Many PGPX students opted to do projects back home.
Some students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) seem to be in the grip of a swine flu scare. It should be noted that four students of the institute had contracted the disease this year. Perhaps it is this fear of falling prey to swine flu that has reportedly held back some students of the Post Graduate Program for Executives (PGPX) from travelling abroad as part of the International Immersion Programme (IIP).
As part of the IIP, PGPX students are required to go on a weeklong academic programme at an overseas university and pursue four weeks of internship in industries there. Last year, most of the PGPX students participated in the IIP. But this year, only 20 students out of 80 opted to go abroad as part of the IIP programme. While some student claimed that they were scared of contracting swine flu, others said they already have good international exposure and did not feel the need to go.
Around 16 students went to Columbia University while four others went to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for the IIP this year. A PGPX student who opted not to go for the overseas trip said, "The decision to go abroad for the IIP programme was to be made at a time when many students of the institute had contracted the disease."
"So at that time the swine flu fear was quite palpable. Hence I decide not to travel abroad as part of the IIP and run the risk of contracting swine flu," said the student.
Apart from the swine flu fear, the fact that many of PGPX student already have considerable amount of foreign exposure has helped them stay back and work on projects closer home.
"We can opt out of travelling to foreign universities if we already have a good exposure working abroad. In our batch this year, the average international experience among the students is 5 years," said another PGPX student.
However, the students who went overseas found the trip to be a unique opportunity to understand and learn business management from a different perspective. It also provided them exposure to different business models and practices.
"The IIP is a very compact and effective programme which has enabled me to get a different perspective of the same subject that we study here," said Deepak Iyer, a PGPX student who returned from Columbia University.
"We also got a lot of exposure which included a visit by Bill Gates to the university and a visit to the NYSE and so on," said Iyer.
Chairperson of PGPX programme Shailesh Gandhi said, "The students were given the option of doing a project in India because of the swine flu scare. Moreover, most of our students have at least a year or more of international experience, so most of them preferred to stay back."
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