LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

IQRA UNIVERSITY IS THE WAY TO GO -

Come on...

You're talking about the number one management school in Pakistan.

being realistic NUST is a military university, its true they are prejudiced. IBA is semi-govt, they have that mentality too. LUMS is another extreme, most grads from LUMS simply dont fit in later. what all of these schools are doing is increasing their intake every year. IBA`s BCS is total unnecessary. LUMS` chsool of social sciences and mathematics is a burden on job market. the only motive of these unis is money making. many programs in these institutes have no scope in this country. LUMS is much better than any other uni as fas as image management is concerned. if its not fruitful today, it will surely be in near future. grads from both IBA n LUMS get good jobs. IBA`s BBAs are far better than LUMS` BScs. and even if someone claims its not so, still theres no point in paying 5 to 6 times more money for same result. no doubt LUMS` MBA prog is kickass. as such there is no competition as yet between the two schools. both have difff job markets. an IBA grad`s strongest competitors are his own batch mates. same goes for LUMS.

apparently IBA is not cutting into to LUMS` job market and LUMS is not doing that to IBA either. whoever wants a worthy job gets is. and even if they sometimes do which i say they dont, theyre not the only two players. think of it, the trade marketing dept head in PTC is a Greenwich grad!! their HR executive is an ex-PAF personnel and their HR manager is a ``dumb blonde`` MBA from NUST. Thats PTC - the BAT group multinational!!

so i dont think its wise to compare unis on the basis of how many ppl share a room in hostel, or how many humanitis courses are being taught, or whether things are handled by students or admin and so on. if a big FMCG multinational hires u, its not because your school has made u the best, its because ur employer doesnt have much choice!!

believe me a preston grad with one year experience in a big bank or MNC is better than all the fresh grads of IBA and LUMS. while hiring ur employer knows that u dont know jack and he has to teach u everything. the only reason its YOU and not anyone else is because IBA, LUMS and NUST sound way sweeter than Preston, Hamdard and Bahria!!

oh and by the way i not from any of the schools mentioned above. my analysis is free from all prejudice.

I went to IBA, and then to various universities in the US. I still find IBA at par and even better than most US school. Eat your heart out LUMS.

It is not just fancy equipment that makes a school. IBA`s greatest assets are its students.

Bilal u are 100% right. waise bhi there is not much difference left . when comparing LUMS and LSE, Lahore.. and u all know, where LSE, Lahore. stands..

Basically the only real advantage `universities` like LUMS, IBA, GIK, UET, NED provide to their students is that they are generally more well recognised abroad, an advantage for those who want to study for their masters outside the country, and of course, because of their exclusivity here you can expect more students to get jobs.

Mind you, I still dont think that all the above institutions even classify as proper universities. Almost all the educational institutions in Pakistan are schools- mostly business schools, computing schools, engineering schools, medical schools and a few art schools. Thats it. The only three places (PU, KU and GCL) which offer a broader range of disciplines, including those in the humanities, social sciences and fine arts, follow antiquated courses, their systems being rigid and the campuses underequipped and lacking good staff and administration. It is also surprising that these and the two really good art schools in the country, NCA and IVS, have almost no international recognition, and are incredibly underrated here.

So many of our really talented students really have no choice when it comes to going to university. Its either go to one of the former few top places to do something you don`t want to do, although it most certainly will get you a job or at least a place to do masters from abroad, or end up studying the subject of your choice under the most miserable circumstances and almost no hope of a secure future. Thus it is that so many talented students who wanted to do their bachelors in say, Sociology, or Political Science, or English Lit, or Comms Design are found wasting their time and talent at a myriad of both elite and not so elite `schools`.

We really need to develop and market our few `real` universities, and otherwise expand our horizons in terms of the choices we give our frustrated youth.

well well well...IBA this and IBA that....frankly my friends i am not in the least bit amused by IBA nor its so called ``prestige``..I do recognise and respect that it is a good University but the maturity of the students is a different matter, as can be seen by the patriotic rhetoric without any sound reasoning .LUMS may have its faults but to deny it the recognition and respect that it surely deserves and to reduce it to the level of other Universities is nothing more than a travesty of standards. LUMS has the best MBA degree in all of the country and its market value is very high indeed. I am not just sayin what i please but bare facts; my own sister was a LUMS graduate and she was offered a vocation by Arthur Anderson which is was at that time one of the most reputed organisations known. Her first job in Pakistan was at a STARTING salary of Rs 60,000. I think this ONE example is enough to dispel any apprehentions about sending ones children to this instiution.

