Summer Internship Optional For Experienced Students at IIM-B

It seems to be a blooming educational season, full of sweet surprises. After IIM-Indore offering 5 year integrated course and AICTE relaxing eligibility norms, the news is that Indian institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) has decided to make summer internships optional for experienced students. The decision for IIM-B Summer Internships was taken in the background of the fact, that the two-month training was fruitful only for fresher.

According to Ishwar Murthy, PGP chairperson, IIM-B, "Instead of summer internship, we are suggesting the students to explore entrepreneurship, work for an NGO or take up a research project under a professor,".

Another traditional institutional requirement - minimum 75% attendance in all courses - has been done away with. Now individual instructors will decide if there should be a cap on attendance, and if so, what should be the cap. Hitherto, students with less then 75% attendance had to lose one grade point.

The current move for IIM-B Summer Internships might lead to a similar change at other B-Schools. However, as of now no institute has given its nod to follow the suit immediately. It is notable that the number of experienced students in all top B-schools is rising, that is 25%. This is because a majority of graduates prefer to go for management education, only after working for a year or two.

While communicating the decision to its students, IIM-B said that the important decision was made to make internships optional for students who have worked for at least 34 months. Experienced students from earlier batches said that they did not learn much during the internships. According to Sapna Agarwal, head of IIM-B career development services (CDS), efforts are now carried out to explore options on engaging the students during these two months, when no teaching takes place on the campus.

This will be the first occasion, that if an IIM student has significant experience, he will have a choice of skipping internship. According to Ms Agarwal, internships offer entry level roles and experienced students feel as underutilized. It is to be noted that B-Schools send their graduates to work with the industry for two months duration, after they complete their first year. During the training, corporate pay stipend to the interns to work on short-term projects. This in turn helps the companies in finding the right and suitable employee and in return, students get pre-placement offers (PPOs). The few lucky ones, who secure PPOs are not required to appear for final placements as their job is secured.

IIM-B had 25% of its students, with work experience of more than 36 months in the 2009-11 batch that had total 348 students. The 375 student strong batch of 2010-12 has 28% students with more than 36 months of experience. It expects that the new batch of 2011-13 will have a similar composition.

The B-school is also cutting down the length of a few final term courses to bring in diversity. Currently each course fetches 3 credits and lasts 10 weeks. Starting November, it will be five-week courses with 1.5 credits.

Source: Prachi Srivastava (Shiksha Team)
Date: 2^nd July, 2011