MBA vs Engineering
One among various good things about IIMC is that it provides you opportunities to interact with various leaders from different walks of life. I attended couple of presentations from top consulting firms, basically pitching consulting as a career to us students. They had sent IIMC alumni, who were placed at top positions. It's definitely inspiring; sets you dreaming.
Tomorrow, that is Sunday, we've Sandipan Deb (Managing Editor, Outlook magazine and editor of Outlook Money) coming over to the campus for one panel discussion. He happens to be an IIMC alumni. Sometime back he was interviewed by the alumni magazine. Couple of interesting points he made:
We came from a very closed quantitative engineering system, in the sense that engineering education inculcates the philosophy of one right answer to any problem. That if you follow the flow chart, if you follow the algorithm, if you do the steps properly, there is only one answer possible. I think I gained hugely from the exposure that IIM gave me to - economics, sociology, political science, psychology, behavioral sciences etc. It really broadened my horizon.That is exactly what I'm going through. But it isn't all rosy; atleast for me it's little tough to adjust. It's easy to think that it's much easier to give gyaan on such subjects, it's not! I guess, I'll take some time to get used to it. Sandipan further added:
Our batch was quite an exceptional batch. There were about fifteen of us in the same wing H2-top and I was very fortunate to have these people to interact with. We had toppers and we had bottomers. We had brilliant bottomers, we had people who slogged, and we had people who never went to class. They were also extremely talented. In those two years, most IIM Calcutta teams-quiz, debate, drama, music etc-had representation from our wing and we won almost every festival that we went to. So that made my two years totally worth it.That is so true! You learn a lot even outside the class, among such a great gang of selected few. I've had the same experience at IIT Bombay and I guess I'm in for good two years in Calcutta too.
PS: Not getting much time to read/write. Hence this inactivity at the blog.
4 comments:
its sad that in engineering ppl look for the one correct answer...the simplest answer...there is no regard for the different answer...no consideration for the fact that you arrive at the answer taking the long winding road rather than the expressway...(speaking from a recent terrible job interview experience :) )
ps:would like to see more activity on this blog
An interesing note on engineering, more CEO's of fortune 500 companies in the USA have degrees in engineering, than any other field.
More interesting thoughts: the future is engineering
I think looking at problems as though there is one solution is not accurate. Normally many judgements have to be made about what tradeoffs are acceptable and what is worth extra costs... Successful companies have engineers involved in those decisions (not just providing one solution to a very strict request with no possibility for thoughtful innovation).
Varun: I don't agree with Sandipan's only one answer theory.. I don't know about comp. sci and engg. but Civil Engineering was all about evaluating multiple correct answers and 'choosing' one of them.
Since a level of maturity comes the moment you enter a "business" campus the comparison is inavitable...
ANd the group and gangs, the talks we had in grad days are quite diff in PG.. doesn matter you are in IIM or any where.
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