Furthermore my first year at LUMS has been remarkable and despite some of the TEMPORARY constraints, i have learned more about my abilites and limits than can possibly be imagined. The faculty is world class with teachers from Harvard, princeton etc. Setting all this aside LUMS has been bold enough to introduce cutting edge law programmes and initiating an engineering department.

Yes the triple occupancy is the situation prevailing at present but that is to be corrected within this year as the new hostel is nearing completion. Also the story of hostelites not having door knobs and basic essentials is pure rubbish as i am from the batch of 2007 and i can account for the fact that we were accorded all the privilages and luxuries that we recieved at home. There is no truth in that particular tale.

I just wanted to clear these matters up as i believe that bashing an institution just for the sake of gaining some cheap points for ones own University is really immature. I hope no one minds this posting but i respect all other Universities but can not stand by to see mine disrespected.

i was a student of mechanical engineering in college of EME, NUST for three semesters and then i left NUST and came to IBA. the biggest problem that NUST had was they treat the civilians like commissioned cadets too, there are restrictions in NUST, yes. the authorities are very rigid. as a hostelite you cant go out of campus after 10pm, and that too with the written permission of company commander. there was prejudice in NUST. once a civilian does something wrong, hes in for it, but incase of a technical cadet, they wont let anyone know what happened, all the fees that theyre collecting from NUSTians theyre spending on teh Cadets, so there was lots of controversy on these issues.
but theres anotehr side to the picture as well, NUST doubtlessly has the better faculty by far than any otehr institute in the country. i dont know whats teh sourse of ijaz_guls statistics of a student teacher ration of 1-80, its totally incorrect. Let me make one thing clear that EME, MCS, MCE etc are not colleges or universities, these are basically military units. the mechanical, solar and electronic labs, the workshops (automobile, woodworking, welding etc) are all superior to labs in any other institute. they have teh highly skilled staff, and believe me they`re making a good use of it. yes, theres this scarf, dupatta culture, but then male to female ratio is something like one to humdred. what else do u expect to happen.
then theres iba. fortunately theres no such restrictions in iba, hostel is free of any authorities, all departments are under students, no study timings, no dress code ect.
There can absolutely be no comparison between NUST and LUMS or IBA, NUST is a military institute, u cant expect it to be like IBA or LUMS, there has to be all those restrictions and thats understandable.
By the way what extraordinary have LUMS graduates and students achieved living in that ``sans restrictions`` environment? IBA offers more professionalism, all departments such as accounts, hostel management, auditing, sports, conferences, publications, etc are under students. IBA has a much better job market than LUMS, not only in Karachi but all over the country. And thats the reason why i chose IBA over LUMS, it`ll take time for LUMS to get anywhere near IBA, ages i believe!

Please refer to # 172
WHAT ABOUT NUST.

i heard this stuff about LUMS from alot of people who study there. It is pretty sad. I hope the administration will make the due changes sooner than later.

I am extremely sorry to disappoint you, but you couldn`t be farther away from the correct interpretation of the text.

By no means, I was comparing LUMS to IBA... and even if I do, I`d rate it much higher than IBA. This is not because of any bias that I have but due to many reasons.

All the other institutions in Pakistan (besides LUMS) treat you like a bunch of kids, imposing restrictions on you like attendacne, campus timings, hostel timings, what to wear, what not to wear. LUMS is the only place where you can seriously experience the diversity and tolerance- diversity especially in terms of intellectual discourse.

LUMS was the ONLY university in Pakistan that has a somewhat respectable Liberal Arts programme, latest addition being the Beaconhouse National University. Although it is nowhere compared to the world standards, but it is a bold initiative anyhow. What this does is that it enriches and broadens your persective, so that you aren`t just another Bachelor who only knows how to administer business or how to work with a computer. In IBA there are just 12 courses in humanities. In LUMS the number is 5 to 6 times the above.

