Why do Indians want to study abroad?

When bright students look around India for a place to study for an advanced degree, they find few top-quality programmes

Post-graduate students from India are increasingly choosing to study abroad. The U.S. Council of Graduate Schools’ new statistics show that offers of admission to Indian post-graduate students are up 25 per cent for 2013-14 from the previous year, compared to a 9 per cent increase for all countries. Numbers from China showed no increase compared to last year. While these statistics are only for the U.S., India’s most popular destination, it is likely that other countries such as Germany, Canada and the U.K. are also seeing significant increases from India.

Reasons for departure

Why? There are, no doubt, many reasons why Indians are choosing to study abroad. Two of these factors are troubling forIndia’s universities  and for prospects for the high-tech economy. When bright students look around India for a place to study for an advanced degree, they find few top-quality programmes. In the social sciences and humanities, there are a small number of respectable departments, but absolutely none that are considered by international experts as in the top class of academic programmes. In the hard sciences, biotechnology, and related fields, the situation is more favourable with a few institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and some others, despite limited acknowledgement from abroad, being internationally competitive  by most measures. But the numbers of students who can be served by these schools is quite limited.

Thus, if a bright Indian wants to study for a doctorate or even a master’s degree at a top department or university in most fields, he or she is forced to study overseas. Further, a degree from a top foreign university tends to be valued more  in the Indian job market than a local degree — a perception based not only on snobbery but also on facts. While master’s degrees can be quite costly in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and elsewhere, doctorates are in fact quite inexpensive because of the likelihood of securing a research or teaching fellowship or assistantship that pays for most or all of the costs.

Not only are overseas programmes and departments more prestigious, they also have far better facilities, laboratories and a more favourable culture of research. Top faculty members are often more accessible and it is easier to become affiliated with a laboratory or institute. Academic politics exists everywhere, and Indians may suffer from occasional discrimination abroad, but overall academic conditions are likely to be better than at home.

Step toward emigration

Finally, studying abroad is often seen as the first step toward emigration. Of course, few students will admit this, but statistics show that a very large proportion of students from India — and also from China, South Korea and other Asian countries — choose to stay in the U.S. following the completion of doctoral degrees. Data from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates show that 80 per cent or more of students who complete their PhDs in the U.S. from India and some other Asian countries remain in the U.S.

Since everyone who completes a doctorate is required to fill the survey, the data is quite accurate. Further, the U.S. and other host nations are making it easier for foreign doctoral holders to remain — boosting their “stay rates”— and in this way contribute to the brain drain.

The reasons for deciding not to return to India are varied and not hard to discern. Better salaries and facilities abroad, easier access to research funds, working on cutting-edge topics and many others are part of the mix. And while some are lured back to India later in their careers, the numbers are small. Once established overseas, either in a university or in the research or corporate sectors, it is difficult to return.

It may be relevant to note that the rate of Chinese post-graduate students going abroad is flat after a number of years of steady increases. A likely explanation, with relevance for India, is that China has invested heavily in its top-tier universities and now has significant quality and capacity in most academic fields for post-graduate study. Chinese students are no longer obliged to go abroad for high-quality programmes, with an apparent trend toward  choosing to remain at home.

Solutions

There is no short-term solution to this problem for india.The onlyy remedy is to build up high-quality capacity in key disciplines at national institutions so that a greater number of Indian students can obtain excellent training at home. This means significant investment over time, and careful choices about where to invest since all universities cannot be top research universities.

It also means significant changes in India’s academic culture to ensure that meritocracy operates at all levels. China’s top universities are beginning to show up in the mid-levels of the global rankings, an indication that they are having some success. India, so far, is nowhere to be seen.

Group Discussions: Dos and Don’ts

Group discussion has become an integral part of the selection procedure for job recruitment, and admission to quality academic programmes. The strategy for success involves many do’s and don’ts. Here are a few vital points to be borne in mind at the time of preparation.

Gather full details of controversial topics of public interest by following daily news, editorial comments and articles written by experts in news magazines.

