The previous blogs mention how classroom sessions are important for
students to have a holistic understanding of their business environment.
However, such classroom sessions can be hosted either by full-time academia or
by industry professionals. One needs to understand that only a person who
has seen both sides of the table including the academic as well as the
industry side can be a tutor imparting relevant and up-to-date concepts. Having
said that, there is one set of people who feel that research also needs to
be done on different models – mathematic, scientific, medicine and so on. Such
research is most often successfully carried out by academia from the teaching
line only. However, as debatable as this thought is, the most common argument
by critics is that research is best carried out under the supervision of industry
and industry-sponsored grants.
Nonetheless after all the haggling around, one comes down to questions
like whether guest lectures and visiting faculty constitute a radical change in
the thinking process of a student or whether a student’s aptitude differs by
the introduction of such guest lectures.
Well as simple as it sounds, the answer is yes, such sessions do introduce
fresh perspective into an academic course and the injection of new thoughts,
opinions and ideas make a session highly attentive and interactive. The theme
also depends on whether the visiting faculty or guest lecturer is from a
trendsetting company in his industry because such personalities often help in
disseminating crucial information that is up-to-date. We
have witnessed how companies that are confident of accepting change and introducing processes aimed at quality excellence survive amongst the competition. For
companies that introduce a unique and novel offering, the business gets
guaranteed success for a few years if they introduce cost leadership pricing within their offering. On the other hand, even if they might not be cost
leaders, if they think ahead of their time in their offerings and lobby for statutory
compliance with upgraded quality standards set forth by the Governments, there
also do they taste success as being the first-mover in that industry. However,
one needs to keep in mind that any process gets imitated over time as the
number of entrants in an industry increases with passing time thus eroding the margins. The professionals
who come from such industries are therefore, keen on introducing the commonly
heard phrase that “Change is Constant” into the knowledge they impart. In doing
so, they bring the students up-to-speed on relevant concepts in the industry
which are aimed at setting a footprint within the market. The biggest plus
point for students is that such interactions, help the students in
understanding why sustainability is crucial in the marketplace and any
offerings must be introduced by keeping in mind whether the market is ready for
such products. This type of thinking, although easy to understand is not
without its challenges in the sense that there are many ramifications of
introducing quality processes in terms of cost, acceptance with the workforce, research constraints and acceptability of the market to such a offering in comparison to
the existing available alternatives.
The
market today is game of power and money where the most knowledgeable person who
acts on his information can reap the maximum benefit. Such guest lectures go a
long way in broadening a student’s viewpoint by engaging them in present-day
business scenarios thus increasing their aptitude. As an afterthought, one can
only wonder how boring and outdated it must be without such new perspectives
from the visiting faculty.
Computer College is one among many Colleges which believes that guest lectures help in increasing the freshness of the course content and keeping the curriculum polished and worth referring to.
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