Q. I am in the final year B.E. During my course I have not participated in many co-curricular activities. How much will this affect my recruitment? Or will it at all affect my recruitment? Currently my average percentage from the first year is 64.05 and I’ m sure it will increase and for my degree it will be 69 percent with two semesters left.
Mukul
A. Dear Mukul, co-curricular activities are good value adds, but they by themselves do not get you a job. If you have excelled in some of them companies do look at you slightly more favourably. But by participating in these activities, what they tend to infer is that you are outgoing, you have initiative, you can go beyond the call of duty and you can work well with others. If you could genuinely convince them that you have these traits, by showing some other aspect of your work, like the projects you did, the events you helped organise, or even the fact that your academic credentials are on a growth trajectory, and you are willing to put in the extra hours required to get what you want, then the absence of co-curricular activities will not hurt you much.
Q. I will be appearing for CAT 2011. What will be the right institute and approximately how many should I apply to?
Lokesh Moralia
A. Dear Lokesh, you have begun quite early for CAT 2011. It is a very good strategy. From now to end June, you must basically concentrate on fundamentals in Maths, reasoning and English. Give a mock CAT to identify your weakest area and begin work now on developing competence in that domain. Understand the concepts, so that you could apply them in multiple contexts, a skill that most of these tests attempt to gauge. Only from June onwards make a targeted plan of action. You must ideally spend about 4-6 hours every day for preparation. Joining a good coaching class would help you in keeping your preparations on target and participation in mock tests would be compulsory. The periodic mock tests would give you an idea of where you stand vis-à-vis your peers and the areas you need to work on. Since most good colleges have individual minimum in all the sections, it is imperative that you do well in all of them. A very good score in one may not help you reach the cut off. So concentrate on scoring well across sections.
By September, you would have a fair idea of the kind of score you can expect in CAT. That would then determine the number and kind of colleges you would select. For example the top schools listed by Careers360 in its January 2011 issue would expect you to have atleast above 95-95 precentile score even before they you consider you for GD/PI. The Tier-1 schools would be about 90 percentile and so on. So ideally you must apply to about 10 schools, 3 must be at a level above your current percentile, 4 at about your own percentile range and about 3 which are safe bets. That way you will hedge your bets more carefully and you will not be left panicking in case the schools of your choice do not even call you. Remember, in an MBA the pedigree of the school you go to matter quite a lot at least in the initial five years of your career. So choose wisely.
Q. I have done B.Tech in Instrumentation & Control from Delhi University. Currently working as software engineer in a leading software firm. I am about to complete a distance-learning PGDBA. I want to know the following: 1) What recognition/value can I get from this distance-learning PGDBA? Is PGDBA from SCDL recognised in corporate circles? 2) I am very much interested in doing PhD in Management in distance mode, as I cannot leave my job. Please suggest some good college/institute that offer PhD in management through distance mode. Also, is it worth doing distance learning PhD in management? What are the prospects? Thanks in advance.
Anamika
A. Dear Anamika, a PGDBA, is a diploma and not a degree. So unless, the college that offers it has obtained approval from AICTE and AIU, it will not be considered as equivalent to a master’s degree, without which you cannot do a PhD. So first assess whether the college is accredited by Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and approved by AICTE. The diploma does have certain value in terms of providing you with knowledge and inputs and hence is professionally helpful in the long run. It also enables you to get into the consideration set for any position that demands an MBA. PhD by distance learning is an interesting option, but for an academic career, it is not the PhD that is counted, but the number and level of publications you have. And publishing is a highly competitive enterprise. So you will have to consider all things carefully before opting for a PhD in distance leanring mode. Both IGNOU and AIMA offer good PhD programmes. In fact AIMA even offers a DBA, which is a special doctoral programme for practising managers.
Q. Sir, my younger brother is doing BSc (Statistics) through distance mode from Vinayaka Mission University, Tamil Nadu. My question is, whether the distance learning degree is eligible for CAT exam and regular university MBA?
A T Joy
A. Joy, according to a notification issued by the Government of India in 1995, all distance learning programmes approved by the Distance Education Council and wherever necessary by the appropriate regulatory authority is valid for higher studies and employment. Just see if Vinayaka Mission University has approval for offering distance learning programmes. If they do then the degree is valid for a regular MBA programme.
Q. Hi, I have done my engineering from Bhopal and was working with Infosys since September 2005. I left Infosys and joined an organisation known as Teach for India and I want to pursue this as a career. However, growth opportunity seem dim in this field without the relevant qualification and experience. I request Careers360 to please help me with this and also the options available.
Ashish Srivastava
A. Ashish, teaching is a very interesting profession, and good that you have taken the plunge. But to be an effective teacher passion alone is not sufficient. Ideally you must now decide, at what level you would want to teach. Would you like to continue teaching kids or school-going children or would you want to move into higher education? The answers to these questions would determine the kind of education you must seek. For example, the newly opened Azim Premji University has a very good MA programme in education. You could look at that. A good BEd would also do the trick, if you need to teach at school levels. But if it is higher education that you aspire for then you need to go for a research degree. A good PhD is the essential qualification to beign a career in teaching. Get details in our career review on teaching as a profession.
Good luck!