Dare to think beyond the IIMs

Rashmi Bansal's blog points to the actual situation of placements in IIMs. It is true that as always grass look greener on the other side and B-School salary packages are there to debate upon, but is it the responsibility of the B-Schools to provide Big Salary packages during placements, many international B-Schools don't give campus placements and it seems that IIMs don't want to give admission to grads whose real aim is to get a big salary package, all my friends who are in IIMs had to give to some other funda of life to make the interviewers understand why they want to do a MBA, the point is IIMs never acknowledge directly that campus placements is what they offer,which may not be the truth as the press releases by IIMs talk a lot about the campus placements to establish their superiority over others. But still the bottom line it is not fair to expect from the IIMs to provide exact salary details of companies and ensure they are correct. Because the people who go to IIMs are learning so much about how businesses run, about finance, about HR and they have access to all kind of media(both MSM & non-MSM) and valuable suggestions from seniors. They are expected to do impossible things so finding true details about salary of a company is like a child's play for them.

But there are people who need to be informed!!!

There are thousands of people in coaching institutions preparing for IITs and IIMs. You can easily guess the situation by remembering the uproar when IITs restricted JEE to 2 attempts only. There are many in states like Bihar who prepare for JEE for years on stretch, i have even met people who have dropped 5 years after 12^th to go to IIT. And there are many engineering and other graduates who leave their jobs to prepare for IIMs. For these people the career itself is spoiled if they dont get into IIT even after years of work and thousands of rupees. A typical school student has access to main stream media only and they are forced by parents to prepare for IIT. A friend of mine who was very good in Maths was getting top engineering branches in colleges other than IITs, but as IIT K was the top college(according to India Today) he joined a dual degree M.Sc. course in IIT K. What i mean to say he can never achieve what he could have had he joined Comp. Sc. or a branch which suited his aptitude and moreover now he is in software industry where his 5 year specialized branch knowledge has no use. This is story of many who joined IITs in search of education and now are left only with a superiority complex that they are the best as once they topped the JEE. Not to talk of the students who could not join IIT and are paying for the years wasted in preparation.

What is needed?

One good step taken by IIT council is that of limiting the number of attempts to 2. It should be limited to 1 attempt for those don't have any genuine medical or other reason for a drop. The next step should be that of scrapping off the obsolete branches and introduce branches for undergraduate courses which are relevant to the Indian economy. It wont be wrong if i say that private colleges contribute more to the economy of India by producing computer science engineers in big numbers, which is in fact today's need. And next step is to create awareness that IIT is not the only thing and the IITians and IIM grads about whom we get to hear so much are the ones who would have done so even without the tag they are carrying,for they are talented and motivated people.