As the last semester of my MBA begins, and I look at Stupid dodo's status message (I gazed and gazed but little thought, what wealth my MBA to me has brought..)
I realise that perhaps one of the biggest returns for me personally has been some of the stellar professors that I studied under, some great Profs that I got to know...and others who make me wish I had more bandwidth to take more courses!! :P
If you enter NUS MBA, then try to ensure that you take classes with these Profs. If some one asks you your RoI from NUS MBA, a huge element of that RoI will be the genuine opportunity to absorb a fraction of this wealth of knowledge. In fact, if you are one of those who truly look at a value add from your MBA other than a fat paying job at the end of it, or 2 years back to being in college; then this might just be the biggest element of your RoI.
Following are some of the most brilliant professors I have studied under here @ NUS MBA, semester-wise,
1) Prof Srinivasan Sankaraguruswamy, or Prof Srini, as we all called him. The best accounts prof I could have hoped to get. The first and till date only Prof on my gtalk! & FB!! Despite my having no background in accounts whatsoever, he managed to get me so deeply interested in a subject that could easily have felt so mundane; that if he had been taking one more course in the later semesters, I would have taken it come what may! He taught us the numbers..and then taught us how to read between them. He could pick up any financial statement and leave me dumbstruck and awed at the amount of information he could extract out of that one piece of paper in less than 5 minutes!! ;)
2) Prof Ishtiaq P. Mahmood - Stimulating discussions, endless knowledge of every subject, every country, every dimension possible, I could have listened to Prof Ishtiaq just share his knowledge forever. He took one lecture in corporate strategy and taught us so many new things. One lecture in exchange rates, and suddenly they became so clear! His knowledge was like the infinitum...in multiple dimensions, at both macro and micro level. Till date the only person I know who could talk about culture, history, politics, financial practices, and exchange rates in one single sentence and still make sense!! And of course the absolutely yummy Bangaldeshi food at the end of the semester! ;)
3) Prof Elizabeth Boyle - Tough, Demanding & In-your-face. Prof Boyle never sugar coated her opinions, whether they were about corporations, or us. Hands down the toughest professor to please till date ( and I am not talking about just this MBA program) ...she is also one of the BEST! To call her course rigorous is an extreme understatement,..to call her study material useful...even more so. Some of the best cases, the best articles, and the most thorough analysis that I have sat through till date. She pushed us to our extreme limits, and it feels that has paid off. She is the epitome of the teacher who pushes you not because you are bad...but because she knows you can be so much better
4) Prof Sam Ouliaris - By far the most endearing, the most loved professor who enjoys the maximum fan-following from our batch. He was suppsoed to take 1 class in the semester, he ended up taking 2, each with 50-70 students! That's saying something!! In all his classes, the first 40-50 minutes went discussing the news, and making sense of it in Macro economic terms.For the first time in my life, I could make sense of news in FT and link different things. For a person with a zero economics background, and an equally terrifying experience of micro economics, this course was a sheer delight..of course the only course where ALL the work was optional!! His having left NUS is indeed a tremendous loss to the NUS MBA Students!! :(
5) Prof Chu Singfat - After Prof Boyle, the most direct and demanding professor. The number of memos that he ripped apart, and the stubbornness with which our grades refused to move by so much as a point...I was terrified of the final grade! If there was one course I was in danger of flunking in the final semester,...it was this! His passion in teaching, his knowledge of his subject and the fact that his course was so completely different and so tanglibly and immediately useful in our careers made it all worth it! In my opinion, and the opinion of almost everyone who took his class, his course should be split into the basic Statistics core module taught in the first semester and elective analytics module in 2/3 sems...with more depth added to each module
6) Prof Trichy Krishnan - I had heard so much about his xxxxx words per minute speech - speed, among other things such as the immense workload and his infinite love for numbers and differential equations...that I attended just one class for fun in the 2nd semester. I loved his class so much that I didn't think twice before taking another subject with him in my final semester, and I never regretted it. Specially so becuase the work load wasn't nearly as high as had been for the 2nd sem subject...and there was relatively limited scope for differential equations ;) ... I got to enjoy only the good things....his endless knowledge..and the supersonic speed at which it came out!!My brain had never worked at such overtime speed just to catch all the words he was saying! The walk back home after his class usually went in assimilating and digesting everything he had said ;)
7) Prof Bob Fleming - Passionate & completely dedicated to the cause of helping people, ethics and CSR, he taught the importance and the difficulty in being honest & ethical at work and in life. His classes were the common ground for people's emotions to get riled up, as their own understandings of right n wrong..ethical and non-ethical got questioned quite regularly. Needless to say, passionate & at times even heated discussions followed in class. The answers were never easy, and quite often completely non-existent. I always found it unbelievable how many personal stories he had of the conflict of values he had faced in his own career spanning over 30 years His course taught me that the things people take for granted..including their own value systems..fall into easy decay without so much as a moment's notice. A course that in my opinion must be taught to every single student entering the corporate world. And made me wonder if I would be able to stick to my values as unfailingly as he had done.
