All about TAPMI BBA (Hons.): Interview with Prof. Aditya Jadhav (Dean)

In this exclusive interview with Careers360, Prof. Aditya Jadhav, Dean BBA (Hons.), talks about the TAPMI BBA (Hons.) programme, the difference between a regular BBA and BBA Hons, TAPMI BBA (Hons.) selection criteria, scholarships and more. Read the interview to know more about BBA (Hons.) at TAPMI.

About: T. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), founded by the visionary Late Shri. T. A. Pai in 1980, is among the leading management institutes in India. TAPMI is also accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA). TAPMI is consistently ranked within the top 20 B-Schools and among the top 5 private B-schools in the country. TAPMI has an unbroken 35 years of placement record with around 300 industry partners. There are about 6000 registered alumni, of whom one-fifth are currently leading at CXO levels.

The TAPMI Bachelor of Business Administration Honors (BBA Honors) programme is a four-year program with an exit option with a BBA degree at the end of the third year. TAPMI Bengaluru courses at the undergraduate level include BBA Hons and Integrated Programme in Management.

Q. Why TAPMI? What makes it stand apart from other bschools?

Ans: T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) as a school started in the 1980s. It’s one of the oldest bschool in India. It started from a vision of our founder Shri T.A. Pai. He has been part of the founding family of the Manipal Group. He was also the MD Chairman of the Syndicate Bank. His initiatives in the Syndicate Bank are considered one of the best initiatives in this country, especially pro-women and pro-education. After this, he joined as the Chairman of LIC and Chairman of the Food Corporation of India. He was in the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Mines, and Ministry of Heavy Industries in Indira Gandhi’s Government.

Shri T.A. Pai is one of the people who convinced the government to start Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. We have been consistently doing new things over the last 40 years. We claim to be an innovative school over the 60 years grade and our innovation starts with the fact that we are one of the first schools to accept CAT as an entrance exam. TAPMI was one of the first schools to go to AICTE for approval and get approved aspects. We are one of the first schools that started engaging with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) for international accreditation and we got the accreditation in the year 2012.

See Also: TAPMI Bengaluru Courses and Fees

Q. Why BBA Hons? Is the degree awarded with the Hons? What is the difference between a regular BBA and BBA Hons?

Ans: The majority of students are applying for CAT and the big difference that happens is that more than 70% people appearing for CAT are freshers from various backgrounds. But more than 70% of students joining the top 20 bschools in our country are engineers with work experience because people believe that engineers have the flare for Mathematics and cracking CAT which is wrong. We have done an analysis in which people who undergo coaching for three years can get better CAT scores.

The non-engineers are unable to go to the top schools because they don’t have work experience and most of the schools give weightage to work experience. We also observe the frustration and stress that an undergrad student of management has and the fear of not being able to go to a really good bschool. The reason why these things happen is because of the lack of work experience. We advise the students who come to us during interviews to go back and work.

In the year 2020, we merged with the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and got the opportunity to enter undergraduate education. When we entered undergraduate education, we wanted to design a programme which would ensure good-quality jobs for students. We engage with industries, we identify 12 key skills that the industry said the student should have to get a job. After that, we designed the programme and it occurred to us that 3 years is not enough to deliver what we want to deliver as it has to be 4 years. Our programme is a professional programme as it has professional acceptances with an agenda that at the end of 4 years, a student should get a job.

The BBA Hons programme at T.A. Pai Management Institute is split into four parts first year is a foundation year. In the first year, we have five pillars in which the whole programme runs which include Maths, Accounting, Economics, Social Sciences and skilled-based courses.

In the skill-based course year 1, we teach Excel and Design Thinking. The first year is a leveller as we bring everything to the same level and in the second year, we introduce Management. All functional courses of management such as Finance, Marketing, Operations and Supply Chain Management, HR, OB, Strategy, and IT that one want, the functional aspect of management are taught in the second year.

In the third year, there are some advanced courses in management and we ask students to choose two courses. We offer eight elective streams including Marketing, HR, Finance, Operations and Supply Chain, IT, Analytics, Economics, Consulting and Strategy. Students have to choose two of them.

In the fourth year, based on the experience of these two courses they have to choose one to specialise which becomes their major. In the first three years, we strengthened the base so well that in the fourth year, we are able to introduce electives that generally are studied in the second year of an MBA.

Q. What is the selection criteria? What does TAPMI look at during the selection process?

Ans: TAPMI looks at students' interests during the selection process. We have a multi-stage selection process at TAPMI. The institute considers IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak, JIPMAT (Joint Integrated Program in Management Admission Test), Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), SAT examination, JEE Mains (Joint Entrance Examination) and Manipal Entrance Test (MET) scores for admission. TAPMI also give importance to students’ 10th and 12th marks and weightage is given to the second stage of the TAPMI selection process.

Moreover, we don’t believe in the concept of cutoff so every student who apply to TAPMI will get an opportunity throughout the selection process. The institute has micro presentation and a personal interview and based on these components final score is decided and merit list is finalised and admission is offered to students.

Read more about: TAPMI Bengaluru Admissions

Q. There is mention of a personal interview and a micro presentation. Can you elaborate on this?

Ans: In the micro presentation, students will be given a topic. They will be given two minutes to think about the topic and two minutes to speak about it. We have almost a hundred odd topics for micro presentations and they are listed on our website.

