Martin Broad, Head of Southampton Business School at the UK’s Southampton University, talks about the popular courses in the university the placement record of the B-school and the benefits for students who choose to study there. Excerpts from the interview:
How many Indian students are currently enrolled in Southampton Business School?
The business school currently has 2,500 students. Around 1,000 students are from the under-graduate programme, 1300 from the graduate programme and 150 in the Ph.D programme. This year, Indian students number around 150 out of a total 2,500.
The UK is very open and education there is not going to be at all affected by Brexit.
What are some of the popular courses in the university?
In Southampton University, some of the popular courses include an MSc in international management, MSc in marketing, MSc in innovation and entrepreneurship and the MSc in supply chain management and logistics. There is a lot of focus on entrepreneurship in India and the school is working to nurture that agenda. International management is also popular because it gives students a broad approach to management and helps give them a truly international perspective.
What’s the placement record of the business school?
Every undergraduate student can sit for the placement; there is no restriction on this. It is a four-year graduation programme and there is a three-year, full-time programme too. However, not all of them want to do it and there are many reasons for this. There are students who want to fast-track the programme. On the other hand, some change the three-year programme to a four-year course. So, around 45-50 per cent go with placements, and that is the choice of the students. At the end, it is the employers who make the ultimate decision whether they want to employ the students from this campus.
For students in the graduation programme, there are internship opportunities and students who opt for placements are usually successful. For those students who don’t get placed, there is a career service within the university to help them.
What are the benefits for the students who choose Southampton?
There are many students who think that being an entrepreneur means being successful but the hard reality is that if one wants to be an entrepreneur, one needs to be very dynamic, be able to accept failure, get on one’s feet again after accepting failure and try harder to strive for success, At Southampton Business School, all these factors are taken into consideration.
We have an incubator space and funding is available to help students start up individual companies. The students can become future entrepreneurs with the right funding opportunities.