LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

faisaluno/tahmad: It is interesting to see all these high private sector salaries in Pakistan. I guess it is a good sign, as long as the individuals have the talent to match the salaries.

I am all for high salaries. One excellent employee in IT is worth five to ten mediocre ones, has been my experience. I have always wondered what the highest paying jobs are in Pakistan:

- Uptil a few years ago, I thought being a PIA pilot was the easily the best job in Pakistan. I have quite a few friends who are pilots in PIA now. They should be getting ready to become Captains, soon (if they already aren`t Captains). Most of them flunked out of the miltary, as cadets, and then joined PIA. Now they make five to ten times there military colleagues` salary. I think, not sure, a PIA Captain, depending on seniority, makes between 1 to 2 lakh +, if not more. They get the best benefits in Pakistan, and only work half a month. They have one of the most powerful unions in the country. In addition it is an easy job, and only requires a high school degree, with one year of private pilot`s qualification. However, one either needs to be the son of a PIA pilot or know the Prime Minister to get in. NHK could give us the details.

- Some of the other jobs, seem to be paying more now. A LUMS entry level professor makes 1 lakh. While the senior professors to Deans make between 2 to 5 lakhs. I assume the VC makes 6 to 8 lakhs. And they all get good benefits. Not bad. Teaching is an easy job, but one has to do a Ph.D, which can be difficult and time consuming.

- IT country heads for big multinational IT firms in Pakistan make between 5 to 8 lakhs, and get a lot of benefits.

- Senior IT engineers returning to Pakistan can make around 1 -2 lakh/month.

- But the bank heads` salary of 12 lakh/month sounds phenomenol. I don`t know how anyone could spend that much money per month, in Pakistan.

I wonder how much the Pakistani heads of companies like ICI, Coca Cola, PTC etc. make?

When I see all these salaries, I always wonder why people in Pakistan complain about the govt. sector employees taking all there money.

tahmed#102
I am sure you have heard of the concept of purchasing power parity. I would be surprised if a US dollar is more than 10-15 rupees in terms of purchasing power. And if the perks in Pakistan are anything like they are in India, I wont be surprised if the value of those perks alone exceeds the salary of many mid-level executives in North America (think of a large furnished house plus chauffer plus servants plus gardner plus plus...).

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 :-)

#101 by Trekker

Lets see now, Dr. Azhar was from Stanford, Dr. Aslam was from MIT and Dr. Shah, if memory serves me correctly, was from Yale. Even if we assume that these are the only people who`ve left LUMS, I still think that`s a great loss. There aren`t many people from places like that in Pakistan and you can`t let go of them. UET has Dr. Bokhari, a very accomplished gentleman, and they`ve held onto him over the years. Places like IBA and FAST have also recently added MIT graduates to their faculty for CS. LUMS on the other hand, seems to have been losing some of the most accomplished people in its faculty.

In any case, I don`t want to get drawn into naming any specific individuals, but I think some of the people who left LUMS, did so under dubious circumstances. From what I`ve heard, there was a fair degree of controversy when a couple of the professors you mentioned had to leave. I`m sure you must have heard something or the other to that effect too.

LUMS doesn`t rake in money ? Please. That doesn`t even deserve to be dignified with a response. Suffices to say that LUMS makes more than enough from programs other than the executive MBA. Add the funds received in the form of tuition fees etc. to the government grants and generous donations, and you`ll get a better idea of what I mean.

#103 by zird

If you think people from KGS have attitude problems, then I hope you feel the same way about those at LUMS. A large chunk of the student body consists of people who took their A-levels from Grammar and the culture at LUMS scarcely seems very different from what I hear things are like at KGS.

Hilarious I can continute to think IBA is a better institution ? I think I`ve already made my stance clear and I`m afraid I have hardly heard any argument worth dispelling that notion. Saying ad nauseam that people from LUMS get into colleges and organizations abroad, as if those from IBA are left hanging high and dry is utter baloney. There`s no element of truth in that, since from personal experience I know of friends at LUMS who`re struggling to find jobs and people at IBA who`re VPs here in the US and are enrolled in some of the best business schools around. Bottom line, believe it or not, both institutes achieve similar results. I think it`s the context that tells the two apart.

