The federal prison on Alcatraz Island in the chilly waters of California’s San Francisco Bay housed some of America’s most difficult and dangerous felons during its years of operation from 1934 to 1963. Among those who served time at the maximum-security facility were the notorious gangster Al “Scarface” Capone (1899-1947) and murderer Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud (1890-1963). No inmate over the years, more than a dozen known attempts were made to escape The Rock, as the prison was nicknamed.
Alcatraz was re-created at UBS to provide a new learning experience of prison for the student. The main motive of the activity was to make learning more challenging in an escape room like scenario.
A brain child of the Services Marketing Module Leader, Prof. Sushant Nanda, this novel experiential learning was experimented with the CMBA 12 & SSM1 cohort.
FRAMEWORK
The details of the activity was meticulously planned and executed to perfection. The anxious and palpitating moments experienced during this fascinating learning experience opened a new chapter in learning pedagogy.
LEVEL ONE
The 130 Seater Hall was converted into the prison cell. The banner on the door specifying the jail was indeed an attraction not only for the participating students but also for the rest of the crowd. A token number was allotted to each student like the chest number of prisoners. Each student was called on the basis of their token number and was asked to tell his topic of choice based on service industry like- Airline, Hospitality, Entertainment, Movies etc. Then a volley of questions were fired at covering the concepts of ‘Service Marketing’ into their chosen industry.
LEVEL TWO
If student got more than 70% marks at level one, , he/she got promoted to next level and they could escape to the “Labor Room”.
Those who score between50 to70 were pushed into the “Egg Cell” to be undergoing a much more stringent series of tests ( name it as torture if you so like).
Those who scored less than 50 had to go back to the central prison and wait for their turn to arrive again.
Each prisoner (as he escapes one phase) had to find the next-room on his/her own and complete the activity… Those who cleared the rigorous testing round in the “ Egg Cell” were allowed to escape to the “ Labor Room” and join their earlier colleagues.
LEVEL THREE:
There was an intense questioning round in the labor room and with each answer the successful prisoner was allowed to move one bench ahead. Those who managed to jump all the eight rows of benches were allowed to escape.
In the end only 3 prisoners finally manage to escape .
An interesting observation was that some of the prisoners who could not score well in the first round and were sent to the egg cell as a punishment, finally came up with flying colors and were amongst the top three to escape.
The three prisoners, who managed to escape, were declared as the winners with A+ grade. Four students who could reach the last row were declared as the runners up and were awarded B+ grade.
TAKE AWAYS:
The whole activity generated:
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A newer way of learning.
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Better perspective of sustainable competitive advantage vis a vis peers
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Clear understanding of concepts along with application to related service industry.
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Better insight of their respective industry
And last but not the least the prisoner, who successfully broke the shackles of Alcatraz and managed to escape were
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1. Palak Arora
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2. Ramya Goswami and
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3. Nishant Omre
And the experimentation at UBS goes on.
Emagazine
