How useful is the PGSEM

I have been meaning to reply to Yaniv's post (see http://iimbpgsem.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-useful-is-pgsem.html), but work's been devouring all my time and then some.
But here's a start - a small post admittedly, and I shall add more in the coming weeks. Another thing that I am going to do is to start posting to this blog photos that I have taken at IIMB during my more than two years in the program.

I think the PGSEM is a fantastic program for working professionals in Bangalore, and now Chennai also. I say Bangalore because this is a part-time program with campus requirements two days a week. The program is near-identical to IIMB's full time MBA program (PGP), the name and misconceptions notwithstanding. The faculty that teaches us is the same, which by and large is exceptional.

The program offers ample scope for someone to specialize in an area of their choice. Admittedly the depth of specialization is not as much as one would prefer, but hopefully this is something the current and future batches will work on (more about this in a future post). Consider this, if you wanted to focus on Finance, your choices would have been:
Core courses:
- Management Accounting (Financial and cost accounting)
- Corporate Finance
Electives (starting with the Jun academic quarter 2004-05):
- Banking, Financial Markets, and Systems
- Risk Management for Insurance Professionals
- Computational Finance
- Investments
- International Banking
- Corporate Valuation
- Global Financial Markets
- New Enteprise Financing
- Coporate Tax Management
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Financial Risk Management
- Financial Statement Analysis
- Fixed Income Securities and Derivatives

I can think of a dozen courses that could have been offered in addition to the ones listed above, like Financial Derivatives, International Finance, Introduction to Capital Market Theory, Fixed Income Securities, Advance Corporate Finance, Indirect Taxation, General Insurance, Insurance and Pension Funds, etc... But one would accept that the above courses offered themselves would allow a student to get a good grasp of the basics (and more) of finance.

Similarly, if you wanted to focus on Marketing and related areas, the PGSEM has a lot to offer:
Core
- Principles of Marketing
- Marketing Research
Electives
- Business Marketing Strategy
- Business Data Mining and Decision Models
- Product Management
- Advertising Management
- Sales Force Management
- eBusiness Models and Strategies
- Management of Alliances
- Services Marketing Management
I think that PGSEM is weak when it comes to the breadth and depth in marketing courses. Courses that could have been offered but were not (will discuss this in a later post) include brand management, Consumer Behaviour, Retailing Management, Competitive Marketing Strategy, Sales and Distribution Management, International Business Negotiation Skills.

In my opinion, the value of the PGSEM starts to become apparent in the second year when I (and others) started to see the integrative nature of an MBA. No course really exists in a vacuum: you cannot design a sales force without knowing the kind of market you are working in, or the kind of organizational structure you have or want to put in place, not to mention how you are going to market and advertise your products...

More in the coming weeks...