8) Prof. Dubois - Although I took his classes in ESSEC, as a part of my Asian Cultures module, he taught us Confucianism / Taoism... he is in fact a Professor in the NUS History Department. A genius of a Professor, an expert in his field, he had an astounding ability to capture the class attention. During the 3 hours lectures, no one would ever utter a word, unless it was relevant to the subject. And that my dear reader, in a class of French students @ ESSEC was an unbeatable achievement. And that too for a subject that was pure history... He made the classes unbelievably interesting by giving examples ranging from Chinese folklore to the Feng-shui implication of the architecture of the building right next to our campus. He is a truly exceptional, and genius of a Prof. And one of the main reasons why I am glad I took classes @ ESSEC, without that class, and that course, I would have missed out on studying under such a brilliant Professor
9) Prof Ter Kah Leng: Soft-spoken, kind & gentle. The epitome of patience. Never lost her smile. Sounds more like a mother than a Professor doesn't she! I guess she needed all these qualities, given that she teaches Law to business students. Or should I say, the obfuscated language of Law to the argumentative business students. Where anything shorter than a page is "a sentence demanding explanation". Where consideration has nothing to do with being considerate. Where "Agent" has a different legal meaning, and the Principal- Agent problem is an entirely new concept. Where sometimes, things just dont seem to make any sense at all. And at others, you even stop trying to understand. Where at times, all she could say was, "this is the way law sees it". Her patience was remarkable, given that she had to explain the same concept to different students multiple times. And so was her comforting smile, that often seemed to say, "I know this is hard for you, but stay with me & we will keep trying." A very nice Professor to teach law, and the virtue of patience :)
Another Professor I loved studying under.. was Prof. Siva Kumar..my Hinduism prof @ the ESSEC Asian Cultures course, I haven't included him in the above list since he isn't really an NUS Prof. But is definitely in the same league of brilliant teaching. A lawyer by profession, I suppose eloquence, well articulated, well structured thoughts and the ability to mesmerize his audience, is a part of his job! ;) Add that to his in depth knowledge of Hinduism, it didn't matter to me if I am a Hindu, and knew more than half the stuff he was teaching...it was sheer pleasure to learn from him.
Apart from these, some of the other professors, that my classmates have found brilliant, but under whom I did not get an opportunity to learn... are Prof. Aron Low (Fund Management), Prof. Joseph Cherian (Options & Futures), Prof. Prem Shamdasaani (Marketing), Prof. Cynthia Wang (Negotiations) & Prof. Gurmeet Singh Bhabra (Advanced Corporate finance)
All these Profs had 2 attrbiutes in common, as do all good teachers, anywhere in the world at any level of education..a passion for their subject, and a passion for teaching.
