LM Thapar School Of Management: Redefining Business Education!
Dr. Padmakumar Nair, Director
Established with the mission to develop Globally Sensitive, Excellence seeking management professionals with a Social Entrepreneurial Mindset, LM Thapar School of Management (LMTSM) was established on July 23, 2007, in the erstwhile princely state of Patiala (Punjab, India), under the flagship of Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (Deemed-to be-University), a 66-year-old academic institution. The tech-savvy campus is set on a sprawling area of 33 acres. With students from across India, LMTSM has a residential facility for over 600 students.
The school is continuously striving towards their vision to be a source of impactful ideas for influencing management education and business practices through research, teaching, consulting and corporate & community engagement. "We see ourselves as the school of new India and we believe that new India starts here, from interesting ideas to concepts, and philosophies should originate from us. As a business school, for us, it is not just thinking about corporations and corporate jobs. For us what is most important is to develop and educate young minds for being useful, proud citizens of the country and world at large", highlights Dr. Padmakumar Nair, Director, LM Thapar School of Management.
The Market Landscape of Management Education
Today, management education or any education in general, we are focused too much on the corporate readiness and relatively little about intellectual readiness. LM Thapar School of Management wants to give a broader focus on intellectual readiness. "At present, there are two major issues that comes with blindly focusing on corporate readiness. First, what corporations need today may not be what they need a couple of years down the line. We can clearly see this from the past like the IT boom and the sudden increase in the number of students who pursued IT courses. Today, most interesting jobs are driven by networks and data, how well we visualize and process data and how we make decisions out of it. The second problem with corporate readiness is that the narrow focus will miss the most important point and that is help our students to explore themselves. We say, let them understand who they are as a person and a professional. Then, instill a sense of excellence and we want our graduates to constantly seek for excellence. We also say that empathy is the mother of excellence. Helping students to get into their temperament of seeking excellence and most importantly developing intellectual honesty, openness and humility is what we believe every educational institution should do. If we do this, ensuring corporate readiness is easy and this will also help the students to evolve with the changing industry scenarios", speaks Dr. Padmakumar Nair.
LM Thapar School of Management is vesting its focus on developing students who are intellectually humble, open and with an excellence seeking temperament. The school believes that learning should not just be about developing soft skills but at the same time communicating well is really important. "Communicating is not just about speaking fluently but it is also about how you define problems, how you understand it's limits, how do you ask the right questions, and how do you find methodologies to find the right answer. This is what educational institutions should do", adds Dr. Padmakumar.
In business education, LM Thapar School of Management believes that four distinct developments are going to shape business education more from a content and pedagogy point of view. The recent advancements in behavioural economics, the assumptions that human beings are absolutely rational are problematic. Behavioural economics has a nuanced understanding of fundamental human condition, and their experimentation and theorizing takes care of that. Then, advancements in evolutionary psychology talks not only about what is unique about us but also about what is common about us. Then comes developments in cognitive science, AI, Big Data and IoT are also going to change the business education landscape from a content and pedagogy perspective.
Equipped with the Best
While all educational institutes are unique, what gives LM Thapar School of Management an edge above the rest is the way the school promote two important things - their deeper engagement with students, it is just not about lectures and case studies, but it is about understanding each student as an individual and doing everything to make sure that their learning experience is pleasant and memorable. LM Thapar School of Management is also very serious about rigorous evaluation, and it has a broad spectrum of tools and methods which it uses for evaluating students.
The curriculum of LM Thapar School of Management is contemporary that thinks about issues like sustainability to using creative, innovative pedagogies to make sure that students truly enjoy learning with us. To add to it, LM Thapar School of Management has excellent global connections, students can go abroad and even get another degree from one of their partner universities after three semesters with us. An arrangement of three semesters plus two semesters abroad.
