I, The Absolute

We have Term III exams tomorrow / the day after. Time cannot run faster than this. As usual, not fully prepared, but have now gotten used to this.

Students’ opinion
=the most scary subject this term – Corporate Finance
-mid-term was cancelled. So have to cover the entire syllabus
-no cheat sheet
-haven’t understood anything
=the most under-prepared subject – Entrepreneurship
-does one need to prepare when the case on which analysis is to be
done is going to be given a day before
-when it is open book / open notes

We never had cheat sheets, open book/notes exams in undergrad. Why do we need them now? Why cannot we do well now even when we have all these, at least for some exams?

xxxxxx

Citibank has called for applications (resume + essay) for awarding scholarships. Am told about 70 % of the students has applied. HSBC scholarship applications were not this many because HSBC wants the scholarship-winning students to sign a bond for three years. Citibank scholarship is free of strings.

xxxxxx

One of the most researched topics, these days, in operations is “waiting time”. Our Operations Management course deals at length with the waiting times, queues and psychology of waiting. The fun is that it is not the handling capacity, the speed of processing, or the increasing population that increase queues. It is the ‘variability’ in these that can make, theoretically, waiting lines infinitely longer.

The following are the axioms of the psychology of waiting
– people want to get started. Just a small movement in the queue is also fine
– uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits (if it takes 30 minutes, tell the customers. Don’t let them wait without saying anything)
– unexplained waits are longer than explained waits
– unfair waits are longer than equitable waits (that the relative of the counter guy got the tickets by breaking the line annoys us)
– The move valuable the service, the longer the customer will wait (Doctor, for example)
– Solo waits feel longer than group waits (just someone else standing next to us, even if he is unknown can make waiting better) (when there is a mirror next to the lift, the waiting can become better as we keep watching ourselves in the mirror)