LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

# 121 by Trekker

``Faculty turnover at LUMS has been..``

Point being ? As you yourself mentioned, that`s more to do with LUMS being in Lahore (ideal place for a college) and GIK in Swabi.

NUST is actually significantly cheaper than LUMS. Check their site out if you don`t agree with me. AKU is comparable but you get a much better education there AND medical degrees seem to be more expensive than others around the world. GIK I agree is also on the pricey side, though the fee informatin I found included room and board. And then there`s NED, UET and IBA, all of which I assume are less expensive.

Dr. Azhar was from UPenn etc. ? I`ll take your word for it. But what I said still holds. Not many people who`re that qualified in Pakistan.

``No-one was comparing lums to international unis....no-one said it was better or comparable to harvard - a figment of your imagination. ``

Scarcely a figment of my imagination. I talked about the HEC and I distinctly remember more than one person at the conferences held by them saying things to that tune. And then on this forum there`s all this talk about student-computer ratios, edging out CMU at some competition etc. In any case, I`m glab you have enough sense not to believe such baseless claims and I hope you`ll also manage to get the fact through to your board of governors and deans.

``lums students are good enough to get admitted to grad programs in the US ``

Why does everyone make it sound as if LUMS grads are being snared by the dozen by excellent schools in the US. Conceded that a small number of people make it, but what does that mean ? As I`ve mentioned before, MORE people get in from NED and UET. And IBA sends a ton of people abroad too.

``its odd that i have met many more lums ppl where I am working (and none from iba). ``

Now what can I say to that. They`re out there. If you haven`t met them, I can`t understand how you use that notion to claim that LUMS is better than IBA. Most illogical.

``In any case, relax, i`m sure IBA is great and u shldn`t need validation from a lums person, for that. ``

IBA is great ? I never said that. My sole point of contention is that LUMS and IBA are pretty mediocre and not that far apart (though my personal vote would be for IBA). I`m not in need of any kind of validation either. Let me assure you that I have nothing to do with IBA, nor for that matter LUMS. In case you didn`t read it, I obtained my degree abroad (so please don`t think I`m some kind of embittered LUMS-rejectee). Also, if you`ll read some of my earlier posts, you`ll notice that I talked about places like NED and UET as well. I`ve heard people comparing the LUMS Bsc. to the IBA CS degree and I`d like to hear what you have to say about the LUMS Bsc being ``way,way`` better than the NED and UET degrees.

ZahraJ #113

I do not think if a university`s name contains ``managment`` it should just teach business. Massachussetts Institute of TECHNOLOGY has one of the best MBA programs in the world ... (note: I`m not comparing LUMS to MIT but just pointing out that the name of an institute does not necessarily have to be the limiting factor for the programs it teaches). In any case, ``Management Science`` typically refers to Operations Research which is a very small part of an MBA curriculum.

dost-mittar sahib:

at the risk of causing harm to my standing with stuka and tahmed sahib, i have to say i agree with you on high salaries. however given the hold conservatives have on anglo-saxon societies w.r.t business policies, i don’t see a law like the one you are suggesting being passed anytime soon. w.r.t salary scale in pak, i think you will see this disparity persist for a quite a while. reasons being that in pak, durbaans can be found dime-a-dozen while skilled financial service executives are rare commodities. secondly, there is a social stigma associated with you if you work for a local company (not without reason) and local companies therefore have to pay a premium to hire foreign educated pakis or pakis with who are graduate of elite local universities.

i also have to say that i don’t begrudge high salaries either because in general, hiring of good managers in large public and pvt sector organizations causes benefit to the whole society. politicians after they nationalized our corporations staffed these organizations with their cronies i.e. buffoons and scoundrels who pretty much sucked all the vitality out of these organization. k.e.s.c which is karachi’s local utility has line losses of 40% which is highest in the world. it also has the highest number of employee per unit of energy generated. as a result, any industrial unit of any consequence in karachi has it own power generation unit which is not linked to the national grid. similarly pia which is our national airline has 17,000 employees for about 50 planes!. in comparison. american airlines has about 100,000 for 1,100 planes.

