Let us look at the main differences:

1. The importance of work experience

Indian MBAs give work experience, the least weightage while the foreign ones rank it at the highest. But there’s a not so obvious factor to this. If you do have work experience and choose to attend an Indian MBA, to your dismay, you’ll end up in a class with little or no work experience. And how does this hamper your experience? You’ll just find yourself between a very immature peer group. The admissions process for foreign universities ensure that the class is very diverse in every possible way. One way of ensuring that is by selecting people with different work experiences and the quality of so. Most of the MBA courses, here in India, choose students primarily on the basis of a written test. This is certainly a good indicator of what kind of academic promise you hold but should that really be a deciding factor in deciding if you succeed in a senior management role, later on? I think the selection process should give more leeway for assessment of a person as a complete package. Further, if you want to join Goldman Sachs as an Associate, what makes you think that you have whatever it takes to lead a team? Let us not discard the importance of work experience.

2. Maturity of the peer group

They say for one to get selected for the training program for Airbus A380, you need to be between 42 and 58 years old, among other qualifications. People, most of them, mature like wine. By 42, you’re certainly experienced in the art of flying, you would have encountered several instances where your skill, ability and aptitude have been thoroughly tested and above all, the very fact that you’re still in the business and are a commander of an aircraft is testimony enough to your abilities as a pilot. This also means that when you attend the training program, you’ll have a lot to bring to the table. Similarly, the other pilots who you’re gonna train with, are going to be equally experienced. The end result? Everyone gets to learn a lot from everyone else. The courseware for the training can be modified in accordance to these and with every batch, the course just gets better and better. Makes sense? This is how a typical foreign MBA works. People learn from their peer groups more than they learn from the theory.

3. The Attitude and Interest of your classmates

From my interactions with alumni of various colleges in the US, I can conclude that there are plenty of career changers much like what we have in India. But the quality of work experience and most importantly, their motives, differ widely. A lot of Indians claim that post MBA, they would want to work in consulting or investment banking though they may not have the slightest idea about the job functions. Why? Because they pay well. It is like saying that you became an entrepreneur because you wanted to make money. Sadly, you’re in the wrong club. You don’t make money or get rich until a lot later, if you’re an entrepreneur running your own firm. I’m not sure how widespread this attitude is, but one doesn’t necessarily need to go to a B-School to get rich. One sure shot way of getting rich is to find something that you love doing and get someone to pay you through their nose for that. If not, you’ll end up burning out.

4. The Opportunities

Engineering graduates take to IT after their graduation because apparently, they seem to pay well in the begining. But after 2 or 3 years, they find out that they’re bored with the jobs and need something else. Most of such cases include not getting a promotion or having problems with superiors and the like. They then choose to attend a B-School! Much to their dismay, they find that bulk of the recruiters who come to the B-school are still from IT and they get picked up as Business Analysts and perhaps other managerial roles in IT. So what exactly is happening here? Firstly, no matter what your specialization is, you end up getting recycled back into IT- this is not a bad thing if you’re deeply interested in it but then going back, we see that most people were bored to start with. Secondly, bad talent or immature managerial talent is just pumped back into the same pool. The result? The same problem of immature managers, bad bosses and other people problems, all contributing to the attrition. Of course, another problem worth pointing out is the lack of opportunities post an Indian MBA as opposed to the plethora of opportunities post a foreign MBA.

5. The exclusive club

Foreign MBAs have a variety of barriers that deter casual candidates from applying. Though they want exceptional candidates, they see to it that only the serious even apply. High application fee ($250), a very long drawn application ensure that only the motivated even apply. This is n stark contrast to what I have noticed about colleges in India. Also, an MBA is an exorbitantly expensive affair abroad. It can set you back by a good $150,000. Of course, its an incredible ROI considering the fact that you’ll make at least as much in the first year itself.

6. Entrepreneurship

…is THE FUTURE in India. Of course, you don’t really need an MBA to be one either. You just need an idea, drive and the vision to go on and create one. MBAs abroad focus so much on entrepreneurship and the resources available to their students that I’m forced to believe that there’s something that there’s something at offer there. And I’m certain that unless you’re from the IIMs or ISB- which have a dedicated entrepreneurship or an incubation cell, you’re probably better off putting that money you saved up for an Indian MBA, into your business.

In conclusion, I believe that though a foreign management education is not for everyone in terms of their requirements and financial burden they inflict, they’re often the best out there. But again, going by the process of elimination, does it make sense to get an Indian MBA? From what I’ve seen and heard so far, Indian MBA simply does NOT work and I think a few minutes back, I just saw how PATHETIC it can get. So would you still settle for an ineffective means just because what works, is out of your reach? I say if you’re really interested in an MBA, wait, work towards it and then get it from some place worth getting it from. Bottomline is that Indian MBAs are often not even worth the very paper that they’re printed on. Have counterpoint to these? I’m sure I would have missed out quite a few useful parts of an Indian MBA. Care to share those? Use the comments section.

