SDM: D-Day 1

Upon arriving to the Ginger Hotel, we were greeted with leather briefcases containing material to supplement our learning here in India from the SDM Institute. I was surprised by the gift. After skimming through the agenda and briefcase, it was evident the program leaders put a significant amount of time setting up our schedule. SDM must be the networking epicenter of Mysore to have the variety of site visits planned in such a short amount of time.
SDM is located within miles of our hotel; which is convenient but I would think twice before walking it. The institute is a gated community with an abundance of palm trees and well kept gardening, from homegrown violets that bloom seasonally to lavish imported Mexican grass. Entering the school, to the left is the office and to the right is the outdoor amphitheater surrounded by a botanical garden someone could only read about in romance novels. The concrete is not concrete it is the molten rock rectangular blocks that have been polished and cut appropriately according to the design of the building. All of the engineers missing in Silicon Valleymust have designed the school. The walking path leading to the rest of the campus was garden. The tour of the campus was breathtaking because the Duluth campus is interconnected through skyways and more buildings. UMD students have the luxury of not going outside due to the weather but we are limited to the beauty Duluth may or may not offer during class time.

Professor Rajesh Haldipur is one of the many accredited deans at SDM-IMD. Haldipur comes from a finance background but today he introduced the various strengths and weaknesses India has to offer the global market.

Starting the lecture, Haldipur seemed a bit timid to present to us his information regarding India. I wasn't sure if he was nervous, frustrated, or hadn't consumed coffee to start his morning. It became clear to me the majority of his students are more traditional and passive learners in comparison to American students. During the class, Haldipur was continuously interjected with questions regarding the lecture which made him clearly uncomfortable. I tried asking a few questions regarding our course and actual material relating to the course being lectured on and was interrupted by the hoards of questions from our fellow MBA students.

At one point of the class, I was particularly thrown off about the sources and material he lectured on. He used Wikipedia as a source of information when a majority of accredited university forbid the usage of this website. Haldipur may have been on a time crunch but it's no way to do a presentation when you are comparably criticizing America and glorifying India's prospects. The lecture seemed more of a persuasive presentation than an introduction to India. Not to be conniving in any manner but he had our questions coming to him. I do give him credit for putting up with us for that amount of time.