I don`t want to go into the details of the job prospects because a. it bores me; and b. we all know the truths.

Facilities at LUMS are great. And everyone at LUMS used to enjoy the `LUMS experience`.. the article`s basically about the frustration of students over the current steps taken by the LUMS administration.

Hope I`ve made it clear enough.

Bilal

After reading that article about LUMS i must say its really about time!!! Its about time that someone had the guts to uncover the bitter truth that is LUMS! It is about time that some person has had the guts to actually tell us where the annual fees of 3 lacs is being wasted...

I am an IBA student and am from Islamabad. When I came to Karachi people were rather surprised that i had given IBA preference over LUMS. I now end my silence and explain why:

1. LUMS costs 3 lacs annuallly ( which comes to 12 lacs for 4 yrs) and you dont have a guaranteed job when u graduate. When u come out of IBA u have payed 2 lacs for four years and u have a comparitive advantage over LUMS graduates in the industry.

2. IBA has a 46 yr old reputation of producing excellence in the form of academic achievers time and time again.

3. It sets standards of excellence in areas of professionalism, focus and proactiveness in the Pakistani industry.

4. The actual exposure that IBAians get from the industry is undisputably the most in any degree in Pakistan.

5. IBA students are taught to be independent. I am currently in the third semester of my BBA and am Mashallah handling sponsership funds of 30 lacs for an upcoming international investment conference in January.

6. The IBA alumni regularly visit the institute to help graduating batches with jobs and give them a feel for the industry.

7. IBA students are taught not to sell themselves short. I know atleast 5 LUMS grads teaching as school teacher in Alevel colleges in Karachi and as call center operators. Is that what their teaching the kids there? Money , money and more money? Has the pursuit for materialistic goods become so important that students come out with a BSc. Hons in Computer science degree and become school teachers and telephone operators just because they are paying them well? Whatever happened to self respect?

8. I am relieved that i dont have to live in the crazy and expensive enviroment that LUMS personifies. IBA HOSTELITES have single rooms and have a cost effective messing facility with very good food and lodging conditions.

9. Last but not least, LUMS is increasing its batch every year. They actually think that it helps. The criteria to get into IBA is far tougher and only the cream of the academic arena get selected for studies at the IBA.I personally know 15 other friends who appeared both for SAT I, II and the IBA test. They all failed the IBA test. When my batch started three semesters ago we were a batch of 90. We now stand at 70 and are sure that by the time we graduate we will be around 50-60. Who do u think is gonna get the jobs?50 top quality grads or a batch of 400?

Ive given the arguments. You decide!!!

I feel you guys are being too harsh on LUMS. The decision taken to expand fast should also be appreciated. Agreed that facilities should also have been developed at an even faster pace.

Se thee thing in project management is that you have to compromise on at least of the three constraints: quality, time, and money. I guess management is doing the best it can to raise money. Time? Well, about recruiting more people for whom hostel would be constructed next year, imagine this. Majority of those would not have been able to join LUMS at all if this measure was not adopted! Yeah, after one year of relatively bad experience, things would turn out to be better. And its also an limited experience which might rather add to character. So quality, the third constraint, has suffered (temporarily as you say) in aspect of hostel and downloading speed. Well, all hell is not breaking loose.

Regarding student to teacher ratio, I think they`re trying to find new/more quality faculty. But I would not advocate improving the ratio by turning down admission applications.

As far as international rating of LUMS is concerned, its not just quality of education and graduates. The rating agencies also give weightage to number of schools, PHDs graduating, and research, etc. So as far as quality of LUMS graduates is concerned, they are equitable to National University of Singapore & Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Obviously it also depends on person to person. IQ and EQ is not something that a University imparts!

#171 by lalib

Funny you mention that. I met a few people at college (foreigners from other countries) who sat through lectures without understanding the term ``kinetic energy`` till you tried explaining it to them. Then, they`d realise what was going on and substitute some word in their native tongue for it... Seems like what you mention is not a problem solely affecting Pakistan but is pretty common around the world.