The last 1 slot remains unfilled...I have missed way too many good profs during my MBA, perhaps I should come back to take their classes as an alum ;)
I realise that perhaps one of the biggest returns for me personally has been some of the stellar professors that I studied under, some great Profs that I got to know...and others who make me wish I had more bandwidth to take more courses!! :P
If you enter NUS MBA, then try to ensure that you take classes with these Profs. If some one asks you your RoI from NUS MBA, a huge element of that RoI will be the genuine opportunity to absorb a fraction of this wealth of knowledge. In fact, if you are one of those who truly look at a value add from your MBA other than a fat paying job at the end of it, or 2 years back to being in college; then this might just be the biggest element of your RoI.
Following are some of the most brilliant professors I have studied under here @ NUS MBA, semester-wise,
1) Prof Srinivasan Sankaraguruswamy, or Prof Srini, as we all called him. The best accounts prof I could have hoped to get. The first and till date only Prof on my gtalk! & FB!! Despite my having no background in accounts whatsoever, he managed to get me so deeply interested in a subject that could easily have felt so mundane; that if he had been taking one more course in the later semesters, I would have taken it come what may! He taught us the numbers..and then taught us how to read between them. He could pick up any financial statement and leave me dumbstruck and awed at the amount of information he could extract out of that one piece of paper in less than 5 minutes!! ;)
2) Prof Ishtiaq P. Mahmood - Stimulating discussions, endless knowledge of every subject, every country, every dimension possible, I could have listened to Prof Ishtiaq just share his knowledge forever. He took one lecture in corporate strategy and taught us so many new things. One lecture in exchange rates, and suddenly they became so clear! His knowledge was like the infinitum...in multiple dimensions, at both macro and micro level. Till date the only person I know who could talk about culture, history, politics, financial practices, and exchange rates in one single sentence and still make sense!! And of course the absolutely yummy Bangaldeshi food at the end of the semester! ;)
3) Prof Elizabeth Boyle - Tough, Demanding & In-your-face. Prof Boyle never sugar coated her opinions, whether they were about corporations, or us. Hands down the toughest professor to please till date ( and I am not talking about just this MBA program) ...she is also one of the BEST! To call her course rigorous is an extreme understatement,..to call her study material useful...even more so. Some of the best cases, the best articles, and the most thorough analysis that I have sat through till date. She pushed us to our extreme limits, and it feels that has paid off. She is the epitome of the teacher who pushes you not because you are bad...but because she knows you can be so much better
4) Prof Sam Ouliaris - By far the most endearing, the most loved professor who enjoys the maximum fan-following from our batch. He was suppsoed to take 1 class in the semester, he ended up taking 2, each with 50-70 students! That's saying something!! In all his classes, the first 40-50 minutes went discussing the news, and making sense of it in Macro economic terms.For the first time in my life, I could make sense of news in FT and link different things. For a person with a zero economics background, and an equally terrifying experience of micro economics, this course was a sheer delight..of course the only course where ALL the work was optional!! His having left NUS is indeed a tremendous loss to the NUS MBA Students!! :(
5) Prof Chu Singfat - After Prof Boyle, the most direct and demanding professor. The number of memos that he ripped apart, and the stubbornness with which our grades refused to move by so much as a point...I was terrified of the final grade! If there was one course I was in danger of flunking in the final semester,...it was this! His passion in teaching, his knowledge of his subject and the fact that his course was so completely different and so tanglibly and immediately useful in our careers made it all worth it! In my opinion, and the opinion of almost everyone who took his class, his course should be split into the basic Statistics core module taught in the first semester and elective analytics module in 2/3 sems...with more depth added to each module
6) Prof Trichy Krishnan - I had heard so much about his xxxxx words per minute speech - speed, among other things such as the immense workload and his infinite love for numbers and differential equations...that I attended just one class for fun in the 2nd semester. I loved his class so much that I didn't think twice before taking another subject with him in my final semester, and I never regretted it. Specially so becuase the work load wasn't nearly as high as had been for the 2nd sem subject...and there was relatively limited scope for differential equations ;) ... I got to enjoy only the good things....his endless knowledge..and the supersonic speed at which it came out!!My brain had never worked at such overtime speed just to catch all the words he was saying! The walk back home after his class usually went in assimilating and digesting everything he had said ;)
7) Prof Bob Fleming - Passionate & completely dedicated to the cause of helping people, ethics and CSR, he taught the importance and the difficulty in being honest & ethical at work and in life. His classes were the common ground for people's emotions to get riled up, as their own understandings of right n wrong..ethical and non-ethical got questioned quite regularly. Needless to say, passionate & at times even heated discussions followed in class. The answers were never easy, and quite often completely non-existent. I always found it unbelievable how many personal stories he had of the conflict of values he had faced in his own career spanning over 30 years His course taught me that the things people take for granted..including their own value systems..fall into easy decay without so much as a moment's notice. A course that in my opinion must be taught to every single student entering the corporate world. And made me wonder if I would be able to stick to my values as unfailingly as he had done.