"Post COVID, we get about 30 to 15 visiting faculty that will come and stay here for weeks to a month and take specialized courses. We also provide faculty development programs. Except two of our colleagues, all our faculty are Ph.D. holders from top universities in the world. Our research component score is amongst the top 20 business schools in the country, and even several IIMs are placed below us overall", mentions Dr. Padmakumar Nair.
“Our challenge is not about attracting excellent companies to hire our students but our challenge is to motivate our students to keep their openness and willingness to learn”
A Gateway to New Opportunities
LM Thapar School of Management is currently offering anywhere between 80 to 100 scholarships, and it has about 180 students per batch. About 25 of them get 50 percent scholarship on their tuition fees, another 25 would get 30 percent and another 25 would get 20 percent scholarship; this scholarship is based on the rank list.
Additionally, the school has 20+ MOUs in place with various universities across the world and it is also one of the members of a six University Erasmus-Mundus project consortium of European Union.
When it comes to placement, LM Thapar School of Management has a very impressive track record, even during the two COVID years. "We are also not a very expensive school when compared to other business schools, average salary of top 25 percent of our graduating class is more than 9.4 lakhs. Our challenge is not about attracting excellent companies to hire our students but our challenge is to motivate our students to keep their openness and willingness to learn", shares Dr. Padmakumar.
Additionally, LM Thapar School of Management has got many different clubs and related activities going on throughout the year. So, the students have ample opportunities to showcase their skills and passion for things outside academics.
Setting the Future Roadmap
One of the most interesting things that LM Thapar School of Management is currently thinking about is - `Uberizing the Business School', which means anything which can be captured as a little process, refine them, optimize them and digitize them. The school is currently developing a real-time feedback app you go to a class, at the end of the class you need to answer few questions, the same app the professor will use to take attendance, you need to give feedback after every class, once the feedback and attendance matches, you will get attendance for that class. This app will continuously track everything in the classrooms with respect to student learning and meeting course learning outcomes.
In the future, LM Thapar School of Management wants to develop an AI system that can create customized learning notes for the students.
Signing off with a message for the youngsters of India, Dr. Padmakumar Nair shares, "My message to youngsters is, don't get fixated with ideas where you think whatever you believe is going to be universal TRUTH. Be open minded, and whenever you hear or see something that contradicts your beliefs, step back, listen and reflect. That will help you to develop yourself."
The school is continuously striving towards their vision to be a source of impactful ideas for influencing management education and business practices through research, teaching, consulting and corporate & community engagement. "We see ourselves as the school of new India and we believe that new India starts here, from interesting ideas to concepts, and philosophies should originate from us. As a business school, for us, it is not just thinking about corporations and corporate jobs. For us what is most important is to develop and educate young minds for being useful, proud citizens of the country and world at large", highlights Dr. Padmakumar Nair, Director, LM Thapar School of Management.
The Market Landscape of Management Education
Today, management education or any education in general, we are focused too much on the corporate readiness and relatively little about intellectual readiness. LM Thapar School of Management wants to give a broader focus on intellectual readiness. "At present, there are two major issues that comes with blindly focusing on corporate readiness. First, what corporations need today may not be what they need a couple of years down the line. We can clearly see this from the past like the IT boom and the sudden increase in the number of students who pursued IT courses. Today, most interesting jobs are driven by networks and data, how well we visualize and process data and how we make decisions out of it. The second problem with corporate readiness is that the narrow focus will miss the most important point and that is help our students to explore themselves. We say, let them understand who they are as a person and a professional. Then, instill a sense of excellence and we want our graduates to constantly seek for excellence. We also say that empathy is the mother of excellence. Helping students to get into their temperament of seeking excellence and most importantly developing intellectual honesty, openness and humility is what we believe every educational institution should do. If we do this, ensuring corporate readiness is easy and this will also help the students to evolve with the changing industry scenarios", speaks Dr. Padmakumar Nair.
