IIMB – PGPBA: AI Monks’ View

In the recent years, there has been a mushrooming of analytics and data science programs all over the country. Be it a technology university or a business school, everyone is gearing up to meet the rising demand of analytics and data science professionals.

To stay updated in the field and cater to the market demand, Indian Institute of Bangalore has started its own analytics program – Post Graduate Program in Business Analytics (IIMB – PGPBA). The first batch will join the program in 2020 and graduate in 2022.

To know the details about the course, admission process, fee and other detail, refer to the first part of this article.

In this post, we have analyzed the course curriculum in detail and tried to understand the goods areas and what needs to be taken with caution.

* Number of teaching hours have been considered on the basis that for a 3 credit course, the number of teaching hours is 30; while, for a 1.5 credit course, the number of teaching hours is 15.

^# It has been assumed that General electives are management electives; while, analytics electives are related to analytics, data science, statistics or technology.

The course has more inclination towards business/management courses. The number of management/business courses and total number of teaching hours for management courses are higher than the corresponding numbers for analytics (technology/statistics) courses. This shows that the program is more inclined towards building professionals who have a good business acumen and understand the analytics concepts to integrate the two.

Course fee (INR 2,100,000 excluding accommodation) is more or less similar to PGPM courses taught by top business schools in India, though a lower fee would have been better given that this is the first year of the course.

IIMB – PGPBA – Major Differentiators:

1) Courses of Independent Study

According to the course website, “You may take a maximum of six credits across courses of independent study, such as Contemporary Concerns Study or Dissertation. These courses are guided by faculty and provide you the opportunity to personalize your academic work in order to pursue, in depth, your specific areas of interest.”

For people who wish to pursue their career in the field of academics or go for PhD, this provides a good platform to build a base and pursue further after the completion of the course.

2) Wide range of electives to choose from

The course website mentions a lot of courses which are a part of electives. Though the provided list is on a sample basis, final list of electives that are floated depend on multiple other factors. This will only happen at the start of the respective term.

3) Great brand name

No doubt that IIM Bangalore is one of the biggest brand names in India for management education, it will always give the required impetus to the course. The strong backing from the college and a diversified alumni base should provide the required push to the course during the initial years.

4) Exchange Program

The college administration advocating exchange program is really a great thing and provides a very diverse exposure to the college students. The exchange program will happen during the term 5 which consists of 3 analytics elective courses (9 credits) out of a total 6 courses (18 credits). Though the course website states that students can go on exchange to universities which offer analytics courses as a part of their curriculum at the postgraduate level, this is something which needs to be observed closely.

IIMB – PGPBA – Things to observe:

1) Internship

Since the internship period is around 2 months, it may not provide a significant industry exposure to students coming from non-analytics background. In a lot of cases, students may not be able to complete the industry project end-to-end given the internship time period. It is essential to see the entire project life-cycle to build strong understanding. Moreover, internship is optional for people with more than 34 months of experience. Again, if the experience is in non-analytics field, students may not be able to completely appreciate the concepts.

2) Practical Lab

There is no practical analytics/data science lab in the entire curriculum. Neither there is too much information on the number of projects that students need to complete in each of the courses. Practical or project based experience is of utmost importance to students to understand and apply the statistics and machine learning concepts.

3) Opportunities for Data Science Enthusiasts

Since the course is more inclined towards management and analytics courses (business applications), we feel that people aspiring to become data scientists may have a little difficulty given the curriculum. There could have been a few courses covering areas as algorithms and databases to strengthen the technology and computing aspect.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, we would say the IIMB – PGPBA course looks promising with a lot of good aspects. We believe the course is going to help students get more into more of business analyst role rather than data science role.

Though things look promising, it can’t be ignored that the program is new; we need to wait and let the program unfolds over the next couple of years to assess the industry acceptance.

You may also be interested in Post Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics, jointly offered by IIM Calcutta, ISI Kolkata, IIT Kharagpur.