The Higher Education Review

International School of Management Studies (ISMS) started its journey with a clear vision of inviting foreign education to the students who are particularly not aware of how to approach a foreign degree. It is giving the students the option of going to the United Kingdom and complete degrees in an affordable way and also preparing them to face the challenges that exist in the UK job market. ISMS has included a level-7 extended diploma in strategic management and leadership in the scrupulous pedagogy. Under this program, ISMS implements the regular Indian MBA program to make its students more proficient than others. The ISMS management started the PGP-MBA (Post Graduate Program in Management) course with the idea to make the students a superior workforce, industry ready and also better equipped with knowledge and skills than any other management students, who are only going for a customary MBA program. Both the traditional MBA program and level-7 diploma in strategic management and leadership complement each other and instills the practical as well as theoretical management concepts in the students in a holistic manner.

Integrating Burgeoning Management Learning Traditions
Since its inception, ISMS operate with a crystal vision of imparting high quality management program through which it can reach various sectors of the society, in particular to the areas where the students, in general, don't get much of exposure during their graduation. So, it works for making the students ready with entry level working skills. The management school has two different types of programs -­ one which targets the students who are looking forward for overseas education. This program is structured with unique stature to give the students a choice to study a part of the program in Pune, from

where they can move to the United Kingdom to complete the second part of the program. The advantage of the program is that when the students go to the UK, where the labor education methodology is different, which prepares the students to face enormous professional challenges. In other terms, ISMS students are better prepared as compared to the students who go directly to the UK.

"ISMS operate with a crystal vision of imparting high-quality management program through which it can reach various sectors of the society"

There are a few other B-Schools who are conducting similar programs but only with a particular university. But ISMS' program is flexible as it gives the students a choice to select the university in which they want to study. The other program, PGD-MBA is the one that is combined with the Pune University MBA. The program has a perfect balance of theory and practical concepts. Students coming from different backgrounds like science, commerce, or engineering are eligible for this program. To align the different undergraduate students coming to the MBA education structure, ISMS first conducts an induction-orientation program for a month. "We make sure that a student who has good concepts of management can implement those into real-life working scenarios. There are different workshops that we conduct before summer internship to give them an idea on how work is done in corporate world. In between knowledge building to final placement, there are a lot of steps involved in making the students achieve perfect communication and behavioral skills, leadership and team-building aptitudes, ethics and presentation abilities," says Debraj Banerjee, Director, ISMS.

The first process to make the students ready with the corporate mannerism begins with winter internship which gives them an idea of how the corporate world functions and then into a summer internship. During this period, the students get actual environment to perform. If they perform well, they get pre-placement offer. "We need the students to perform well when they get a job and we train them to meet those expectations. We

conduct different workshops, where the students get to interact with experienced corporate people and receive mentoring. It becomes easy as ISMS has formal tie-ups and MoUs with several industry stakeholders," states Debraj. The students execute a plethora of research activities during their study tenure. It gives them a lot of opportunities to learn management subjects and get in-depth knowledge. Moreover, ISMS has a batch of 120 students with around 10-12 faculties, imparting knowledge over management subjects in an ingenious fashion.

There is a dedicated placement cell at ISMS taking care of the placement necessities with utmost awareness. This cell coordinates with the industry and the students. The placement cell helps in bridging the gap between industry requirements and students' skills enhancement programs. In addition, cell fosters entrepreneurship programs and startup culture. "In fact, the batch that moves to the UK for completing second year; gets introduced to an entrepreneurship cell, wherein they learn about investment and good startup projects. And if they come up with some genuine business idea, we provide assistance to make it successful. It is the ideal field for students with business skills and knacks in this 21st century corporate age," exerts Debraj. Furthermore, ISMS calls a lot of industry people to train the faculty on various subjects and topics as well. At present, ISMS envisions making open-minded students for developing a generation of successful entrepreneurs. Also, being a student-centric institute, ISMS is eradicating any psychological or personal barriers of the students that prevent them from performing at peak.

Debraj Banerjee, Director
Debraj is a believer of an innovative, integrative and inspiring education model that focuses on giving students a better future. Before joining ISMS, Debraj worked at severable companies from which some notable names are Siemens Information Systems Limited, SQLStar International Ltd, SSI Limited, and ICFAI. He joined ISMS in 2010 as the director of the management school.