Daily Archives: February 1, 2010

In November, we introduced you to Ashok Kamal, a second-year Full-time Honors MBA student who travelled to Kolkata India to study at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) for a semester.  Ashok returned from that trip about two weeks ago.  And, as promised, he has provided us with an update from the second half of his journey. 

During a recent talk with Baruch students, finance maven William Macaulay predicted that “the 21^st century would belong to India.” 

India’s ascent as a global economic powerhouse was never more apparent to me than during recruiting season at IIMC.  My semester abroad overlapped with summer job placements for 1^st-year MBA students.  The process and outcome I witnessed would impress any business school in the world. 

The IIMC community doesn’t strive for 100% placement of its students – that’s a given.  The career development team, which is supported by the administration but led by 2^nd-year students, measures its success in the number of days it takes to place every student, as well as the quality of its placements.  In 2009, IIMC’s batch of nearly 400 1^st-year students was placed in under one week.  On the first day of recruiting, blue chip firms such as McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan hired nearly 100 interns – by lunch time.  The successful placement season at IIMC, even in the midst of a worldwide economic contraction, is an illustration of India’s greatest resource – human capital.  The intelligence, creativity and ambition of its people are astounding. 

Ashok Kamal (left in blue shirt) with classmates and administrators at IIMC

Following my studies, I was fortunate to spend three weeks traveling throughout India.  Along with seeing the magnificent Taj Mahal and traversing the business hub of Mumbai, I visited a sustainable agriculture farm in Goa that gets all its water from recycled rain and all its nutrients from organic waste.  Each experience was a reminder that a great education extends beyond the classroom.

Most striking to me was the diversity, within India, of the population.  In fact, the variation across states was so pronounced, that India often seems more like a continent rather than a country.  Like business school, it is the diversity — of culture, experience and thought — that makes India great.   

Ashok participated in the study abroad program by working with the Weissman Center for International Business.  For more information regarding the services offered at WCIB, including the study abroad program at IIM-Kolkata and other schools, please go to :

http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/centers/weissman/

We will hear more from Ashok tomorrow when the long-awaited list of the people that defined a decade is published.