I agree with you though. I think it`s time people stopped looking at a move to promote the ability to understand English as some kind of a complexed mindset. The bulk of the present-day knowledge that`s out there is in English and if learning the language is what it takes to acquire this knowledge, so be it. Translating all scientific works to Urdu is great and should be done if it promotes the spread of knowledge, but it just doesn`t scale well enough.

Well I have followed the discussions on LUMS. It is but characteristic of our expediency oriented mentality and ``all is well syndrome`` that very good institutions decay rather than evolve and grow. I have my comments on another national pride, ``The National University of Science and Technology``.

NUST WAS FORMED ON THE NUCLEUS OF MILITARY INSTITUTIONS. Therefore all its colleges bear a remarkable military sociology which cannot be grasped by a civilian called NUSTIAN. Like all military institutions, it is geared to first deeducate and then build a new individual fit to meets its corporate needs. Unfortunately, this proximity to military exclusiveism defeats the NUST objective of higher professional learning AND CREATIVITY.

THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE COLLEGES IS MEDIVIAL IN NATURE. Teacher student relationship is conspicuous by its absence. In any case the average size of the class is eighty students and too difficult to handle. By the time the semester ends, most teachers do not even remember the names of all the students.

THE SUBJECTS ARE TAUGHT IN LINE WITH THE DEMERITS AND NOT THE MERITS OF THE SEMSTER SYSTEM. The MARKING OF PAPERS is mostly done according to the precis and notes handed out by the teachers.Room for creativity is totally cramped as no dissenting knowledge, no matter how authentic and latest is acceted if it does not form part of the makedo precis and handouts. So most O and A level students begin with a severe handicap.
The culture of RATTA and superflous writing in the subjects of social sciences is the name of the game. At times the contempt of the teacher towards certain students specially O and A levels is distinct by penalising of marks.

GIRLS ARE TREATED AS IF THEY BELONG TO A MEDIVIAL PRIMORDIAL SOCIETY. The culture of scarfs, duppatta and covering limbs upto the ankles and wrists is strictly imposed. Girls from the O and A level streams are taken as softies, too westernised,easily approachable by males and hence vulnerable and exploitable. No matter how brilliant in past academics, they seldom do well. However the entire system works over time to bring them back to the national values.

LACK OF COMMITTED FACULTY. Due to the non congenial atmosphere, good faculty finds the place soffocating with non attractive financial packages. Given a choice, they move over to institutions that offer better economic incentives and initiative. NUST has made this deficiency by getting the services of Army Education Corps Officers. Most are the bottom of the barrel type, outdated but typically very commanding. They neither inspire nor show any trait towards updation. Many are far behind on latest scientific theories and outrightly reject querries raised by more progressive students. The art of survival therefore lies in `` to do as the romans do``.

DESPITE ALL THESE FIOBLES, THE NUST CONTINUES TO TAKE PRIDE IN ITS PRESTIGE. THE BIGGEST SYMBOL OF INERTIA AND NEPOTISM IS EFCOURSE THE RECTOR HIMSELF DULY SUPPORTED BY HIS TEAM OF PART TIME ACADEMICIANS; THE COMMANDANTS. IT REMAINS THE HOLY OF HOLIES

BY VIRTUE OF ITS CLOUT NUST FINDS A PLACE EVERWHERE. Academically it is on an unlearning curve.

man, hassan, theres no comparison between the o`/a` levels and the matric/fsc system. undoubtedly, there are smart people in the local system and they`ll retain their ``smarts`` throughout ... but the system is absolutely pathetic. a million reasons for this: lack of funds from the centre, outdated syllabi, corruption in exam boards etc. one could write a dissertation on this.

as for primary schooling, well, my only masla with most primary schools is that they don;t place enough emphasis on english. because thats the medium of instruction for most subjects (barring urdu), someone who doesn;t understand english will be unable to comprehend whats going on in science or social studies or even mathematics. its really quite sad. i`ve met some very smart children who suffer at schools because they can`t speak and understand english properly. and then a sense of inferiority may develop blah blah blah. distressing.

