B-school's Life | CoolAvenues.com

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Life @ B-School

Apr 10,2010

What comes to our minds when we talk about IIMs, XLRI, Jamnalal Bajaj, FMS, etc..

.? A community of world's leading business thinkers, outstanding peers, accomplished executives, salaries like non-terminating number series, slick professionals with their think pads, great professors with their management mantras, brilliant students exuberating self-confidence. Life at a B-school offers much more than all this.

A typical day starts at 6.00 in the morning by grabbing a pink business paper, analyzing the current business scenario. A quick breakfast at 8.30 in the morning, a strategy development session at 11.00 am, a canteen refresher meal at 3:00 in the afternoon while having a light talk with friends and professors, a presentation at 6.00 in the evening and a field survey at 8.00 in the night is just a glimpse of a peculiar day in a B-school. Not to mention that in between the available time, you would have analyzed Reliance Infocomm strategy, Bharti's deviation from its core competency, India's remarkable GDP growth, effect of the weakening dollar, etc.

Most prospective students know that the academic experience at a B-school is rigorous and challenging. It prepares graduates to succeed in managerial endeavor.

The pride of the Institute is over 4000 alumni, working in highly prestigious positions in Fortune 500 and top 100 Indian companies.

But that's only half the story...

B-school is a place that's stimulating, exciting, and fun. A place that has something interesting happening every day of the year. A place that encourages students to pursue their interests and explore their imagination.

From being an integral part of the Annual Paper Presentation in Business Conferences like Strategym, to writing a Business Plan for a start-up company, to helping a non-profit organization better achieve its mission, forms the part of day-to-day life in a B-school. The B-school experience is also about inspiring future managers to ask the probing questions and discover innovative answers as they develop the skills that they need to be leaders and architects of their own destiny.

Perseverance is the key to acquire that much wanted managerial skill set in a B-school. K. V. Kamath from ICICI, Manvinder Singh Vindi Banga from HLL or Ajay Piramal from Nicolas Piramal, all management graduates from top B-schools, certainly will agree with this underlying fact. One has to work hard and the outstanding faculty at a B-school plays a vital role in developing the managerial potential of students. In most of the reputed B-schools, the faculty belongs to the Business Mecca's of the world like Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg or Wharton or he may be FPM from IIMs. This faculty provides a rare mix of competence in both the theoretical aspects of management and the applied working knowledge of its practical aspects.

Apart from the full-time faculty, the visiting faculty which exposes students to actual business environment consists of various industry stalwarts. When they are not advancing business knowledge in diverse fields and working with business leaders around the world, they are unusually devoted to teaching you. Core competency from C. K. Prahlad, Advertising insights from Piyush Pandey or Alyque Padamsee will be a treat to the mental faculties of an aspiring manager. B-school also provides with an opportunity to interact with the alumni of the alma mater who have already proved their mettle in the corporate world in their respective arenas. They visit the institute and share their experiences with the budding managers.

Regular guest lectures at the B-school are a big attraction amongst the student communities. Students get an opportunity to interact with who's who of business world. Who else can tell you better about the success of Bharti than Sunil Mittal himself? How about a lecture from Narayan Murthy on Corporate Governance, or say, a brief interaction with Azim Premji on India's future outsourcing scenario.

A student generally studies between 40-45 courses in a B-school like Statistics, Financial Management, Strategy Development, Organisational Behaviour, Business Communication, Macro and Micro Economics, to name a few. He also gets corporate exposure through his summer projects, winter projects, etc., depending upon his area of interest / specialization.

In a B-school students are exposed to different forums like annual paper presentation, final strategic showdowns and above all students themselves form the backbone of most of the clubs in a B-school. There are different clubs relating to different specialisations. The basic purpose of these clubs is to expose students to real business like situations and sharpen their business acumen, e.g., MARKETING CLUBS organize an inter B-school Business Plan Contest, case studies, best promotional strategy award, etc. A FINANCE CLUB organizes portfolio management games, mergers and acquisitions overview, etc. The HR CLUB deals with different exercises exposing students to the methodologies of hiring, motivating and appraisal of the employees.

Some of these contests invite the best brains from different B-schools across the length and breadth of the country to participate and prove their prowess.

Apart from these clubs students constitute different committees like Placement committee looking after the placement scenario in a B-school. Corporate relations committee takes care of Guest lectures, sponsorships and building good relations with the corporate. In a B-school, Alumni committee is the one which is instrumental in maintaining contacts between budding managers in a B-school and its alumni. Most of the B-schools organize alumni get-together once a year which gets the corporate honchos to meet their alma mater.

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