Prasanna Bora reports from Jonkoping!

Hi All,

Greetings from Jonkoping (Pronounced as Jon-show-ping), Sweden! It is been about 10 days since we reached this place. It has been great so far. At my school, Jonkoping International Business School (JIBS), we have exchange students from IIMC and IIML as well, apart from students from over 100 different Schools. Yes, you read that right. JIBS' uniqueness is its diversity. There are people from over 50 countries here and more than 250 exchange students. I think having students from so many different countries is truly something unique.

Courses: The school is really big on entrepreneurship. It’s known for its entrepreneurship programs but isn’t very great for Finance. If you ask me how the courses are, I’ll say – it depends. ;) It truly does depend on what courses you take. We are free to take courses at bachelor level (there are 4 categories of courses: A,B,C,D in the ascending order of difficulty). So if you take an A level course in finance and you are an Indian, who is naturally better at numbers, then you got nothing to learn. Bottom-line, if you wanna make most of the academic experience, take the courses that the university is known for.

We are supposed to take 2 courses per quarter (4 for the sem). For this quarter I have taken Entrepreneurship and Business Planning (EBP) and International Financial Management (IFM). EBP classes are amazing. The course has an enrollment of 375 to 400 i think, which implies we have to have lectures in the auditorium. Yet the lectures are interactive and do not get boring one bit. It is an experience to sit in a class of 400! But of course, for seminars, sessions where there are group activities and presentations to compliment the lectures, we are split into classes of 40. We have been given a loan of 200 SEK (read Swedish kroner or krown) to start our new venture and we got to be profitable during the duration of the course. Besides, we get to make visits to a company and analyze how that company started as an entrepreneurial venture. Perfect combination of theory and practice. A very well designed course. IFM isn’t very exciting and we as fin majors and students of a master's program feel the pace is too slow and the learning limited.

Lectures here are scheduled for 2 hours, but as the profs say, an "academic hour" is only 45 mins. So we get a 15 min break at the end of 45 mins and lectures get over 15 mins early. Is that a piece of advice for someone who talks of market fundas esp paaanetration with complete disregard to the clock ;)

I work in a group of 10 for my new venture project, and we have 6 countries represented among the 10. Beat that for diversity.

Professors: Even for a disinteresting course like IFM, the effort put in by the professor is tremendous. There is no 'free-riding' by the professor. Lecture slides, handouts, course outlines, etc are managed very professionally. The EBP professor has like an entire team of faculty members and PhD candidates working for him, nearly 8 of them handling that one course. The prof is very charismatic and walks in with his expensive business suit on, is a smooth talker and teaches very well.

Professors here are pretty cool. Mobiles ring in class, people come in late, surf during classes, eat, drink coffee and it’s all accepted. But most students are serious and want to make most of the lectures. Also attendance is not mandatory in most cases. Probably explains why professors are not paranoid about things like laptop, mobiles,etc.

Infrastructure: It’s an unfair comparison but cant help it. A classroom here is at least 10 times better than the best facility we have. One of the most amazing things in classrooms that grabbed my attention was movable marker boards. There are multiple movable marker boards that slide across and over. So the prof writes on a board, does not clear it, slides the board up, pulls another one down and writes on the second. Amazing!! The intranet is very well used resource. IIMK needs to put in serious thought on using its intranet well. VC and moodle are the most under-utilized and the professors need to be educated about the effective use of an intranet. Squirrel mail is not intranet!

The country: We have struggled with Swedish. Most people do speak English, but the problem is that everything is written in Swedish. So when you go to a super market, you read a pack and you cant make out whether its sugar, salt or something else. We can’t read the newspapers, the brochures, the notices and more. People pay a lot in taxes. A cleaning company charges 300 SEK (conversion rate Rs 6) per hour. A doctor's appointment costs 1600 SEK. It is a very expensive place to stay. Sweden seems to be devoid of the Walmarts and the Tesco’s. Most chains seem to be Swedish. That may explain the emphasis on entrepreneurship. Volvo and Scania are Swedish icons, if I may say so. It is truly breathtaking to see one of those huge Scania trucks.

Women: A lot of guys would be keen to know about this. There are quite a few pretty looking ones, esp the French. Some do hold you breathless. Also makes me wonder how some manage to dress up scantily in the biting cold. Snaps up here.

Prasanna Bora can be contacted at his gmail id: bora.prasanna