How Industry experts are helping JK Business School students in their career growth

• September 6, 2021 / admin

In a PGDM program, one of the most important aspects for the learning is the balance between students’ theoretical learning (academia) and practical learning (industry). Due to this, the industry- academia interface of a business school becomes crucially important for the holistic development of its students. The students at JKBS, get to interact with industry experts through guest sessions, internships, various seminars, conclaves, live projects, forums and Mentorship. Personally, I have been able to learn a lot due to the strong industry connect of my college with the industry.

Guest sessions have been an integral part of a management course for a long time. In the COVID era, students have missed out on gaining knowledge from face- to-face interactions with their peers and more importantly, their professors. In such a scenario, the practical titbits provided by the industry experts have been gems, quite literally, for me and my batchmates. Industry experts from companies such as Coca-Cola, Go daddy, Nyka, Dabur, Amazon etc., have helped us and our seniors grow by sharing their experiences of leading both small and major companies.

Some learnings from various guest sessions that I have attended are:

“Human beings are controlled by two very strong emotions. One is the emotions of fear and the other is the emotion of greed. And, we all know that fear is the function of uncertainty. The moment you have knowledge about the uncertainty, it becomes certain and slowly, the fear dissipates. Similarly, if you know about the ills or the limitations of greed or how productive it can be, you are able to overcome that emotion as well. If you are able to do that with a balanced mind with a mind full of knowledge, you will actually cover 60% of the ground when it comes to investments.”
– By Mr. Chetan Sharma, CEO, India Ahead News

“ When thinking of communication tools, it is important to get a professional email id. A lot of people still communicate with personal accounts, while those are important collaboration tools, but keep it for personal use. When you are building a business, the email id is your identification, it needs to represent you. It will be seen in every email you send, so it should also promote your brand.”
– By Mr. Nikhil Arora, MD, GoDaddy India

We have also tried and gained the maximum exposure from such sessions, by listening to the sessions attentively and asking smart questions. The sessions have also often worked as a platform for building rapport between students and their future employers. Thus, I have made it a point to interact with the experts in every session and am making my network stronger.

Next, the internships have been one of the biggest learning curves for students over the years. Not only have the industry experts guide us through our internship tasks, but for students who are freshers, it becomes the first corporate experience and the external mentors help them overcome the initial nerves. JKBS imparts knowledge, through one of the best designed curriculum across the country. During the internship, I got the chance to learn how to utilize this knowledge while facing real life issues and unique challenges. The continuous support from industrial mentors further helped me to gain the most out of internship.

Over the years, some of the best placement figures cracked by our seniors and super seniors have been from converting their internships into final placement offers. This is a proof of the strength of our college’s industrial interface that helps us in forming relationships in our preferred industries even while learning.The experienced professionals are also helping our professors in developing our interpersonal skills and help us prepare better for the corporate life. These industrial relations also provide us a chance to find lifelong mentors who can help us at difficult stages of life.

Finally, through seminars, I have been able to absorb knowledge about different industries from the industry professionals. As a beginner in any industry, having industry specific knowledge from an expert might just be the difference maker.

Thus, the strong industry relations of JK Business School have helped me to imbibe the skill of converting the theories into practice, enhance the interpersonal skills, gain knowledge about my preferred industries, and understand how my work may look like in the professional world.

To understand the importance of the strong industrial interface, let me share thoughts from two of my seniors about how the strong industry connect at JKBS is helping them to grow even after joining their respective jobs –

“During my PGDM at JKBS, I have had the opportunity of meeting industry mentors through guest lectures and many other activities and events at campus. They have played an important role in my journey as I got the glimpse of the corporate world in the very beginning of my program. Even during the Pandemic when we all were in the virtual classroom we had amazing webinars by industry mentors with so much insight.”
– Sayani Das, PGDM 2019-2021, Social Media Analyst, To The New

“As a management student, I was glad to be a part of JKBS where we were prepared for the corporate world through guest lectures from sunrise industry experts who offered insights of the real world and learnings drawn from their real-life experiences.”
– Aanchal Srivastava, PGDM- 2019-21, TA Intern – Ernst & Young GDS

Dhruv Shobhan Naik
Student, PGDM Cohort 2020
Member, DMRC and CRC
JK Business School (JKBS)