I never said that ``this person`` is not smart enough. In fact, I barely know who ``this person`` is. All I said was that a full time position at a decent school in the US is better than a post-doc for reasons I have made clear; publishing papers on your own work definitely sounds a lot better to me than latching onto what some other professor at MIT is doing.

``How can u compare an undergrad from IBA vis a vis lums. The program at lums is way way better.``

Repeating something does not make it true. The above is a massively unqualified statement... I mean, how do you justify the ``way, way`` better remark ? I am still to see any evidence that supports such a wholly preposterous claim. This is what I don`t understand. Wake up and smell the roses. LUMS is one of several institutions in Pakistan. It`s not, sadly, in a league of its own. IBA, UET, NED, GIK etc. all perform at par, if not better, than LUMS. 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.

#95 Jacobian Matrix

Yeah ok sorry for inserting MIT there, but that person at least is there. No idea abt what lies or how many ppl this person had to sleep with to get the post-doc (which is what everyone seems to be implying - that lums ppl can only get anywhere in life through connections) btw i`m a lums alumnus and i don`t think I had to sell my soul to get where i am.

Sobia - while we`re talking abt attitude..what wld u say abt ppl from kgs?

#94/96 Hassan Shah

Actually its rather hilarious that u can continue to insist that IBA is a better institution than LUMS. It used to be great, but at least in the 90`s, LUMS edged it out. I don`t think any argument can convince you of that - so why bother?

Post-Doc: Yes i agree with you that if u want to be in academia, then obviously your eventually goal is to get a faculty position - but a post-doc can be a stepping stone to that route. So the fact that this person at mit is only doing a post-doc and did not get a position in the faculty, does not in any way imply that this person is not smart enough.

As you said: networking is very important everywhere. Coming from a PhD program from the UK, it is v. v. difficult to obtain a position in the US (your supervisor needs to put a v. v. good word for u and obviously faculty within the US have stronger ties). So I think the fact that this person is at MIT (learning) and does come back to LUMS for a quarter is worth sthg too.

As for the decline in quality - I agree, lums has deteriorated, and thats cuz of a lack of competition. How can u compare an undergrad from IBA vis a vis lums. The program at lums is way way better. Aku`s social science decision is likely to provide more competition, and will go a long way in strengthening lums programs too.

LUMS is no Cambridge, and IBA is no Oxford (I hope there`s not much debating this >>fact). I think the comparison has little truth in it.

The comparison was basically to show that these are the two best institutions in UK and lums and iba may be the best in pakistan (the bus school at least, can`t think of any others).

Finally - as long as you agree that cam is better than oxford..i`m not debating anything
here !

HassanShan #96

Whoa ... you make two sweeping statements which are not true:

1. Over the years however, largely due to the personal biases of those running the place, they`ve lost the bulk of these people

This is incorrect. It is the other way around -- the bulk of the MBA faculty which were there in 1986 are still around (including the currect Pro-VC Dr. Zahoor). The ones who have left (that I can recall off the top of my head) are Dr Salman Shah who left in `92/`93 and more recently the departure of Dr. Wasim Azhar as the previous Pro-VC (he was the Dean and later Pro-VC for about 10 yrs).
On the BSc side those who have left for personal reasons include Dr Sohail Aslam (working at Techlogix) and a couple of the Econ faculty. Some of the teachers who have left DO remain on the Visiting faculty and teach one quarter course or so per year.
A great loss on the Visiting Faculty side in the Social Sciences area was Khaled Ahmed (of The Friday Times) who taught Composition and Writing to the first two BSc(H) classes.