Here’s an interesting post I came across:

From http://www.vinni.in/2010/06/the-11-point-mba-check-list/

Every year, I see an army of young hopefuls who want to become an MBA and ‘lead the business world’. Every year, I see the same ads in the paper with colleges luring students with false promises, claims and just leaving tonnes of broken hearts and battered egos at the end of two years.

I was at the induction ceremony for the batch of 2012, and even caught up with a few. Some wanted to become Investment Bankers, some wanted to become Brand Managers and I couldn’t help but snicker way to glory.

Welcome to the real world, bakra of the highest order. Be prepared for the following:

1.MBA won’t get you the job you thought would be cool since you read it in some business magazine you were told you read while at IMS

2.Jobs after an MBA are not glamorous, they will make you sweat, bleed and trample you the moment they find you weak and restless.

3.The college would claim that the faculty is from IIMs, foreign universities. IIMs should be read as Indrani Institute of Management, International Institute of Management etc. and foreign universities assumed to be Kathmandu University, Karachi School of Business etc.

4.The world class infrastructure would be shared with other schools in the vicinity and maybe even let out to other parties when you need it the most.

5.You will learn nothing new in MBA.

6.The only reason IT companies will hire you is because they can bill their clients at a higher rate.

7.The only reason why companies will pay you ridiculous large amounts of money is because they will leech the life out of you, leaving you maimed to never start your own venture to compete with them in the future.

8.You will realize that though you blame and poke at the teachers for being so full of gas, you are not any different. People won’t listen to you, since you cannot phaff with experience.

9.MBA is a lot about travel, but not to exotic locations or that you will become a jet setter. You will travel by non AC buses to Dhampur, Hospet, Salem, Mohol and other places where village girls will seem like super models.

10.If you want to do an MBA to earn more money, it’s the worst reason you can give yourself and to people around you. You stand better chances working your ass off doing what you are doing, or just job hopping.

11.If you have a chance, DON’T do an MBA. Utilize the two years starting something of your own, before someone else does it. Two years is a lot of time and time is precious.
Still think MBA is right for you or MBA is the right thing to do?

 

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This is a statement from the preamble of our constitution.By this our country is secularist which means there is no preference to any religion.

Todays newspapers came out with a news that Justice.Rajendrababu commission advised the govt. to raise the creamylayer limit of backward communities to 4.5lakhs.I’m asking a simple question if a person had an income of Rs.4 lakhs how can we say that his family is backward?If the govt. consider a person in backward community having an income below 4.5 lakhs as a person eligible for reservation then why dont they give the same right to every citizen of India having an income below 4.5 lakhs?

India is a secularist nation so what is the need of considering cast&religion while giving reservation???

Reservation was started in India at the time of independence for a tenure of 10 years.Now more than 55 years had passed but now also reservation couldn’t achieve it’s goal.It proves that reservation is not a medicine to the problems of backward communities.It simply acts as a poison that is trying keep people from other communities from govt. jobs.

Reservation is not raising the backward communities but it is simply making forward communities also to backward.

Next about new creamy layer limit…When the creamylayer was 2.5 lakhs most of the people crossing the creamy layer got reservation by showing wrong income certificates.If a person is not a govt. employee its easier for him to get an income certificate showing an amount what he says.If the creamy layer limit is 2.5 lakhs it means a person with an income of Rs20000/- is backward…Now when the creamy layer limit is 4.5lakhs a person having an income of Rs.37500/- also is a poor man that requires the mercy of govt. to live.

I’m asking you friends:Is this kind of reservation justifiable??

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There’s an old adage that goes something like “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool rather than open it and remove all doubt.” By Mark Twain. That reminds me of an article I read in Rediff the other day (read it here), which had a CEO of an Indian IT firm, HCL Technologies saying that American Tech grads are pretty much unemployable! Yup…He said that when he was in the US, in the vicinity of 50 journalists (how come he didn’t have any shoes thrown at him??). Now, I’m really not sure how many of us would indeed support his claim but I for one, DO NOT! For me, it’s a plain matter of biting the hand that feeds you and an inferiority complex.