I d agree with bilal regarding mismanagement at lums.. As i see the full force of the newly inducted class of 2007.. it rarely seems like a university anymore rather a fish market... Though i agree that a greater number of students be inducted in each batch but consideration should be taken regarding providing and equippin the uni with more facilities.

The greater number of students causes problem in two departments
1. It leads to a killing of your own students job market...
2. With exponential increase of students and not even a linear increase of resources.. i fear a greater Malthusian struggle.

Lastly another thing the administration has really no concern on hearing the students regarding the issue.. so much for liberating students thought and representative model.. its all abt power politics..

Talking of the quality of education in Pakistan, another article of interest is on the Textile Institute of Pakistan, ``Pakistan`s ``Intellectual Rubble:`` Learning the Hard Way`` at http://quack.offroadpakistan.com/opinion/
pakistans_intellectual_rubble_learning_the_hard_way.html

HassanShan #167

I did my matric and FSc (GC Lahore). My primary school (class 5) was a federal public school in Bannu, NWFP where we often sat on the floor on ``taats``. I can confidently say that our school system resulting in the Matric and FSc certificates is better than the average American high school diploma -- but the curriculum lags behind when compared to O/A Levels. But then again, many of my classfellows at LUMS were from A Levels background and I did not feel that I was at a disadvantage -- save for Calculus I.

#166 by lalib

Actually, I must apologise for veering off the topic. My last three posts focus almost exclusively on responding to some of the points Raza was trying to make and have little to do with LUMS.

In any case, at the expense of replacing one digression with another, given that there seems to be a temporary lull in the discussion on LUMS, I was curious as to what other people thought of our primary education sector. Since those of you who went to college in Pakistan are bound to have interacted with students from other schools, I was wondering if you had any opinions regarding how the Matric/Inter system stacks up against O/A levels.

raza, hassan. you guys lost me along the way, totally. what are you arguing about?!?! and raza, what the hell are you thinking?!?! writing?!?! apnay hi paoon par kulhari wala scene hai ...

#164 by razzz

Hilarious. One points out something to which you have no response and you resort to the old ``it doesn`t matter what you think`` routine. Given that this is the second time you`ve clutched at that straw, I`m beginning to think that the only opinions you respect are the ones that seem to mirror your own.

Oh and yes. My last two posts had little to do with LUMS and focussed primarily on pointing out the flaws in your logic and disabusing you of the notion that Cornell took you in because you were some spectacularly overachieving student with stupendous SAT scores. I would have assumed the disclaimer:

``The rest of this has nothing to do with LUMS, but I think I must point out a few things that caught my eye`` (#145)

might have given this fact away, but I guess my expectations of others are undeservedly high. In any case, since you`ve chosen (wisely) not to proceed further along the ``I was admitted to Cornell but still got an average GPA at LUMS so ...`` path and are striving hard to extricate yourself from the mess by redirecting the discussion back to other things, I shall take it as an indication that the points I wanted to make have finally sunk in.

Coming now to your hastily typed mail, there are a few things I`d like to say. I find the theory you proposed quite charming, though well along the lines of the other claims you`ve made. I really don`t understand why you think all criticism stems from being complexed, jilted, jealous etc. You really need to be more mature about these things. This is, after all, a discussion forum. One of the key ideas about a discussion forum is to talk about things, to examine what opinions other people hold and to reflect upon them. Some of the views might (according to you) be illogical, founded on untrue claims and not convincing, in which case you are entitled to correct them, but simply dismissing beliefs outright as ``complexes`` or being borne out of some ``hard to digest`` fact hints at an insular outlook.