2. Of course no one pays heed to this since the institute is raking in more money.

Nothing could be further from the truth. One can easily calculate that the fees for MBA and BSc programs only partially cover the cost per student that the university incurs (ever heard of the ``self-finance`` scheme that UET had? - those fees were the same as LUMS`. i.e. UET is heavily subsidized by the gov of PK and I`m guessing IITs are subsidized also?). Please note that I am talking about the fees paid by Pakistani nationals -- I do not know what the structure is for foreign nationals.

The fact is that the ONLY program that LUMS makes a ``profit`` on is the Executive program run by the Rausing Executire Center (http://www.lums.edu.pk/executive_programmes.htm) which are attended by working professionals and the fees are usually paid by their companies. HBS/Sloan/etc have similar programs aimed at the industry with exhorbitant fees (e.g. http://mitsloan.mit.edu/execed/epp/courses/innov-org.php )

Without the sponsors (http://www.lums.edu.pk/lums_sponsers.htm), the current fee structure, financial aid program and expansion programs (faculty, buildings, more hostels, PCs, etc) would simply not be sustainable. So to say that the University is simply ``raking in money`` without anything to show for it is an unfair statement, to say the least.

dost mittar #99 UBL has assets of over $3 billion. For senior officials to draw salaries of $200,000 (which is roughly what Rs. 1000,000 per month converts to, per my excel sheet) plus some perks is not unreasonable by any means. They could easily find jobs in other banks (pakistani or nonpakistani) at similar salaries.

What makes MY blood boil is that ZA Bhutto singlehandedly killed what was a dynamic Banking sector in Pakistan back in the 1970`s by nationalizing these banks.

dost mittar #99 In my note below, the $200,000 is the annualized salary.

faisaluno#88
``(rumor has it that top level executives at ubl -such as head of consumer banking- are getting paid in the range of Rs. 1-1.2 mn per month + benefits such as a house and car).``

My blood is boiling and I am not even a Pakistani. Blood-sucking ba$tards!

#87 by zird

``but it has developed a better rep relative to IBA``

I`m not sure I agree. Depends on how you define reputation. Students from both places are accepted to universities abroad and manage to find jobs. Research is close to nothing at both institutes. I`m sure you`ll beg to differ, but I think their performance is pretty comparable.

``you implied that iba grads are superior to lums grads, i don`t understand how you reached the conclusion``

Simple really. You have two places, one with significantly more resources than the other, which charges several orders of magnitude more, and where the students, by virtue of being amongst the richest in the country automatically have the edge as far as getting jobs etc. goes. Still, they`re roughly at par with each other. Sounds like a pretty straightforward conclusion to me.

``its like comparing oxford and cambridge, they`re all great institutions, but one of them has better facilities and more money.``

LUMS is no Cambridge, and IBA is no Oxford (I hope there`s not much debating this fact). I think the comparison has little truth in it.

Coming now to the bit about being a post-doc, I agree. It is an achievement and I never denied that. In fact, I`m not sure where you managed to get the idea that I think it`s embarassing. Far from it. The point that seems to have eluded you completely was that I don`t think it`s inferior to a full time professorship at a decent university (as was claimed earlier by someone). That was the topic of my post and if you go back and read it, I hope it shall be clearer now. I`ve been heavily involved in many research efforts and have a pretty good understanding of how things work out at some of the best places in the US. Post-docs don`t always have the flexibility to choose what they do. Professors do. I know a lot of very capable people with zillions of IEEE publications who chose being a full professor at places like the UCs over being a post-doc and I think their decisions were pretty intelligent.

zird

so lums grads do too : harvard, mit, yale, stanford, nw

not mit from what i know. only luminite there is this guy whos been creating the false impression that hes a prof. from wwat i hear he didnt manage to get in for his bachelors, masters or even phd to mit after applying several times. tried for a faculty pos but didnt get that either so now he goes around making tall claims. no one in the business prog too. know someone from iba there though and there is almost one person each year from uet or ned. dont know about other places but i thing whats going on is that lums hypes things up a lot. like that ad about their famous `prof` at mit.

#92 by Sobia

``that in the end, it is just a local university, as opposed to bigger, better schools abroad``

Touche !