Hassan Shah

No-one was comparing lums to international unis....no-one said it was better or comparable to harvard - a figment of your imagination.

The discussion was on whether lums is the best place in pakistan - who said anything abt int standards. At least i didn`t. My point was that lums students are good enough to get admitted to grad programs in the US - after a 3 yrs undergrad (and no way is it connections - puhleeze) , rather than the 4 yr stipulated requirement (Anyway now most lums grad - finish in 4 yrs as well).

IBA grads are hard to find ? Maybe it`s the snooty behaviour Sobia was talking about >>earlier. I`ve seen them everywhere ranging from the business news on the telly to the >>KASB Morning Shout (if JacobianMatrix is to be believed, there`s at least one at MIT as >>well). They also do manage to get jobs at some very decent places in the US... >>McKinsey etc. I don`t know why you haven`t ever seen any.

It was simply an observation and nothing to do with `snooty behaviour` - i`m sure there are plenty in Pakistan. I was just talking abt the US- that since u refer to mckinsey and other places, its odd that i have met many more lums ppl where I am working (and none from iba). I guess it is just a coincidence, none at my school and none here either.

In any case, relax, i`m sure IBA is great and u shldn`t need validation from a lums person, for that.

Hassan I guess you missed this:

HassanShah #105

Look Hassan, I never belittled GIKI or UET or NED. I have friends and cousins who`ve graduated from there and are doing very well. But you have to accept the fact that the faculty turnover at LUMS has been MUCH LESS than say at GIKI. Ex-Gikians like MZB #67 can testify how hard it is to retain senior faculty in Swabi. Even his friend who did his Bachelor`s from GIKI joined LUMS after doing his Ph.D. and not GIKI.

And if you still maintain that LUMS is ``raking in the money``, do you say the same re GIKI and AKU and NUST etc whose fee structures are similar to LUMS?

p.s. Dr Azhar did his Ph.D. from UPenn and Dr Aslam from UIUC. And we could not get Dr Bokhari from UET but we did get his #2 Dr Ashraf Iqbal :-)

#115 by HisExcellency

``every institution that expands its student population and course structure goes through a phase during which facilities get overburdened ``

Another sweeping generalization. I`d say it holds true for institutions that expand thoughtlessly without realistically evaluating the resources available to them. Already someone pointed out that LUMS is facing the problem that there`s not enough competition amongst the students. By admitting more people, I don`t think the situation is going to get any better. Nor, for that matter, is the faculty going to improve simply by being virute of being larger.

``Most undergrad programs don`t get recognized by U.S. Graduate schools for 5-10 years.``

Well, yeah, it helps if the people who run LUMS are rich industrialists and have connections at places like Harvard. They could set up anything and get it accredited (incidentally, I heard that IBA was affiliated with UPenn when it started -- I guess LUMS is not the only place that has declined over the years). I think calling the graduates from LUMS ``exceptional`` is pushing things a bit. Maybe it holds true compared to Pakistani universities at large (and by large I mean compared to all the universities that exist in Pakistan including those in rural areas of Sindh, Punjab etc.), but scarcely by international standards (there`s a marked gap between LUMS and the top schools around). So I`m not sure how ``exceptional`` an education at LUMS really is.

MIT has a 5.0 GPA scale. Interesting, but I don`t see the point you`re trying to make.

``Marginal decrease`` of quality ? If only that were true...

Applications at LUMS have doubled ? Again, you seem to be implying that something that`s popular is necessarily good. That`s not always the case. I think LUMS has done a great job advertising itself and the increase in applications is due to that. And just as you mentioned people go to IBA if they`re rejected by LUMS (which is not really true) I might venture the claim -- based on anecdotal evidence -- that quite a few go to LUMS so that they can be away from home and and make the most of the active party scene there.

Kgs students.: as you mentioned yourself, its the kgs students who`ve done their a`levels from there - not their o`levels - big diff, I`m talking abt pure grammarians.

what`s all this talk of grammarians being `pure`? As opposed to what, adulterated???