For the record, once again, I have nothing to do with LUMS. Wasn`t rejected there and certainly wasn`t edged out by some brilliant individual like yourself for a job. So please don`t make it sound as if anyone who has any comments about the place does so because of deep-seated resentment. I also find your claim that:

``students from LUMS ... it seems are preferred over these foriegn qualified students ... [which] is very hard for these students to digest and hence their newly developed theory about lums students being arrogant and in competent ``

nothing short of an inane conspiracy theory. I doubt that Ivy-league graduates are simply languishing away in Pakistan without finding employment while all and sundry are busy rolling out red carpets for those from LUMS. Moreover, I would also be quite chary of accusing foreign grads of being so incredibly petty and bitter as to collectively propagate vicious slurs about the people at LUMS simply if they are willing to work for less. I have no desire to delve into the arrogance-related discussions, but I will say this much : they have been around since well before 9/11, so it`s ridiculous to claim they`re something ``new`` and attribute them to the phenomenon you described.

I hope you`ll take some time to read (and to think about) what I write before jumping to respond with an angry word here and an ill-thought out claim there.

re : hassan

I again have to repeat that it hardly matters what kind of views ill informed people like you have about lums so take a chill pill and instead of focusing on sentences over here try to check out the bigger picture which it seems is beyond you. The basic problem it seems over here is that after 9/11 a lot of the foriegn qualified students dont get jobs in usa and have to come back to pakistan to look for work, and when they do that they face a lot of competition with students from LUMS who it seems are preferred over these foriegn qualified students because first of all LUMS students are known for their skills and hard work and they are willing to work for less compared to their foriegn counterparts. This is very hard for these students to digest and hence their newly developed theory about lums students being arrogant and in competent etc. As i said earlier....taking an already brilliant student and getting good results of him/her can hardly be called as doing amazing stuff.......which is one of the CORE advantages IVY leagues have. So try to rise above urself and get rid of ur complexes.

cheers
raza

Too many people, even more opinions and a rather endless argument. Bilal is an ultra-democratic person who would even sue the government if his rights aren’t delivered at doorstep overnight. And well, as loud and clear his account is, he has received substantial acknowledgement. But people this is a very magnified version of problems that do arise in universities everywhere! If you look at the Punjab University, NCA, Karachi University, IBA or UET, LUMS is seriously a baby university. The B.Sc. program is hardly 10 years old. The new campus, perhaps not even that old. Considering this, I think LUMS is making a remarkable progress and the only institution in Pakistan that challenges it for the top slot, by and large, is the prestigious Aga Khan University. And well if you even try to compare LUMS with American or European universities, that will show how disregardful your observation is. Most well-established American universities are at least twice as old as Pakistan and institutions like Hardvard and Cambridge (U.K.) are more than six times as old as Pakistan. Legacy is a significant factor required in order to excel. Trial-and-error and collapse-and-recovery are cumulative processes that eventually lead to a healthy system, may it be human physiology or an administrative body. I believe we are unfortunate that we have to bear these “troubles of initial phases” of a grand-institution-in-the-making, but I also sincerely believe that we will be among the fortunate few who would proudly sing our alma mater 20 or 30 years down the road.

Inayatullah in todays The News International



``Striking indeed is the news of a visiting team from abroad finding that ``obsolete`` IT syllabi was being taught in Pakistan. This finding is based on the team’s visit to some of the leading universities where even the top students will have to be retrained, for them, to understand state-of-the-art information technology developed by such leading firms a Samsung, IBM and Nokia.``

And yet we say we are as good as MIT Stanford etc!

# 149 by Sobia

``A lot of people who have interacted here have said let`s not compare LUMS to foreign unis and they`re right``


huh? i think ppl who did so (on this thread), did qualify their statements...honey, no-one is comparing lums to a foreign uni - in fact the point of contention is whether its the best place in pakistan, currently.

I guess since we have been branded as arrogant...and it seems that there`s no escaping the label....i`ll have to agree with the grand and infallible statement.

