IIM-A faculty, students debate over placements

At a time when the continued impact of economic slowdown on placements is a cause of worry for B-schools, the Literary Symposium Desk of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) organised Student-Faculty Debate on the topic.

Titled 'Placements should be the end goal of a management student', the debate saw faculty team being pitched against the students team in a 'for or against' motion. As part of the second edition of such a Student-Faculty Debate, two selected students Sarthak Phadke and Prashant Sarkar debated for the motion while two faculty members Ajay Pandey and Ankur Sarin debated against the motion.

The students put forth the view that placements form an accurate gauge or metric to assess a candidate's capability and therefore serve as a strong incentive to management students to perform to the best of their ability.

On the other hand, the faculty members argued that placements are the end, but the more important issue is the means to the end. In that sense, placements do not serve so much as an incentive as they do as an end- students lose sight of other, more important things when trying to achieve that end.

Further, the students effectively postulated that since IIM-A has done so much for them, students should be giving back to society and a way to do that is through placements, thereby becoming an end goal worth pursuing. The faculty members responded that placements are a reflection not of how students value themselves but of how others value them and that the former is more important than the latter.

Lasting for about an hour, the event was attended by faculty, staff and students across all years and programmes. The Literary Symposium Desk at IIM-A intends to continue conducting such events in the coming year, providing a platform for the students to exhibit their talents.