8) Prof. Dubois - Although I took his classes in ESSEC, as a part of my Asian Cultures module, he taught us Confucianism / Taoism... he is in fact a Professor in the NUS History Department. A genius of a Professor, an expert in his field, he had an astounding ability to capture the class attention. During the 3 hours lectures, no one would ever utter a word, unless it was relevant to the subject. And that my dear reader, in a class of French students @ ESSEC was an unbeatable achievement. And that too for a subject that was pure history... He made the classes unbelievably interesting by giving examples ranging from Chinese folklore to the Feng-shui implication of the architecture of the building right next to our campus. He is a truly exceptional, and genius of a Prof. And one of the main reasons why I am glad I took classes @ ESSEC, without that class, and that course, I would have missed out on studying under such a brilliant Professor
9) Prof Ter Kah Leng: Soft-spoken, kind & gentle. The epitome of patience. Never lost her smile. Sounds more like a mother than a Professor doesn't she! I guess she needed all these qualities, given that she teaches Law to business students. Or should I say, the obfuscated language of Law to the argumentative business students. Where anything shorter than a page is "a sentence demanding explanation". Where consideration has nothing to do with being considerate. Where "Agent" has a different legal meaning, and the Principal- Agent problem is an entirely new concept. Where sometimes, things just dont seem to make any sense at all. And at others, you even stop trying to understand. Where at times, all she could say was, "this is the way law sees it". Her patience was remarkable, given that she had to explain the same concept to different students multiple times. And so was her comforting smile, that often seemed to say, "I know this is hard for you, but stay with me & we will keep trying." A very nice Professor to teach law, and the virtue of patience :)
Another Professor I loved studying under.. was Prof. Siva Kumar..my Hinduism prof @ the ESSEC Asian Cultures course, I haven't included him in the above list since he isn't really an NUS Prof. But is definitely in the same league of brilliant teaching. A lawyer by profession, I suppose eloquence, well articulated, well structured thoughts and the ability to mesmerize his audience, is a part of his job! ;) Add that to his in depth knowledge of Hinduism, it didn't matter to me if I am a Hindu, and knew more than half the stuff he was teaching...it was sheer pleasure to learn from him.
Apart from these, some of the other professors, that my classmates have found brilliant, but under whom I did not get an opportunity to learn... are Prof. Aron Low (Fund Management), Prof. Joseph Cherian (Options & Futures), Prof. Prem Shamdasaani (Marketing), Prof. Cynthia Wang (Negotiations) & Prof. Gurmeet Singh Bhabra (Advanced Corporate finance)
All these Profs had 2 attrbiutes in common, as do all good teachers, anywhere in the world at any level of education..a passion for their subject, and a passion for teaching.
The last 1 slot remains unfilled...I have missed way too many good profs during my MBA, perhaps I should come back to take their classes as an alum ;)
2 comments:
not read this - but I was planning a similar thing later in April!
Telepathy!
Hi i had planned to do my MBA in NUS with 2.5 yrs experince. Yet to take GMAT. What will be the average salary for 2.5 yrs exp guy working in IT firm after NUS-MBA? I would like to work in INDIA after completing my MBA. Is there any INDIAN companies recruitng in NUS?
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