic the next few months would be with about 10 hours of classes followed by another 6-7 hours of after-class activity preparing case presentations and doing field-studies. But all of this was sure fun - the first case was a big time screw-up. But the good thing was that we as a team got better as the days moved on and we finally ended up winning the last field-study cum presentation.
The last two days of ELP involved a lot of Team-Building activities. The best part of the five days I think was getting to know your own personality types and which of the "Tiger" - Dominant, "Owl" - Conformance personified, "Koala Bear" - Pace/Patience, "Peacock" - Extrovert or "Chameleon" - Mix of above four we represented under a normal circumstances.
I am supposedly a Koala inside characterized by Patience, Easygoing, Steady, Consistent, Helpful, Evenly Paced, Non-Judgmental, Self-Effacing, Expects little from others and Thoughtful of others and that's what majority of my team-mates felt I was with the experience over the first three days of the RP. But when it gets to Priority situations, I am a more of a Tiger and Koala crossed together. :-)
I got to stay in the Regal Airport Hotel (at least on paper) because actually got to spend less than 24 hours in total over the 4 days in the Room. Had my first look at how bad some food options can get since the first day, the Hotel and HKUST staff had forgotten that there were 3 jains and few more vegetarians in our batch. After some of us made a big fuss over the food, the next few days got better and a couple of times, the non-veggies among us were jealous of the number of dishes we vegetarians were getting. We added salt to that by acting like it was the tastiest food we ever had although it tasted yucky as ever.
Some other highlights of the last week -
=> Had coffee in a coffee shop as an experiment to observe the behavior of the Cafe staff.
=> Did some fun stuff at the Experiential Learning Program
=> Got my first assignment in accounting - pretty simple one. But working individually and then as a small group and then in class is the method of learning.
=> Got introduced to the HKUST Cricket Team captain by Rajiv. So will try and go for practice next weekend. Missed today's practice because of a late weekend.
=> Went to the HKUST gym for the first time - not the most hi-tech one. But when compared to the INFY gym, lots of equipment that is free and it is available almost round the clock so can work out at any time of day.
=> Walked around HKUST campus - only negative there was not having a camera on hand. Lost my way a few times in the innumerable lifts several times. :-)
=> Ordered by first Thinkpad - expected to ship around 25th September. Managing with my ages-old Compaq Presario till then
=> Got my first HK SIM (50HKD per month for 1600 mins Monthly plan) - Number to call is +852.6622.3664. Call me whenever.
=> Made a lot of new friends while working. Since I'm not the best at remembering names, I'm going to take a lot of time to actually know everyone's names. But take it 10 at a time and I should be able to do it soon.
=> Met a few alumni during the alumni meet and started the visiting card collection spree.
=> Got the IT Exemption approved after the initial rejection by convincing Chris who in turn spoke to Prof. Jeevan and got it approved
=> Working on getting the Stats exemption. The Prof wants to interview me. Damn what do I remember about stats. Time to revise whatever I know since the Interview is sometime soon. :-(
More updates to come in the coming weeks!!!
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