• Maintain a personal diary of events.
• Develop language skills including basic grammar, pronunciation, and effective expressions.
• Use simple yet forceful language; don’t go form bombast.
• Arrange your facts logically.
• Don’t take extreme positions.
• Meet opposition with a smile.
• Be broad-minded in your approach.
• Don’t be unduly emotional during discussions.
• Discuss and not dispute.
• If you present an argument, give facts to support it.
• Be impartial. Keep a balanced view.
• Don’t insult a person or a group.
• Appreciate good views expressed by others.
• Be a good listener.
• Don’t try to monopolise the time given for the group.
• Speak patiently and convincingly.
• Use appropriate and relevant quotations or proverbs to establish your point.
• Encourage a silent or shy member to speak.
• Don’t use provocative language or gestures.
• Don’t hit on the table to prove a point.
• Look at the members by turn.
• Don’t block others.
• Don’t retort strongly if someone attacks you.
• Continue to be pleasant; a smile helps a lot.
• Light humour is OK; don’t be a clown.
• Check your body language.
• If someone asks your views, take it as an opportunity to speak. Don’t shy away from it.
• Show willingness for co-operation and teamwork.
• Be polite; show no sign of arrogance or superiority.
• Don’t talk too fast sacrificing clarity; don’t be dragging either.
• Don’t shout or whisper; speak normally.
• Avoid mannerisms such as “you see”, “I mean”, “Sort of” and “Ya Ya”.
• Give priority to group interest and not self-interest.
• Never give an impression that you are confused.
• Use expressions such as “As you put it rightly” and “We should appreciate the views of”
• When you want to differ, use phrases such as “Let us look at this from a different angle”.
• Don’t just repeat the view given by another participant.
• Don’t give crude or uncivilized views or unpalatable expressions.
• Illustrate your views by examples.
• Don’t get disheartened if one of your views is not being carried.
• Don’t blow your trumpets.
• If you get an opportunity to open the discussion or to conclude, do it well.
• Be punctual.
• Dress neatly.
• Be confident of success.

The first job experience

The first job experience of every individual, whether it is good or bad, is always thrilling. While some get nervous and start losing confidence, some others take quite much time in adjusting to the environment and some others experience excitement in their very first day of job itself.

An old colleague and friend Neeta Sharma shared her thrilling first job experience and said:

“When I joined this organisation, the same day the company had organised a customer meet for all the customers in the Germany and around. I joined at 10.30 in the morning and at 2, boss said I can go home, change and come back at 8 pm for the meet. I was thinking, there will be all kind of boring customers around us, but to my disbelief as I entered the hotel (wearing a formal suit), I saw everybody dancing and enjoying. Then my boss said it was to give me a surprise, the meet was tomorrow morning and today they had this party for all their customers. They didn’t tell me to give me a surprise as it was my first day.”

This certainly was a pleasant surprise; however, everyone may not be that lucky to have such an experience in their first job. On a serious note, there are many careless things that most freshers do on their first job due to which they often end up lending bad impressions and even also end up losing their jobs sometimes. Thus, there are certain points which you must keep in mind whenever you go for your first job experience.

• Be serious: The first thing that you should always keep in mind is that you need to be serious. You cannot expect fun of your college life in the corporate world. There are many students who often lose their first job in the probation period itself just because they are not able to understand the importance of serious environment and as a result they keep busy on their mobiles and facebook and so on.
• First impression is the last impression: You must always remember that first impression is always the last impression. The first impression in the corporate world means whatever limited opportunities that you get, you need to be at your best to get noticed and grow up in your career.
• Set goals and focus on the right things: When you set foot into a company, you start focusing on a bunch of things that are noncore activities. At work, you should define goals for your tasks with the objective of getting better at the task, and slowly growing in terms of the value you add to the company by doing these tasks.
• Communication: Unfortunately Business Communication is one of the least focused subjects during your education. This is an area that differentiates between talent and smarter talent. To succeed in the corporate world, one important trait is the power to communicate.

To conclude, though different people have different job experiences in first time, there are certain things which you should certainly keep in mind in order to climb the ladder of success easily and quickly.

Scope of Retail Management

Retailing in India, today, has become a completely organized sector. While the first model of organized retail, Super Bazaar, was set up by the government in 1962, today many such privately owned models like Shopper’s Stop and Woolmark are coming into being signifying the increasing importance of retail sector in India.

Retailing is actually the buying and selling of goods and services. It can also be defined as the timely delivery of goods and services demanded by consumers at prices that are competitive and affordable. The idea behind organized retail is to offer the consumer everything under one roof.

Retailing, one of the largest sectors in the global economy, is going through a transition phase not only in India but the world over. For a long time, the corner grocery store was the only choice available to the consumer, especially in the urban areas. This is slowly giving way to international formats of retailing. The traditional food and grocery segment has seen the emergence of supermarkets/grocery chains (Food World, Nilgiris, Apna Bazaar), convenience stores (Convenio, HP Speedmart) and fast-food chains. Due to this, the scope of retail management has increased a lot in the past few years.

There are numerous jobs that you can get indulge in by doing retail management like Sourcing and procurement, Merchandising, Manufacturing, Supply chain management, Store Operations, Product development, Promotion, Pricing, Distribution to retail outlets, Marketing, Finance, HR and IT operations as part of the support services.

If you want to have a successful career in retail management, you need to have skills and qualities like creativity, personal commitment and passion, an aptitude for figures, merchandising and inventory management, Strong knowledge of product categories, Knowledge for bulk purchasing and Peoples’ skills in customer care.

Employers like Pantaloon Retail, K Raheja Group, Tata group, Landmark group, Piramal Group, Bharti-Walmart, Reliance and AV Birla Group are some of the well known examples in the field of retailing. The starting salaries in retail management are roughly around Rs 25, 000. However, after gaining experience of some years you tend to grow significantly.

You can undertake the course of retail management either as a short term certificate or diploma course or as a management 2 year course. Graduates from any subject stream can opt for retail management courses.