LM Thapar School of Management is vesting its focus on developing students who are intellectually humble, open and with an excellence seeking temperament. The school believes that learning should not just be about developing soft skills but at the same time communicating well is really important. "Communicating is not just about speaking fluently but it is also about how you define problems, how you understand it's limits, how do you ask the right questions, and how do you find methodologies to find the right answer. This is what educational institutions should do", adds Dr. Padmakumar.
In business education, LM Thapar School of Management believes that four distinct developments are going to shape business education more from a content and pedagogy point of view. The recent advancements in behavioural economics, the assumptions that human beings are absolutely rational are problematic. Behavioural economics has a nuanced understanding of fundamental human condition, and their experimentation and theorizing takes care of that. Then, advancements in evolutionary psychology talks not only about what is unique about us but also about what is common about us. Then comes developments in cognitive science, AI, Big Data and IoT are also going to change the business education landscape from a content and pedagogy perspective.
Equipped with the Best
While all educational institutes are unique, what gives LM Thapar School of Management an edge above the rest is the way the school promote two important things - their deeper engagement with students, it is just not about lectures and case studies, but it is about understanding each student as an individual and doing everything to make sure that their learning experience is pleasant and memorable. LM Thapar School of Management is also very serious about rigorous evaluation, and it has a broad spectrum of tools and methods which it uses for evaluating students.
The curriculum of LM Thapar School of Management is contemporary that thinks about issues like sustainability to using creative, innovative pedagogies to make sure that students truly enjoy learning with us. To add to it, LM Thapar School of Management has excellent global connections, students can go abroad and even get another degree from one of their partner universities after three semesters with us. An arrangement of three semesters plus two semesters abroad.
"Post COVID, we get about 30 to 15 visiting faculty that will come and stay here for weeks to a month and take specialized courses. We also provide faculty development programs. Except two of our colleagues, all our faculty are Ph.D. holders from top universities in the world. Our research component score is amongst the top 20 business schools in the country, and even several IIMs are placed below us overall", mentions Dr. Padmakumar Nair.
“Our challenge is not about attracting excellent companies to hire our students but our challenge is to motivate our students to keep their openness and willingness to learn”
A Gateway to New Opportunities
LM Thapar School of Management is currently offering anywhere between 80 to 100 scholarships, and it has about 180 students per batch. About 25 of them get 50 percent scholarship on their tuition fees, another 25 would get 30 percent and another 25 would get 20 percent scholarship; this scholarship is based on the rank list.
Additionally, the school has 20+ MOUs in place with various universities across the world and it is also one of the members of a six University Erasmus-Mundus project consortium of European Union.
When it comes to placement, LM Thapar School of Management has a very impressive track record, even during the two COVID years. "We are also not a very expensive school when compared to other business schools, average salary of top 25 percent of our graduating class is more than 9.4 lakhs. Our challenge is not about attracting excellent companies to hire our students but our challenge is to motivate our students to keep their openness and willingness to learn", shares Dr. Padmakumar.
Additionally, LM Thapar School of Management has got many different clubs and related activities going on throughout the year. So, the students have ample opportunities to showcase their skills and passion for things outside academics.
Setting the Future Roadmap
One of the most interesting things that LM Thapar School of Management is currently thinking about is - `Uberizing the Business School', which means anything which can be captured as a little process, refine them, optimize them and digitize them. The school is currently developing a real-time feedback app you go to a class, at the end of the class you need to answer few questions, the same app the professor will use to take attendance, you need to give feedback after every class, once the feedback and attendance matches, you will get attendance for that class. This app will continuously track everything in the classrooms with respect to student learning and meeting course learning outcomes.
In the future, LM Thapar School of Management wants to develop an AI system that can create customized learning notes for the students.
Signing off with a message for the youngsters of India, Dr. Padmakumar Nair shares, "My message to youngsters is, don't get fixated with ideas where you think whatever you believe is going to be universal TRUTH. Be open minded, and whenever you hear or see something that contradicts your beliefs, step back, listen and reflect. That will help you to develop yourself."
