The academic rigour and curriculum - 1

After reading various blogs, online resources and interaction with some of the students of Class of 2007 at ISB, I summarise the academic rigour at this prestigious school.

The students have a busy year, and are involved in

1) Exchanging programmes with the associate schools,
2) International collaborative projects such as the Wharton Global Consulting Practicum, Innovative Challenge etc.
3) Real time learning through the Experiential Learning Programme,

4) Several other activities that give them opportunities to explore their areas of interest.
5) Conferences and panel discussions on topical subjects are a regular feature on campus, and the students lead most of these initiatives.

6) Exercises, simulations, cases and conceptual models to become more effective both as team members and as leaders.
7) Extensive interaction with achievers from various walks of life who are invited to participate in the ISB Speaker Series.

ISB mainly teaches in Accounting, Marketing, Economics & Public Policy, Entrepreneurship, Organisational Behaviour, Operations, Finance, Strategy and Information Systems, with many more electives to choose from.

The curriculum of international standard to be taught in a span of one year makes the course tough and energy consuming, mentally and physically. The course has 8 terms spanning a period of one year. Each term at ISB is just six weeks with exams almost every two and a half weeks (mid terms and then the final term exam). Between two terms, you may get breaks. But, the feedback I got from the current students is that these holidays are also mostly used for studying or preparing for projects etc. Till Term 4, all the sections attend classes together. First four terms are called core terms.

The first week is dedicated entirely to the induction, called Orientation Week, wherein the alumni from the previous batch turn out in large numbers to interact with the current batch and organise a large number of sessions around various club activities, their experience during placements and life at ISB in general. Then, there are week long modules known as pre terms. These are designed to acquaint you of the basic concepts to be applied during the core terms. There are three courses on offer (Quant, Stats and Accounting).

Time is the most precious commodity at ISB. There is so much to do and so many avenues and forums that one has to carefully choose what all he wants to be involved into. Perhaps everyone of the 400 and odd students have had a creditable past but what might differentiate them at the end of the year would be the way they manage 24 hrs in each day. Many people realise after spending first few weeks on campus that one needs to maintain a strong focus. You have 400+ friends around, innumerable student clubs, numerous other activities and a few classes and group activities in between, but just a year on hand.

You have pre-read every day before the class starts. You will be given a hand out running into sometimes 100 pages, which has to be read and understood so that whatever is taught in the class is digested. Somebody on his blog told that around 100 pages for marketing class, 100 odd for economics et all. For example, I have attended a class on Corporate Finance by Prof. Bhagwan Chowdhry in October, 2006. In a span of two-three hours, three topics of Corporate Finance - debt vs. equity, IPOs and Mergers & Acquistions were covered. Being from taxation background, fortunately, I could understand the jargon used except one term, beta, which I came to know later on. The experience of this class itself shows me that the pre-reads have to be taken very seriously. Class Participation(CP) is a big deal in B-School. There are special points (which count for the final grade) usually alloted for "Relevant, direction changing" (insightful) CPs. Sometimes these points can account for about 40% of one's grade in a course.

A conventional two year MBA format offers a period of internship where students work and learn on the job, with a one year MBA model there’s no time window available for a full time internship. The Experiential Learning Program is a way around, this is a short term project where teams work remotely for most of the project and spend a short time at the client location.

The exams conducted in middle of a term and at the end of each term may be a open book or closed book. In a closed book one however you are allowed to carry a single page of notes to the exam, that’s a cheat sheet in ISB parlance. In the open book exam, you are allowed to carry any amount of books, notes etc to the exam centre. Well honestly, as many students of Class of 2007 admitted, none can help, if you have not prepared well.

You have big events like TiE - ISB Connect, where delegates from different industries come and share their knowledge with you. The TiE-ISB Connect is a joint initiative of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Hyderabad Chapter and the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. It is a forum that brings together early stage venture capitalists, start up and growth stage entrepreneurs and academicians, on a common platform to interact and help build successful enterprises. Then the panelists from these industries also speak on these occasions. The main highlight of the event would be the presentation of the business plans to the Venture Capitalists. This year they have discussed trends and opportunities in Media Opportunities (Advertising), Media and Entertainment sector, Retail Sector, Bio-Pharma & Life Sciences Sector, Internet and Internet Services Sector, Sports and Fitness Sector, Real Estate and Infrastructure Sector, Technology Sector, Semiconductor Sector (Embedded Systems), IT and IT Enabled Services (ITES),

ISBians also participate in international competitions like Innovation Challenge. When you compete in the 2006 Innovation Challenge hosted by the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, you'll participate in the world's largest MBA innovation competition. You'll help solve real-world business challenges for top-tier global brands and join an unrivaled global innovation community in pursuit of the $20,000 grand prize and the title of "Most Innovative MBA Team in The World." Out of the record-breaking 440 teams from 88 universities in 15 countries enrolled in the 2006 Innovation Challenge, the Top 10 teams overall have been decided. 42 teams of ISB participated in the competition.

In term-1, the courses taught were :-

1. Financial Accounting

2. Marketing Management

3. Managerial Economics

4. Statistical methods for making decisions.

In Term 4, they had 4 courses and they go as follows:

1. Management of Organizations

2. Investment Analysis

3. Strategic Analysis of Information Technology

4. Government, Society and Business

Keep watching this blog. I will discuss the life at ISB threadbarely in a series of my postings.