At XIMB The One Year MBA Is Treated With Distinction: Arun Kumar Paul, Associate Dean (Admissions), XIMB & XUB

Shikhar Mohan, Founder, OneYearMBA discovers more about XIMB’s One Year Full Time MBA in a conversation with Prof. Arun Kumar Paul, Associate Dean (Admissions), Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) & Xavier University, Bhubaneswar (XUB)

The One Year Full Time MBA started at XIMB in 2013. How has the course shaped up two-years down the line?

In the One year Full-time Executive MBA 2014-15 batch, there were 15 students in the starting year. In the current 2015-16 batch, 30 students have enrolled. This shows that the demand for this one year executive program has increased since the number of applicants and the number of students enrolled doubled in numbers from the second year itself.

What is the class profile of the participants?

There are 30 students  in the current class out of which there are 21 men and 9 women.  The average age of the class is 27 years while average work experience is 6 years. 67% of the class comes from an IT services background, while 23% come from manufacturing, 7% from banking and 3% from the media sector. 

What are the core activities undertaken by students over the year that prepare them for returning to the corporate world as leaders.

XIMB is known for its excellent teaching rigor and world-class faculty quality. It is ensured that the students get adequate theoretical knowledge and practical skills in various disciplines and acquire advanced knowledge in two of their chosen functional areas. In addition leadership talks by various experts are organized.

Well-known experts from industry interact with the students making them aware of the emerging trends in the industry and get them close to the ground realities of the corporate world. A balanced mix of class-room teaching and beyond class room learning enable them to get prepared for accelerated career growth.

Globally, MBA courses (all of which typically require substantial work ex) focus on imparting practical knowledge needed for mid management roles, while pre-experience masters courses are theoretical and focused on prepping students for their first corporate stint. XIMB’s One Year Full Time MBA requires students to have at least 3 years of prior work experience unlike the longer running two-year course that is open to freshers. How did XIMB go about developing the curriculum for the One Year Full Time MBA?

The one year full time program curriculum is structured similar to, and is as rigorous as the regular two year full time MBA program.   It is spread over four terms during one year.  Working professionals are encouraged to take one year leave/sabbatical/lien from their current organizations and return to the same organization after completing the program and obtaining an MBA (Executive) Degree

Information and feedback are collected from students, faculties, experts and recruiters to update the course curriculum to make it compatible to present changing environment of the global market. Though the structure is similar we focus more on case based teaching and delivery is more suited towards students with work experience.

Are placement services provided by the institute for the graduates of the One Year Full Time MBA? What have been the career outcomes for the graduating classes?

Though placement options are not provided to the students, but students have their own placement committee and they contact different organizations to carry out placement activities.

Many students have joined this course by availing sabbatical leave to pursue their higher studies to have better career progression or to have options switch to other jobs. Out of the 15 students who joined in 2014-15 batch, 6 students have switched to other companies and rest of them have joined back to their current companies.

Many companies like Khazana group, Reliance Jio Info comm. Limited, OLA cabs, Dazo, Genora Info tech Pvt. Ltd., L&T Info tech etc., have already shown interest to employ executive MBA students.

XIMB is one of the few top ranked B-Schools located in Odisha. Do students face any challenges being away from the commercial centers of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore?

Bhubaneswar has already been given the smart city status. Many IT companies have already shown interest in starting their office and services from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Bhubaneswar is considered to be the future IT hub of India. Since 67% of the present batch is from IT sector they can get better placement opportunity than other cities.

Anything else you would like to share about the course at XIMB with our audience?

At XIMB, the one year MBA (Executive) program with treated with distinction. The program headed by an Associate Dean with a separate office set-up to facilitate the students in their academic, research and other campus related activities. Campus accommodation is provided to the students and since many of the faculty members reside in same campus, the atmosphere at the institute is very homely. All the students get a feeling of living in a home away from home here and it helps them a lot in managing the academic rigor. The Jesuit values and cultures are something unique to XIMB.