Unfortunately, be it grammar or lums, the elitist, snooty attitude exists at some level at all such institutions. They`re drilled with the notion that they`re better than everyone else (and I say this from personal experience). Comparing the attitude of HBS students to those of LUMS is a bit silly and pointless - neither has to take the concept of school pride to the level where they start thinking everyone else is inferior. Just because you are/were in LUMS doesn`t mean you should be blind to its faults and defend it needlessly. Sure, you can have school pride, you can say, hey, I received quality education from this institution so I`m grateful to those who made it possible. It`s another thing all together to take a needless stand on issues that Bilal has raised, which seem very credible and noteoworthy.

Now, I know you`re probably muttering to yourself that everyone here who is speaking out against LUMS has it in for the institution because they were somehow rejected by LUMS at some point; to take that away from you, let me reiterate that I never applied to LUMS nor did I ever want to (not because I don`t think it`s a good school as I have said again and again, but because i didnt want to do CS, SS or Econ) and I have nothing personal against anyone who does attend or manage the school. I have family members who have attended the insitution and have come out unscathed (will wonders never cease!). So, chill out on the attitude, take positive steps to improve what you lack, and for God`s sake, stop comparing yourselves to American universities....first aim for being the best in Asia (#23 ain`t good enough, when there aren`t very many unis in Asia worthy of being ranked as good according to international standards) and then go up from there.

faisaluno#109
`and you are not really arguing for the return of bad old days of z.a.b and indira gandhi are you?``

No, I am not. But I think that the labour markets are grossly distorted (even in North America!) when a bank mangaer gets 1000 times the wages of the bank durbaan. Do you really believe that the manger who negotiates a Rs 100 crore loan with a client on a golf course or a cocktail party is worth 1000 times more than the darbaan who stands in the sun all day long with a rifle on his shoulder? If a robber gets into the bank unnoticed, the poor durbaan would probably lose his job, what happens to your million rupee manager if the 100-crore rupee loan he approved ends up in default?
I think any Democrat or Republican candidate who promises to legislate a maximum ratio of 100 to 1 between the renumerations paid to the highest versus the lowest paid employee in a corporation will wil a majority of votes from both workers and shareholders. Unfortunately, raising campaign funding would ensure that such a candidate will never win the nomination of either political party.


Subroto#112:
They are talking of a salary of Rs 12 lakhs per month, not per year.

114 by HassanShah

++
I`m just put off by these constant vibes given out by people at all levels associated with the university that they`re quite satisfied with the way things are.
++

That`s because you are stuck in a rut and are not trying to understand that every institution that expands its student population and course structure goes through a phase during which facilities get overburdened (i.e. shortage of space) or resource stretch thin (e.g. shortage of renowned undergrad faculty).

This has happened to the best of universities, even in the U.S. When LUMS started its BSc (Hons) programme in Economics and Computer Science back in 1994, there were many problems.

First the GPA scale was 4.3, not 4.0. Everybody was getting high grades because they were using the bell curve only. As a result, there was no equivalence between U.S. score cards and LUMS score cards. So after a year, they revised the grading scheme and based it on a 4.0 scale. (Incidentally, MIT still has a 5.0 GPA scale).

However, despite these ``teething problems``, the quality of graduates produced by LUMS has been exceptional. Most undergrad programs don`t get recognized by U.S. Graduate schools for 5-10 years. But LUMS undergrad program was accepted within 2 years!! The job & foreign university acceptance rate for LUMS MBAs, BCS and BBAs has been 100% from 1994 till 2000. No exceptions. The only hiccups came in 2000 and 2001 because of downturn. But this only delayed the acceptance beyond 6 months, it didn`t result in unemployment or refusal of admission.

Moral of the story: Despite the marginal decrease in quality during this expansionary phase, the U.S. graduate schools and Pakistani job market has not changed its high opinion of LUMS.

Despite the space problem and high student/teacher ratio, people are still flocking to LUMS. Applications have doubled. Admit it, LUMS still remains the 1st choice for MBA and BCS/BBA aspirants. Those who are rejected (or need to stay in Karachi due to personal reasons), apply to IBA as their consolation.