He claimed that the American Engineering graduates were way inferior to their Indian counterparts insofar that they wouldn’t work for a pittance, are in a hurry to get rich and above all wouldn’t take up boring and often laborious process oriented aspects of IT that Indian IT engineers spend their every waking hour doing. He went on to say that the Americans are way too expensive to train (to do this boring stuff, I assume) and in his own words ‘whereas Indian graduates are generally well-versed and highly trained in real-life applications, thanks to vocational training programmes and other opportunities for hands-on experience’. Coming to think of the last part, I wonder what he means by all that high tech wordings. Does he mean our abilities to reach offices negotiating the cut throat traffic which would now be worsened by Nano?

I remember that we had multiple articles on the Indian education system, in which we discussed ways to improve the education system that creates engineers who are anything but ‘highly trained in real-life applications, thanks to vocational training programmes and other opportunities for hands-on experience’. Indian engineers, as discussed earlier, are grossly incapable of doing anything more than repeated mundane non critical tasks, thanks to the ‘process orientation’ of our education system. Again, we have plenty of exceptions here- the pass outs from the Ivy League institutions forming the majority in this category.

Most Indian IT outsourcing firm have no takers from institutes like IITs or IIMs or US tech grads for the same reason that the job is plain boring! If his definition of unemployable has to be considered, we find that most of the grads from IITs and IIMs fit the bill as they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives doing a copy paste job that is completely devoid of any intellectual involvement. Another thing this highly educated XLRI Jamshedpur pass out discounted was the fact that IT outsourcing companies SERVE American high tech companies like CISCO or Microsoft that thrive primarily on creativity and inventing the ‘next big thing’. Beyond reasonable doubt, such companies recruit American grads and other students including those from American universities and IIT/IIM grads, who are highly capable of such job functions. Or simply put, they hire who are capable of THINKING!

This also shows the inferiority complex of Indian IT firms which fail to attract any plum talent. Just because they fail to attract the finest talent doesn’t mean that the whole lot is unemployable! But what really continues to amaze me is the fact that Indians still pride themselves over a system where they’re treated like daily wage labourers (they’re billed on the number of hours of effort they put!)  and end up doing tasks that Americans despise. I don’t speak for the Americans or defend them but was this really a wise comment to make? Take another hard look guys, where are our guidance systems?

P.S: Do go through the comments in the Rediff article, if you can find some time to spare! A friend of mine wonders if he had ever seen an iPhone,  a classic product of the very creativity, innovation and the search for ‘the next big thing’ he despises!

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This is how classes are conducted in a very very famous and reputed private engineering college in Kerala. Students are forced to take down notes, as if it were a primary school. Notes have to be submitted on a monthly basis to be verified by the teacher.

There are weekly assignments for students. Students are not allowed to write the assignments from home, instead they have to come to the college on Saturdays and write assignments as if it were an exam.

Now a few questions.

From where do the teachers get assignment questions ? Do they come up with their own questions ? What is there in an assignment that makes it so special ? What’s the point in giving the same question to everyone and asking them to come up with different answers, considering the fact that the question itself  is copied from the text book ?

Just think, how many productive hours does an engineering student waste in his 4 years of professional education writing stupid, nonsense assignments. We used to call assignment writing, “Xeroxing”, either from a text book or from another written copy of the assignment.

Why do we force our students to go through all sorts of such nonsense. We are so system oriented that we forget the essence of the activity itself. Its time that we asked to ourselves – “Is the system for us, or are we for the system”.Similar Posts:

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While having a discussion about this, I opened one of my old Malayalam text books and flipped through the pages. Then I realized some, most of the content that we learn is religious material. The book contains stories from Ramayana, Mahabharatha, Bible and Quran. Most of the poems that we learn are about various Hindu Gods.

While we have all these religious BS in our textbooks, what wrong did that innocent 7th standard chapter do ? It never asked you to quit your religion, It did not preach atheism. All that the chapter said was that you need not fill in your caste and religion columns.

The various religious groups took up this issue and resulted in the brutal killing of a teacher. How ironic is that incident considering the fact that he was someone who was teaching all these religious BS to students and got killed by the same people.

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MAD is the coolest NGO in India and they teach English and Computers to kids in orphanages. They are driven by passion and a desire to Make A Difference. The open class policy is used by MAD as a parameter to evaluate its volunteers.

An organization like MAD who are not paid by anyone, who does not get any material benefit out of this activity is showing so much of pain to evaluate its volunteers. If a volunteer is not good enough, he/she is asked to leave the organization.

Now think about our school/college teachers ? Will they ever allow such an evaluation ? Will they admit their class has to improve if someone is sleeping in their class ? Will they take responsibility of a failed student ? Last time when an evaluation scheme was suggested, teachers union went on a strike against it.

Maybe MAD is showing an example on how teaching should be carried out. May be its time that we implemented a feedback system. May be its time to start learning from the students also.Similar Posts:

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This is the face of education in India. When I was 12 years old, my maths teacher beat me and palm was cut. I still have that scar and everytime I see it, it reminds me of my horrible  school days.