Way to go Hasan:P
Khair...
I agree when people say that Luminites are arrogant. And even when one says that a large number of the people coming to LUMS are from the elite of Pakistan. But personally I was surprised by the diverse mix of people of people from different backgrounds of the Pakistani society at LUMS and how easily they were able to adjust. And as far as the fees are concerned, I agree that LUMS is expensive for a university in Pakistan but i compliment the LUMS administration on their financial aid program. The amount of aid might seem like peanuts as compared to the universities in states, but it is a start never the less and something which is to be encouraged. I know a great many people who can`t afford to pay the entire LUMS fee, but who are currently studying there because of a mix of scholarships, loans, and grants.
Another thing that I noticed after studying in an American university and meeting people from different various universities is that in LUMS the competition is sky high. When a Luminite transfers to a university in states there GPA seems to jump up by at least 0.5. It seems that the competition in LUMS pushes you to work harder. And I am not just talking about some second tier university in states. At LUMS I found people who rejected offers from the Ivy Leagues to stay at LUMS. The post 11th September scenario has further strengthened that trend. But whatever the reason the level of competition has gone up at least in the 2006 batch.
And I am in no way comparing LUMS to any Ivy League university! :P
As for the fiasco in the dorms, some universities even in The States have faced similar situations. Last year Boston University was faced with a similar problem, as a much higher then expected percentage of the incoming batch wanted to live on-campus, and to accommodate them all the university bought an entire hotel in Boston! I think i can forgive LUMS for the temporary chaotic setup.
My own personal view is that a larger number of people are applying to LUMS due to the post 11th September scenario and the uncertainty about the US visa process. So instead of criticizing them I applaud them for catering to the increase in the number of students who want to study at LUMS, instead if just refusing those students. And I hope that they are able to increase the available student resources and to maintain the standard that they have set.
Good Luck!

P.S: Aur sunao JESTER hows LUMS these days:P?

I head out for the weekend and I come back to millions of posts. There`s a whole lot of arrogance-related stuff, which, as I mentioned earlier, I don`t care much for, but the following did grab my attention:

``Moving on to the SAT scores.....well in my personal view SAT scores are really not that reflective of an individuals true abilities.``

I`ve already said as much. Your support is greatly appreciated.

``In query to Mr hassan`s views ( i tried my best to avoid mentioning this but people are more content in finding faults in sentences then the ideas over here) so I did get into an ivy league school....that is Cornell because my SAT II scores were a lot better then my SAT I score (740 and 720 in Math IC and IIC) and my parents could easily have afforded it as well ...``

Your SAT II scores were better than your SAT I scores ? You know what, I regret my brashness (and please do not take this personally) but I must point out that a 720 in Math IIC is fairly ordinary. 740 in Math IC is a bit better, but nothing extraordinary. The allusion that Cornell was overawed by your SAT I and SAT II scores (mediocre at best) is way off the mark and I think the ``because`` in your statement above should only have been followed by the ``my parents could easily have afforded it`` bit. Whether you choose to accept reality or not, I think your admission had more to do with the fact that your parents could easily afford to dole out all that money than the statistics you present (unless you`re hiding more relevant details, e.g., an Olympic medal, relation to some political figure etc.)

And yes, please don`t disparage the above as an attempt to fault your linguistic competence. You`re rattling on about your superlative SAT I and II scores to claim that you were good enough to get into a great college and making all kinds of inferences based on that. All I`m saying is that you`re rich enough to get into a great college, and your average GPA doesn`t amount to anything other than a measure of your performance at LUMS.

``so its YOU who should not jump to conclusions.``

Umm... I said your SAT I score was nothing special, and your SAT II scores are (dare I say it) even less impressive. I said that it was unlikely you would have got in had you been an international student asking for aid, and I still maintain that.

``Anyway even then in LUMS i got an average GPA``

Again, the ``I`` seems to be a critical part of your reasoning. That`s what I talked about earlier; you`re founding illogical arguments on a subjective assessment of your abilities. Did you ever think about starting out with your average GPA and reasoning in reverse ?

``so lets not give that much weightage to GPA`s``

SO lets not give ... Amazing. You mention that you get an average GPA and then this ``SO`` ties it up with not giving GPAs much weightage.

``and the SUPPOSEDLY amazing quality of american universities``

It`s not a fictitious belief. American universitites (at least the Ivies etc.) are fairly good and ``amazing``.

``we had a transfer student from over there whose GPA of 3.7 was reduced to a 2.5 in LUMS.``

Again, deductions based on the capabilities of a single individual. Call my beliefs hearsay, but at least they follow from personal interactions with the people running LUMS, teaching at LUMS, my siblings who got their degrees there, their friends and my own friends at the place (not to mention all the people I met on the campus during my countless visits there), not all of whom would be lying, exaggerating etc. However, I think at least I`m not guilty of extrapolating single observations and subjective individual-assessments into a string of arguments like you`ve done on more than one occasion.

