Alma mater

Sometimes, a byte of an odd news improves your feel good factor for the day, apparently for no direct reason. It happened to me today, when I read some great news about my Alma Mater, Indian Institute of Science or IISC. Since I passed out of this Institute, about forty six years ago, except for couple of visits there and attending a short course on electronics manufacturing technology sometime in eighties, I have had no contact with the institute. Yet this bit of news really made me very very happy.

Emerging, a Paris-based human resource consultancy had conducted a world wide “ Global Employability” Survey for educational institutions between May and June this year (2012). They had collected data from over 2,500 respondents from 20 countries including number of recruiters and also a large number of companies. The survey examined the ideal qualities of a young graduate and the qualities required for long-term employment and analyzed the universities which produce the world’s best graduates.

103-year old, Bengaluru based Indian Institute of Science, has surprised everyone including the surveyors, by making a quantum leap this year by moving nearly hundred places from its position last year. It moved from the 134th position in 2011 to the 35th position in 2012 suggesting its high employer value proposition. Incidentally, IISc is the only educational institute from India, that finds a place in top 150 educational institutions from world.

To be frank, I am not surprised at all. This global survey might have found this now, but if you ask any past student of the institute including me, they would have immediately said that IISc graduates or post-graduates were always the best graduates and were always highly employable. When I graduated from the institute, within next few months almost every one from my department was employed with least problem. If that was the case forty six years ago, it is no wonder that with all the latest changes and improvements in the educational programmes run by the institute, the graduates are found to be more and more employable.

Number of reasons are being assigned for this high employability such as interdisciplinary nature of courses, close connect with the industry, opportunity to interact with some of the finest researchers in the world. However, according to me, the most important reasons for this achievement are firstly a special kind of academic flavour generated by the institute in the students and heterogeneous background of students are basically instrumental for creating such a large talent pool.

With the kind of advanced research from widely spread fields of study, that is now being undertaken at the institute, I would not be surprised at all to find my Alma mater reaching the bracket of top 10 institutions of the world in next few years.

22 November 2012