The death of a student is an extreme case of torture. But our kids are being tortured mentally everyday. A teacher is supposed to be GOD in the Indian culture. But for most students the GOD turns out to be Shiva, the lord of destruction. For this unfortunate student, it was even worse. The teacher turned out to be yamaraja, the lord of death.

Now who is to blame for this ? Who is responsible if the kid is not able to recite the alphabet ? What about suspending the English teacher for having failed in his duty ? How can we blame the student alone ? Can we even think about blaming the parents who are paying money to get their child educated ?

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If you go through this blog, what you’ll find is a lot of articles on the inefficiency and outright plain stupidity of the management at CUSAT..

This was so much so, that one time I asked Kenney, how come that MG University was never featured at all..

He replied that it was because he had no “first hand experience..”

Well, I have first hand experience, lots of it actually, and allow me to enlighten you… You Cusatians have it easy..

And by the way, I’d probably never have written this article if it wasn’t for what happened yesterday and today..

I do the BA English course.. At SH.. It’s a conventional BA course, but when people ask me how many years, I say 4 years these days..

WhY?

Well, I’m into my sixth sem, and the second sem results came out only a week ago.. My juniors have it worse off, though..

Hopefully I won’t flunk any of my papers.. If I do, I’ll have to go around saying it’s a 5 year course from now on… (sigh)

They say that once the papers reach the University, they are just thrown into a godown, and then hauled back up when evaluation time comes.. If you’re lucky, the examiners would have got to your paper before the rats did.. If, you’re lucky, that is..

Here are some of the University’s most notorious evaluators caught in action..

“Who the fuck is Shakespere, Stuart??”

In the five exams I’ve written, three have been screwed up..

And this is what the exam co-ordination committee at MG looks like..

“Wonder what the VC saw in us??”

“More of himself, probably.”

One was my own department’s fault.. But the University would have none of it.. They had to outshine…

They had already messed up the question papers for our third sem History exam I think.. But, hey that was ok, they rescheduled it for next month, and we wrote..

But, this time it was even more hilarious..

So, they gave us the wrong question paper again, cancelled the exam and asked us to go home..

And today morning, we get the good news..

Not only has yesterday’s paper been cancelled, but today’s, and Monday’s as well.. And the revised exam dates??

31st December, 1st January and 2nd January..

What that means for me…

1. I missed out on a Bangalore trip that was supposed to happen yesterday..

2. I’ll miss out on a road trip that was supposed to happen during Christmas..

3. I’ll have to spend New Year’s Day memorizing Freud and his fucked up  psychoanalytic approaches.. And,

4. Since the exam has been delayed by a couple of weeks, now I’m gonna have to go around saying that my course is 5 and a half years long…

What I don’t know is why people continue to tolerate the University even now..

What we should have is a University for every region… I think places as far as even Pathanamthitta, fall into the MG University’s clutches..

And, as everything else, the power structure at the University is politicised.. I won’t be surprised if they use our answer papers to manufacture recycled toilet paper…

“MG Companies bring to you, the new and improved, printed toilet paper.. Read, and wipe, at the low cost of destroying a student’s life.. “

Whatever the case maybe, I’m sure our’s is the worst University of all time..

If you have a University that’s worse than mine, let me know in the comments.. Coz, then, you are officiallly the most tortured student soul in the universe…

Until then though, let people like me hang on to that honour..

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But now it looks like his HOD has some issue with PHP and MySQL. He wont allow projects based on PHP and MySql, he calls it a website and websites are not simple. Poor fellow dont know the difference between a website and a web app.

The most interesting thing here to note is that he is forcing students to do projects in ASP.NET. May be Microsoft is scoring with its IDE, making it look like a worthy enough language to learn and do a project in. FSF guys… are you listening ?

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I found this tweet here.

This is an age when students are often smarter than the teachers. With the Internet and access to information at finger tips, students devour a lot of information everyday. This often puts teachers at a disadvantage because they are not used to using the tools of the trade.

How are our schools dealing with such a situation ?

In Ernakulam, a school issued an official notice to parents asking them to baby sit their kids when they are using the Internet.

Another school in Trivandrum is totally against the use of Internet by students. They simply believe its not needed at all.

In Delhi, a student was dismissed because he started a poll in an orkut community rating his teachers. Troubles started when some honest comments appeared.

How should our schools be dealing with this situation ?

Provide a dedicated Internet lab to the students.

Make Google and Wikipedia, standard education tools.

Make it a rule that everyone must “Google” before asking a question or a doubt.

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