An Interesting Article. I think LUMS as a Management School should have continued its focus on Management Sciences vs. focusing on compter sciences and technology related programs. As a rule of thumb, no private school should be allowed to introduce science, technology and engineering programs. The existing ones UET and NED should be upgraded and the faculty should get better benefits. At least a decade ago, half of the LUMS class was full of UETians & KCiites. And, the faculty included quite a few UETians with higher degrees from the US. Even Dr. Wasim Azhar is an EE graduate from UET, LHR. Also taught at UET Lahore in 70s. Pursued higher studies in the US and is currently teaching at Stanford(Last I heard).

Someone made a point on arrogance of LUMS grads. Having a few cousins and friends apart from my sister and brother-in law who attended LUMS, I would say that it all depends on the individual. Also, those who graduate from a Pakistani Institution will always have a better chance to adjust to the surroundings as well as the business environment. The ones who study abroad and take the next flight home may get a rude awakening. And the ones who spend significant amount of time away, can be a complete misfit, if they have not kept themselves abreast with the latest and greatest in the Pakistani Business Environment.

Last but not least, I am not sure if articles of this kind would do much good to the society by being on Chowk. They should be in the local newspapers raising flags, but that`s just my take.

Thank you for sharing your gilaa`o`shikwa`h.

#111 by zird

``they`re taking more students and the faculty is possibly not as great as it was when the undergrad started.``

Thank you ! That`s precisely what I`ve been saying for some time now. There has definitely been a decline at LUMS and the way I see things, the administration has been responsible for both the factors you mentioned (though perhaps to different extents). To set the record straight, I have nothing against LUMS. I think the more universities we can have in Pakistan, the better. I`m just put off by these constant vibes given out by people at all levels associated with the university that they`re quite satisfied with the way things are. The debate of whether it is the best institution in Pakistan or not aside (we`re not going to make much headway there it seems), LUMS is still well short of any decent university abroad. Most of the other colleges in Pakistan are in touch with reality and are at least making some kind of an attempt to improve things. LUMS is not. It`s a classic case of seeing yourself as something you aren`t.

What`s even more annoying is the belief that all of Pakistan`s problems can be solved by force-fitting every university around to follow the LUMS model. Some of the reports and statements by the Higher Education Committee insist upon that fact (of course it`s interesting to note the composition of that committee) and personally, I don`t think there`s much truth in the belief that LUMs is the panacea to all ails.

I still don`t know how you can claim that the LUMS undergraduate economics program is better than the IBA BBA. I agree a well-rounded education is always desirable, but by your standards any liberal arts college is better than Stanford and MIT. There`s more to college education than the breadth of the curriculum. Not to mention student to computer ratios.

I haven`t heard much about the IBA CS program but it`s pretty new and I could use the same argument that you yourself mentioned about it being too early to tell. In any case, I`ve been talking more about the business programs at both places. Incidentally, the VP I was talking about did not graduate from IBA a zillion decades ago. The person in question graduated in the mid-nineties. Now surely LUMS has been around since then...

IBA grads are hard to find ? Maybe it`s the snooty behaviour Sobia was talking about earlier. I`ve seen them everywhere ranging from the business news on the telly to the KASB Morning Shout (if JacobianMatrix is to be believed, there`s at least one at MIT as well). They also do manage to get jobs at some very decent places in the US... McKinsey etc. I don`t know why you haven`t ever seen any.

Big difference between ``pure`` and other Grammarians ? I won`t profess to be an authority, but if you`ve been at a place for at least two years, you`re bound to pick up a thing or two.

You`re spot on about culture changing everywhere in Pakistan. Not sure it`s necessarily for the better, but that`s a separate topic altogether.

dost-mittar sahib:

it is never enough. and you are not really arguing for the return of bad old days of z.a.b and indira gandhi are you?

Bottomline is LUMS sucks so does IBA. After redaing all these comments seems like half the luminites or IBA people are in inferior complex while other half is in superior complex. I am completely disappointed to see our Pakistani people classifying themselves. Please please do not divide yourself into lums vs IBA,rich vs poor, english medium vs urdu medium. Its all bullshit crap infused by illiterate parents of these people and same tone being adopted by our students.
Well I have strong links with Pakistan while my education is partially from England and partially from USA.

