Integrative Learning At NMS: A Multi-Layered Approach To Education

The latent knowledge in any learning program is made potent only through a pedagogy that can bring this power of knowledge out. NMS’s Integrative Learning program follows a unique teaching methodology that helps convert latent knowledge into potent power and empowers our students.

NMS B School has a three-dimensional curriculum in place as part of which the students study one functional discipline, three industry verticals and also included are two country studies. This ensures that students have a holistic curriculum that covers the key aspects of business in today’s world.

The three-dimensional curriculum is supported by 20 hours of understudy, about 80 hours of a Business Plan Preparation course and about 80 hours of a Consulting Practicum. The focus of all such programs and studies is on specific, real-time and outcome-based projects.

The students are also involved in a 6-week internship at the end of the first year and that gets them out on the field to learn hands-on what they have been preparing themselves for. It gives them a first-hand experience of playing the roles that they are expected to play in the future and maximize their learning.

Not just this, students at NMS take part in additional activities like Golf, Organic Farming, Sailing etc since NMS believes that these activities teach lessons as fundamental as the ones learnt in classrooms. With this multi-layered approach to teaching, NMS aims to turn out well-rounded business leaders who understand businesses on a deeper and broader level.

With that we hope that this series on taking a closer look at the Integrative Learning Program of NMS helped you gain an insight into our approach to education. Stay tuned to hear more from us

Integrative Learning At NMS: Nurturing Better Managers

In our series about Integrative Learning at NMS, today we look at how the Integrative Learning program inculcates basic managerial skills among its students.

NMS School organizes a Basic Managerial Skills programs for its students in every batch. This program aims at enhancing students’ existing managerial skills and preparing them for sustainable and scalable career. The program is conducted primarily through classroom sessions. Supplementing the classroom teaching are a host of case studies and group discussions that help students analyze real-life business situations and derive learning from them. In addition there are individual and group exercises designed to give the students different people situations to work with. All this is topped with video recordings that simulate contexts for the students to work with.

Fitted into this program structure are topics that cover various aspects that form the flesh of a managerial role: communication, leadership and people dynamics. Topics like communications skills, presentation skills and the basics of writing hone the existing communication faculty of the students. Leadership skills are covered as a separate module in this program. People skills are sharpened by way of sessions on conducting group discussions and interviews as well as on goal setting and motivation.

The Basic Managerial Skills program is a key component of the Integrative Learning at NMS. The program aims at nurturing better managers who can lead their teams from the front in the corporate world and thus giving the world better business leaders.

Integrative Learning At NMS: Outbound Program

Last week we saw how NMS B School provides its students the advantage of Integrative Learning that combines Functional Discipline, Industry Analysis and Country Study to offer participants the kind of exposure that is not otherwise possible in a typical management program. Integrative Learning at NMS follows a comprehensive approach to ensure that the students constantly learn, both in and outside the classroom. This week we take a look at some of the components that go into nurturing corporate-ready students through Integrative Learning.

The courses at NMS begin with a one-week Orientation session that attempts to bring all students on the same page and homogenize a class consisting of students from diverse backgrounds.

What NMS students attend additionally is an Outbound Program that aims at cultivating an atmosphere of trust among the students, exposing and alleviating any fears or inhibitions they may be harbouring, helping the students understand themselves better and bond with peers while experiencing a sense of adventure.

NMS achieves these in two ways.

The first is by involving students in a Group Sharing exercise where students share something personal about themselves in a moderated environment with the help of an experienced facilitator. Given that the students are to embark on an educational journey together, this exercise helps them to know others in the group and also discover themselves, an essential exercise for a group that will be exchanging cultures and contexts over the span of their course.

The second is by engaging the students in group activities and exercises like a night drive in the forest, trekking, rappelling, rock climbing, kayaking etc. These activities help the students bond better and prepare to work in a team not only for the forthcoming educational journey but also through life.

Students who were part of the Outbound Program last year enjoyed the challenges that the planned activities presented and how they made the students face their fears. Not to mention, all of them came back enriched with each other’s stories and more emotionally bonded than before the program.

India As The Global Destination For Education

As early as 500 years Before Christ, India had become an International Centre of Learning for students from South East Asia. Scholars from China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and the likes were drinking from the fountains of knowledge that were the universities of Taxila (Takshashila) and Nalanda. Two universities that had a formidable reputation, when it came to both the extent and depths of knowledge that was available to be absorbed by a willing student, were the pride of place in ancient India. And from then on, India has carved its own niche in the field of education, building on its heritage.

Modern day amenities, the ease of travel and globalization have ensured that more and more students have access to the repositories of knowledge across the world. And that has truly made knowledge borderless and added more dimensions to existing know-how by allowing global experiences to enhance existing knowledge. In this context, let us take a moment to see where India stands in the global education scenario at present and what the world can look forward to.

If we embark on a cost-benefit analysis at the outset, the cost of education in India set against the standards it is offered at makes it an immediate cost-effective proposition for obtaining world-class education. And this fact applies to education across streams right from technical education to education in arts and culture, enabling students with varied set of interests to access India’s knowledge at very reasonable costs. And this is the primary reason for International students to come to India and seek education.

Couple that advantage with the unique cultural fabric that India is, with roots from thousands of years ago and branches growing constantly into the new skies. India is a strange mix of tradition and progressive environments that lets students experience a very different cultural context in education. When it comes to International students, this increases their gamut of educational contexts to include both Western and Eastern philosophies as well as multifarious approaches to every aspect of education and becomes another reason why students seek India as a preferred educational destination.