Q. Give a brief about the programme structure for BBA Hons.

Ans: At TAPMI we have a series of internships which help in resolving this problem. At the end of first year, we have a social intention. We want to develop the problem-solving skills of kids. We work on the idea of design thinking in year one then they go to an NGO and work with them on the design thinking aspect and get a hands-on idea of how to identify a problem and solve it.

At TAPMI we have a programme management decision sciences course which also looks at other ways of problem solving. We have a compulsory eight weeks of sales internship. We place the students and we ensure that the students are placed with a stipend. Our average stipend at TAPMI was Rs. 22,000 per month for this eight-week internship. After that, students will have to choose two areas in the third year of specialisation. At the end of the third year, we have a four-month of corporate internship in the area of English choice.

We want the student to spend four months in the company and based on that experience we ask the student to choose the specialisation for the fourth year. TAPMI also has a career counselling and we have three aspects- Student Development Programme in the first year which looks at the three key skill sets: stress management, time management and team management.

In the second year, we have the Leadership Assessment and Development Centre. However, the focus is on Leadership Assessment and Development Centre, where a student undergoes seven psychometric tests. We have our in-house trained faculty who guide the students on what are their weak spots, spots which they have to develop and strengths. In the third year, we start the career counselling sessions in which we engage career counsellors to engage with the students and guide them throughout it. In the fourth year, we look at a professional development programme aimed at ensuring that students are completely ready to face corporate interviews and careers.

Q. Technology today plays a massive role in our lives. Hence its important that every course incorporates a good blend of technology with the industry needs. In this context, how has TAPMI designed the curriculum such that the learnings serve beyond?

Ans: We are a bschool with three labs in place and a fourth lab being set up. We have Analytics Lab, Financial Research Lab, Supply Chain Lab and all these labs are tech-oriented. TAPMI Bangalore’s flagship has a flagship MBA programme. TAPMI Bangalore MBA programme is MBA in Technology Management.

More about: TAPMI Bengaluru Facilities

Q. Give details of scholarships that students can apply for with the eligibility.

Ans: Yes, T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) has 10% of the cohort gets 20% of the scholarship. However, the scholarships are not at the entry-level. The top 10% as per the CGPA of the year get scholarships in the form of fury fund. Every year, one has to be in the top 10% and it's a merit scholarship.

Q. Internships and placements are some factors that are primary for a student’s choice of course and college. Can you throw some details on what students can expect with the BBA Hons and IPM programmes?

Ans: T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) has a full-fledged Career Placement and Corporate Engagement Cell and student team which engages with companies for placements. TAPMI Manipal has now engaged with 400 companies for placements, internships and final placements.

Students have three to four career paths at TAPMI. One is a corporate career path and the second one is research career path. After four years of honours, students can directly do a PhD. Anyone at the end of three years who wants to pursue a PhD gets attached to a full-time faculty member at TAPMI for the fourth year. They spend a whole year understanding research methods, processes and working on a research paper and publishing it. At the end of the fourth year, they are getting honours through research and it’s the faculty’s responsibility to connect through their network to foreign universities to ensure that the student gets placed for PhD at a foreign university.

TAPMI has a third track on entrepreneurship. TAPMI has a very vibrant e-cell on campus for the one who completes the three years and wants to pursue entrepreneurship. In the first three years, we just want the students to spend time finalising the e-cell idea and bringing it to shape.

TAPMI has an institution called MILES (Manipal Centre for Innovation Leadership and Entrepreneurship) managed by Mr Raghu Kawale a strong industry professional with 25 years of work experience in Infosys as in their Entrepreneurship Department. Raghu and his team will evaluate these ideas and if the idea is great then the student will move to MILES for the fourth year and will work with them in strengthening their ideas. At the end of the fourth year, if the idea is good MAHE has a Manipal Univeristies Technology and Bioincubator (MUTBI) which will help the student present the complete business plan that he worked on. If MUTBI likes the plan and thinks that it has depth, they will give the student the reasons for rejection and selection. If they select the idea, they will fund the idea and the student can continue his entrepreneurship journey. TAPMI has study aboard in which we have MOU with Deakin University and Southampton University where a student who gets an 8 CGPA and above in our programme will get direct admission to MBA at Deakin University and an MS at Southampton University in their specialisation areas.

Q. Any message or advice to students?

Ans: I have three suggestions for the students, one is don’t choose a degree programme because it's easy or difficult as it should have your interest. Secondly, if you are going to choose a school look at the opportunities that the school is providing as it's the best way of evaluating. The third thing is, that these 3-4 years are the most important part of life, they are formative years so engage in all possible and proper activities that the school provides because this is going to shape your career.

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About the Interviewee

Dr. Aditya Mohan Jadhav, Dean, at TAPMI Bengaluru. Dr. Aditya Mohan Jadhav has a doctorate in finance from ICFAI University. Currently, Prof of Finance at TAPMI, Dr Aditya Mohan comes with more than 12 years of teaching experience.

Dr. Aditya’s areas of expertise include Financial Planning & Advising, Business Valuation, Corporate Finance, Project Finance, Investment Banking, Corporate Strategy and Corporate Governance. He has published around 10 papers in reputed ABDC journals and has presented his research work in more than 15 conferences.

He also runs training programmes in the area of Project Appraisal, Finance, Social Cost Benefit Analysis, etc for middle-level managers from Indian Railways, Intelligroup Ltd., Hyderabad, Progress Software, Hyderabad, ICICI Bank, National Stock Exchange, etc. In addition, he also reviews for Economic and Political Weekly and Tata McGraw Hill Ltd.