Talk The Talk

When travelling abroad, it makes a lot of sense to master a few common phrases and sentences that will help you navigate that country. Boning up on the lingo before you land up helps open communication channels with the natives, as they say. Much the same principle applies when you are getting into a B-school. When you are actually taking an entrance test, you tend to form the erroneous impression that understanding English is very important for navigating your years in campus. You couldn't be more wrong though. Much of the stuff spoken in campus bears only a passing resemblance to the Queen's English. Abbreviations, acronyms and esoteric jargon makes up for much of the spoken component in today's B-schools. Here's a ready reckoner of phrases and acronyms that are popular today…

ALCOM: Alumni Committee (IIM Lucknow Alumni Committee)

ACP: Arbit Class Participation (When a student suddenly wakes up in class and finds a moral obligation to speak up)

BM: Business Management

BBBEP: BroadBand Based Executive Education Programmes

BB: Black Board

Bloody Fresher: Someone straight from his/her bachelor college. With zero work experience

CP: Class Participation (Taking part in class discussion; this is the serious stuff as opposed to the ACP)

CoCo: Class Coordinator (For each subject, one student is elected CoCo who interacts with faculty of that subject. These are people higher up in the hierarchy and it helps to keep in their good books)

CCBMDO: Certificate Course in Business Management for Defence Officers

Circle back: Come back to an issue later

CLM: Career Limiting Move. (As in calling your professor stupid in his hearing)

COB: Close of business

CGPA: Cumulative grade point average (what the recruiters look at while making you an offer)

Chamkaa: Did you get it? Did you understand it?

Cold call: In B-school, it's a method of teaching, where a professor randomly selects a student to discuss a business case.

Chill out or chill: To relax or calm down. (A technique particularly necessary for surviving tests, discussions and other such hurdles)

Cost-benefit analysis: Technique used to quantify the tangible and intangible upsides and downsides of a project.

Deliverable: Final product. This is what distinguishes the men from the boys

DCP: Desperate Class Participation (When faculty sets marks for class participation and student knows nothing, still needs to tell as much as he can. This is fairly close to ACP and is often indistinguishable in practice)

Da: Friend, Buddies

Do it for K: This is the most clichéd statement at IIMK. Whenever someone requests something from the batch, he uses this phrase "Do it for K" to appeal to your sentiments

Exe-PGP: Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Management

EOD: End of the day

FPM: Fellow Programme in Management

Free Riders: Those who don't work at all in group projects, just get free marks without giving any inputs

Fudging: A skill that needs to be learnt to appear brighter than you are

Funda, Fandu: Slang for fundamentals used with numerous connotations.

FRAX: Free Riders @ XLRI

FYI: For your information

FYR: For your reference

FMAAA: FMS Alumni Association

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FYIA: For your information and necessary action / for your immediate action

Fin God, Marketing Guru: People who are very good at finance or marketing

GRAX: Gossip and Rumours @ XLRI

Gyan Session: General Knowledge Lectures

GD: Group Discussion

GMP: General Management Programme

Ghissu: Extremely Studious Guy/Girl

GASS: Talking global gyaan (Speaking in front of a bewildered crowd and like an enlightened soul when in fact you are as ignorant about the topic as any other soul!!!!)

Heavy lifting: Doing hard work

Hot button: An important issue

Harvard Steps: Steps to the entrance building of IIMK

Incentivise: To motivate

ISEP: International Student Exchange Programme

IPMX: International Programme in Management for Executive

JLT: Just like that

JIT: Just in Time

Kampus, Kollege, Kricket, Kar:  At IIMK, every word which starts with the pronunciation 'K' is spelled with K in the beginning, even if the actual spelling has C as the first alphabet.

K-dio: Internal Radio Channel of IIM-K

KPI: Key Performance Indicators

Lateral Placements: Placement session for executives with prior work experience

Maxi: Marketing association at XLRI and so on.

MBA: Master of Business Administration

MBA (MS): Master of Business Administration: Management Of Services

MBA HCA Part Time: Master of Business Administration: Health Care Administration

MDP: Management Development Programme

MMS: Masters in Management Studies

MMTIA: Many Many Thanks in Advance

Magic bullet: The perfect solution to a problem

MRC: The Media relations Committee is the press corps of the Institute and interfaces with the national media for communicating and highlighting the institute's initiatives and achievements in diverse fields.

NC: Night Canteen

On board: Agree with something or commit to be a part of something

OIG: The Operations Interest Group (OIG) is a special interest group which aims at developing an interest, imparting knowledge and testing skills in the field of operations management. It functions by way of organizing games, case competitions, paper presentations, live projects and other such activities.

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OOPS: Out Of Placement Season

PGP: Post-Graduate Programme

PGCPM: Post Graduate Certificate Program in Management

PGP-PMP: One-Year Post Graduate Programme in Public Management and Policy

PGDM: Post-Graduate Diploma in Management

PGP-ABM: Postgraduate Programme in Agri-Business Management

PGPX: One Year Postgraduate Programme in Management for Executives

PGCPM: Postgraduate Certificate Program in Management

PPO: Pre-Placement Offer

PPI: Pre-Placement Interview

PI: Personal Interview

PPT: Pre-placement Talk

PFA: Please Find Attached (PFA is used while sending an attachment through a mail)

PL: Please

PM & IR: Personnel Management & Industrial Relations

PPT: Post placement treat

Pravachan: Campus lingo for hackneyed lecture

R&D: Research and Development

RGed: There is a concept in IIMs -- borrowed from IITs -- known as Relative Grading. The grade you get depends on how well other students fare. For example, you could get 85 out of 100 and still get a C because other students scored more. In short, a few high performers can skew the grading curve and mess up with rest of the class. This, in campus lingo, is known as getting 'RGed'.

SWAC: Students' Welfare and Activities Council

STW: Spread the word

SIGFI: The Special Interest Group in Finance is a platform for the student community to keep abreast with the latest developments in finance. Initiatives include Mudra, the inter B-School paper writing contest, DISHA, an Inter B-School Live project competition, Chakravuyh , an intra IIM finance fest and Finsense, an online stock trading game.

STEX: The Student Exchange Committee (STEX) is the backbone for the student exchange programme at IIML. It acts as the one point interface between the faculty, students at IIM Lucknow and the international students. It aims at facilitating passage of IIML students to foreign universities and provides complete assistance to the exchange students from international B-schools during their sojourn on campus.

SAC: Student Affairs Council

SAG: Student Activity Group

TQM: Total Quality Management

TIA: Thanks in Advance

Veernam Night: Good Time, Had lots of fun on that particular night, watching night shows etc.

Whiteboard: To write ideas on a dry erase board

Win, win deal: A deal that is good for both people involved

Work-Ex: Work Experience

Wormhole: Internal server, where all the movies, TV serials, softwares and songs are stored

YSC: Your Sutta Corner. Where you can have your smoke in peace

So, now if you are planning to do your PGPX or PGDBM, then PL do some R&D before you get a fix on your college. Once you get through, you could also be a part of ISEP if you are lucky. Go on, STW.

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Last Updated (Monday, 15 September 2008)