This September eighty students, representing a third of the second year students at IIM Calcutta, will head off to various locations all across the world -- from Singapore to USA. These students, as part of various Student Exchange Programmes (STEP) set up at IIM C, will have the opportunity to understand the culture abroad and gain an international perspective to management at various prestigious international partner universities. To aid their mobility, scholarships are pouring from many quarters. This year, 46 students will avail these scholarships, against just 12 students last year.
Several universities and foreign embassies have offered scholarships to IIM C students. The French Embassy and DAAD (German Academic Exchange Program) have already offered 32 scholarships to IIM C students, each worth $3000. The US universities like CBS, University of Colorado and City University of New York (CUNY) have also providing scholarships.
A big attraction this year at IIM C is the ‘Diamond Scholarship’, awarded by Diamond Management & Consultancy Group. This was awarded to IIM C’s Prabhat Chandra, the only student in India to get this prestigious scholarship worth $3000. Says IIM C, “Such corporate participation in STEP itself speaks volumes about its relevance and importance in today’s context.”
Besides these, IIM C is also contributing from its coffers. IIMC says that efforts were made to ensure that no student misses out on this opportunity due to lack of funds and financial assistance. In all scholarships in excess of Rs 60 lacs are on offer to the students this year.
“IIMC helps its students in all possible ways – bulk airfare discounts, visa assistance, travel insurance and even French and German classes were arranged for them. In addition representatives from Thomas Cook, ICICI Lombard and STIC specially visited the campus to make arrangements for the exchange program participants at discounted rates,” said Gaurav Goyal, STEP representative at IIM C.
IIM Calcutta’s partner universities include Simmons School (Boston), Instituto de Empresa (Madrid), UCLA Andersen School of Management (Los Angeles), Universitá Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Milano), NUS (Singapore), ESCP-EAP (Paris) and 31 other renowned institutes, spreading across 5 continents and 17 countries.
On its part, IIM C will also play host to a large number of exchange students of various nationalities. India’s growing economy will the major attraction to these students who spend a few months at IIM C to gain a holistic perspective of India. “When I started B-School I set a goal for myself to visit the two markets that are shaping the business world: China & India. Last summer I had to opportunity to visit China for a month so I seized the opportunity to see India this summer. When I discovered that CUNY had a direct exchange with - IIMC, I jumped at the chance,” said Leslie Hunt, an exchange student from City University of New York.