Now if only they`d accept that, it would be a first step towards improving the status quo. Unfortunately, I believe that the people at LUMS are quite content with the way things are and I think it wouldn`t be incorrect to say that they suffer from recurring bouts of megalomania (perhaps the `head up high in the air` phenomenon affects those at all levels). I also agree with your earlier post about things being on a downslide. I think there`s far too much complacency to notice that though. When LUMS started out, they had a fairly decent faculty. Over the years however, largely due to the personal biases of those running the place, they`ve lost the bulk of these people. If you think about it, while FAST, IBA, UET have actually improved (though only marginally) in previous years, LUMS has been racing in the other direction. Of course no one pays heed to this since the institute is raking in more money.

Sobia #92

I do not know what gave you the idea that the faculty at LUMS is snooty -- I AM a LUMS alumnus and I can safely say I found the faculty for the most part to be thouroughly down-to-earth, approachable and professional (and not all the original faculty has left LUMS). I do NOT think that the faculty is resting on their (or for that matter LUMS`) laurels -- they know better than that. Now let me repeat -- I said for MOST part meaning the majority of the faculty. There are always people in all places whom one could call snooty be it LUMS or IIT or UET.

#92 by Sobia

Of course I wldn`t know how snooty the faculty is, cuz even if they were i don`t think they wld be like that in front of their `own` students. Even if we go by your `thesis` that lums ppl have an attitude and never ending nakhras:

every place has that - I know ppl who say the same thing abt many HBS students - that they also have an attitude problem (I saw a doc on bbc once, harvard, mit and bu students and harvard students def had an attitude prob or the ones interviewed for the documentary - they said : of course we`re better than everyone else, but obviously that does not mean that every student from harvard is like that). Someone wld say the same thing abt St. Stephens too - I`ve heard ppl from other schools in delhi complain abt st. stephens. So that is natural - so i don`t think any of what u`ve said is `earth shattering`. So chill out..its sthg thats existed since time immemorial and in every country / city...its not sthg pakistan or lums specific.


In any case, i`ve heard this never ending nakhras abt lums mbas rather than the bsc`s. Maybe u just haven`t met a group thats representative of the sample.

virtue #89: ``I`m looking for a workterm position from the Jan to April 2004, I can send u my resume and let`s see if you have something for me.``

I would be more than happy to. I don`t hire myself. I hire for companies who hire me to hire for them. You can email me at romair66@hotmail.com.

However keep in mind the following, about the Canadian IT market, which I am just starting to figure out:

1. At the entry level, there is intense competition. If you have less than two to three years experience, you will have to have an uncle as the CEO to get a job. Or be an Ivy League grad. Or be a genuis. Even McGill, Waterloo etc. won`t matter, much.

There is a flood of Chinese IT immigrants in Canada (specially Toronto). So there are people with four years of Java experience, willing to work at Pakistani salaries in Canada (seriously speaking). Specially those who can barely speak English, and have just stepped off the boat. There are even people willing to work for free. I recently had a new LUMS grad ask me to hire him, without salary. He was a pretty good entry level developer. I wasn`t even able to get him into the company, as a volunteer employee, because a Chinese guy with more experience agreed to work for free also. So we brought in the Chinese guy.

The best way to get into the entry level market is to directly go for internships, through your university (specially if it is Waterloo), and then get hired. That shouldn`t be too hard. Get into your Co-op programs, and then get into the job, once you graduate. If you wait to first come out of the university and then start throwing your resume around, you will face a lot of delays.

2. The competition remains intense, upto the middle management level.

3. At upper management and Senior Architect levels, the competition drops off completely. All the top Canadian managers, executives, VPs, Senior Architects etc. are in the USA. I have never seen such a shortage of talent. Canadian IT executives (the ones who are in Canada) are quite incompetent, and inexperienced in comparison to Americans. The Chinese immigrants, who are competent, cannot make it these levels, since they have poor language and soft skills. So it basically consists of those Canadians who couldn`t get equivalent jobs in USA.