I have met and know about 800-1200 Indian students coming to USA.Well I never noticed these Indians saying anything like that. In most cases these people come from South undeveloped India. Most of them went to Indian Institutes of Technology with not many facilities.And even in USA most of them are going to average class universities once they get good results they try to transfer up.

In India its the average middle class which is making the difference, its time we should encourage all our growing students bodies to come forward. No to class race! Our students should diversify their carriers and their should be more and mor emeans of interactions between students and professionals.

#105 by HassanShah

It`s not that there isn`t any competition, it`s just that the people at LUMS are too content >>to wallow in self-admiration to realise that places without the frills can be worth >>anything. IBA could be compared to DOW and LUMS to AKU, but you don`t see AKU >>making bloated claims of not having competition and then reviling in mediocrity.

I mentioned `lack of competition` to explain the decline in quality of education or resources at LUMS - i.e. they`re taking more students and the faculty is possibly not as great as it was when the undergrad started. Obviously if u don`t have competition, u`re likely to `wallow in self-admiration` as u put it (its simple economics - inefficiency, weaker performance etc etc - competition is always good for incentives). As for wallowing in self-admiration - i`m talking abt the lums undergrad - compared to the bba at iba, it offers a larger breadth of courses and more choices - so even if we do, its cuz it is a better program. IBA has a bachelors in computer science, how come i haven`t heard of many of `em at MS ?
Its a bit odd because i have yet to meet or hear of an iba undergrad at any of the schools that me or my friends are (were) at (in social sciences) and they`re all pretty decent places. Oh and just one more statistic - at my work - i`ve already met 7 ppl from lums - two were visiting faculty and the other 5 were students there - i have yet to meet someone from iba (from my age group) - there may be some 30-40 yr olds there..but that`s from the time when iba was really good.

Kgs students.: as you mentioned yourself, its the kgs students who`ve done their a`levels from there - not their o`levels - big diff, I`m talking abt pure grammarians. I only knew 2 in my class of over a 100 students. The numbers may have changed now, but not by a lot.

the culture at LUMS scarcely seems very different from what I hear things are like at >>KGS.

we`re not talking abt the culture at lums..i thought it was abt the education and students being snotty....but while we`re on the subject, the culture is changing everywhere in pakistan and thats a completely sep debate.

You mentioned all the vp`s from iba at i-banks in ny and lums grads looking for jobs. IBA has been around for much longer, lums started churning out its first mba class in 88, so it wld on avg take a lums grad longer to research that position in any case. These IBA grads u`re talking abt are likely to be much older - times are changing now and a lot more ppl would prefer to attend LUMS...so if u haven`t already seen a change, u will see one soon.

RE # 99 Dost Mittar ``My blood is boiling and I am not even a Pakistani. Blood-sucking ba$tards! ``
Ooops! Did you read about this : ``When Saurabh Singh, 23, a chartered accountant from Calcutta, enrolled into the Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) two years ago for his masters in business administration or MBA, he never thought that he would land a 100,000-pound-per-annum job in Britain. (1 pound = Rs 68.39). Most of Singh`s classmates did not fare badly either. The average salary the Batch of 2000 picked up was as high as Rs 1 million per annum`` to read more http://www.rediff.com/business/2000/mar/15iim.htm

And this was 3 years back.
In 2001 it was ``Consider this: Average annual salary for IIM graduates in India this year: Rs 710,000-Rs 760,000.
Average annual salary for IIM graduates placed abroad this year: $74,000-$120,000 (Rs 3.44 million-Rs 5.58 million). `` http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/mar/09spec.htm

Also ``Pay hikes in India have been among the best in the Asia-Pacific region in the last three years as these have risen by an average 9.3 per cent a year since 2001-02, according to figures compiled by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
As per the data compiled, while India Inc gave salary hikes of 10 per cent in 2001-02 and 2002-03, the rise is estimated to be 8 per cent for 2003-04. This is substantially higher than the average annual hikes of 4.13 per cent in Australia, 2.53 per cent in Hong Kong, 2.6 per cent in Japan, 3.43 per cent in Singapore, 8.23 per cent in China and 6.06 per cent in Thailand in the period. ``