To top that, India’s colonial heritage includes English as one of the official languages of the country and that makes it multiple times easier for International students to learn as well as adjust socially in the country. English being the medium of instruction in most educational institutions gives students a good reason to consider studying in India and it remains India’s edge in the world.

These advantages are supplemented sufficiently by the pioneering work that Indians have and are doing in various fields ranging from science and technology to literature and the arts. Indians continue to constitute a significant percentage of the student community internationally and act as brand ambassadors for brand India. Their work speaks volumes for the research and development environment in India and the technological development taking place in the country. International students prefer this dynamic environment and look forward to the opportunity of learning from all the work being done here. Right from biopharmaceutical companies like Biocon that are setting new milestones in research, world-class research institutes like IISc and TIFR, professional institutions like the various Indian Institutes and the groundbreaking work being done in music, literature and the arts India attracts International students with a thirst to learn for the innumerable learning opportunities it offers.

Be it the ancient cultural roots, a search for new and exciting grounds to explore, the opportunity to explore and learn its art, a chance to make a change at grass-root levels, the easy access, the quality on offer, the exposure or the cost, the truth is that more and more International students are choosing India as their educational destination. In any institution and university across the geography of the country, a significant presence from around the globe is being felt and there is a huge potential for knowledge and cultural exchange in the offing. These are Easterlies and Westerlies of a new kind and the winds of change are beginning to blow. It is for us to ensure more and more knowledge flies through across the borders and makes the globe a richer place.

The NMS Advantage: Integrative Learning And Thought Leadership

Having taken a look at the advantages that NMS’s model of education coupled with industry exposure and cultural/business contexts lends to the students, we now look at the approach that NMS has adopted towards learning and how it is looking at nurturing Thought Leadership among business leaders.

NMS believes in Integrative Learning that combines Functional Discipline, Industry Analysis and Country Study to offer participants the kind of exposure that is not otherwise possible in a typical management program. And that is exactly what we are trying to achieve through the design of the program at NMS.

NMS is also positioning itself as a Thought Leader by launching the WHITESPACE Executive Session Series for Senior and Middle management. This series includes seminars on a wide range of topics conducted by the NMS faculty. It is here that NMS leverages its intellectual capital and makes a perceivable difference to issues that are high on priority when it comes to the corporate agenda.

The whole idea at NMS is to let students Discover as much as they can during their association with NMS. And to leverage that learning innovate in business contexts in the future.

With International Collaboration, International Faculty, International Curriculum, and even International students in the classroom, NMS offers students truly global exposure and a global network; enabling them to add value in the global corporate context. NMS’s commitment to excellence in management education and to borderless knowledge ensures that International students have the dual advantage of feeling at home with the delivery model and yet being exposed to a strongly different cultural, economic and business scenario so as to maximize their learning. By inviting International students to be part of the NMS experience we extend that commitment to students across the globe and enable them to be part of a dynamic and diverse student community that will define the future of business.

The NMS Advantage: Learning Across Contexts And Cultures

Continuing our series where we take a look at the NMS advantage and the NMS edge for students entering the world of management education, today we focus on the differentiating factor that NMS provides by combining global education with an Indian context.

At present, 8 Indian companies figure in the Fortune 500 list and many more are seen as global players when it comes to their respective areas of expertise. While they are in a position to compete with the best in the world, the cultural and people context with which they were built is starkly different from a lot of companies in the West. And that difference is seen at the level of daily operations as well. Owing to NMS’s collaboration with many of these Indian companies, International students have a chance to observe the Indian approach to business and learn from these contexts. This knowledge, coupled with the exposure they receive back home, gives them a wide platform of business development contexts to work with.

NMS is located in the heart of the IT corridor in Chennai. It takes students right where the action is. And the student housing, which matches up to any international student housing facility, allows students to interact outside the classroom with their peers from across cultures.

With access to world-class education improving drastically over the years, the differentiator in the wake of globalization is created by how well future leaders understand and work with cultural contexts. And at NMS, students stand to gain exactly that by learning across contexts and cultures – diverse outlooks that make great leaders.

The NMS Advantage: A Truly Global Outlook

With an increasing influx of International Students in India for its cost-effective quality educational options, NMS is looking at supporting more and more International Students with their educational pursuits so they derive maximum value out of their experience. Over the next few days, let us look at the NMS advantage and the NMS edge for students entering the world of management education.

NMS offers American Education at Indian costs. What that translates to for our students is global exposure with faculty visiting from the US – almost all of them with a PhD from the US - at very reasonable costs. The program itself is designed after the MBA program in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. It conforms to the standards of the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) standards - the highest accrediting body for management education in the world, ensuring absolute credibility and quality in the fundamental structure and design of each course. And the degree awarded at the end of the program, equivalent to that awarded by any university in the US, is co-signed by Deans of The National Management School and Georgia State University.

In addition, NMS offers the advantage of practical implementation of this acquired world-class knowledge to the Indian Business Context. At NMS, students are given the opportunity to interact with business leaders and be mentored by them. The CXO Panel at NMS comprises of senior executives from the industry, the government and NGOs. These CXOs spend ONE full day with these students during these 2 years. This way, students get a chance to work with leaders from a diverse set of businesses at various stages of evolution. And this combination lets students take their management education experience to a new level of synthesis.

Offered in two modes - a two-year full-time MBA and a two-year Professional MBA (on weekends for working executives), the program lends students a truly global outlook in their education.