Ligthen up. If you get the impression that I`m leading some kind of mass-campaign to shut LUMS down, I apologise for having come across like that. I think it`s a decent place, but could be much better. I also think that it`s not all that it`s made out to be and in order to improve, the people at LUMS need to take a realistic view of things into account.

tayyab,

1) i think i explicitly said ``of course, you can`t say this about everyone from these elite schools (hold your horses tayyab balagamwala;)) but its an argument that you can make ... somewhat``.
this does not imply that everyone and anyone from these `elite` schools is arrogant. i don`t see how this sentence can even convey that ... if it does somehow manage to imply that ``everyone and anyone`` from these elite schools is arrogant, i`d like it understood that that was not what i meant.

2) yes, lums is an elite school. i don;t see many students from the low-income cadre. exceptions abound, but let`s face it, by pakistani standards lums/giki/akuh are pretty elitist. the average pakistani can only dream of such a place.

3)i used elite and elitist interchangably in the last point, although i realise the difference. it just so happens that in pakistan, as elsewhere, they often tend to be the same.
of course, there are elite schools that aren`t elitist such as cadet college hasan abdal. there are elitist schools that aren;t elite ... i shouldn`t take names:) .... then there are school that combine the properties of both: Exclusivity and Distinctiveness. prime examples are aitchison and kgs. lums lags far far far behind in this list. i MEAN far.

we can continue to argue over little details and how i mis-implied something but i hope you get my drift ...

4) and my argument was meant to exonerate the arrogance of lums students. i said that the blame for that should be distributed amongst the many feeder-schools in the country. students from these schools and from a certain background are likely to be arrogant. even in amreeka. yes, tayyab, it does mean that amreeki unis have their fair share of arrogant, spoilt, conceited pakis.

i do think that it was a flaky argument (i even implicitly acknowledged it as such) that could be shot down a million times over but it was just an argument that was meant to question the sweeping statement that lums breeds arrogance. despite it`s weakness, it at least serves it function.

regards

Ok lets analyze ur misgivings about lums and my prev post one by one.First of all i and almost any luminite would be open to any consrtuctive criticism and i repeat constructive criticism coming from (an informed person not any tom dick n harry out there) who has never been to lums but thinks that it is his/her right to blast lums for no reason at all. Lums has its share of faults but we need to go over them in a logical manner not just shoot volleys in the dark as a certain lady has been doing.

I dont know about you people but i dont think calling luminites as arrogant and haughty is considered constructive criticism by any intelligent person(discounting ONE genius over here) specially when you know the university doesnt play any part in that. I was in the univ for four years but i dont recall any course on arrogance being taught over there nor i can imagine arif zaman or wasim azhar teaching us to be very proud of ourselves and think of us as one step above others. Plus everyone knows its a relative term and can not be generalized for the whole student body of lums or any other university.

Moving on to the SAT scores.....well in my personal view SAT scores are really not that reflective of an individuals true abilities. In query to Mr hassan`s views ( i tried my best to avoid mentioning this but people are more content in finding faults in sentences then the ideas over here) so I did get into an ivy league school....that is Cornell because my SAT II scores were a lot better then my SAT I score (740 and 720 in Math IC and IIC) and my parents could easily have afforded it as well ...so its YOU who should not jump to conclusions. Anyway even then in LUMS i got an average GPA so lets not give that much weightage to GPA`s and the SUPPOSEDLY amazing quality of american universities because we had a transfer student from over there whose GPA of 3.7 was reduced to a 2.5 in LUMS.

As for the continous harping about lums taking in a much larger batch for BSC well lets carefully analyze that shall we. First of all you have to realize that Pakistan is a very popolous country with very few universities available to students let alone GOOD universities. So most of the student body over here doesnt even have to access to good education. Thus expansion and providing better education to a greater number of people should be the aim of every good university. Any problems with that ?

Now you would argue that quality should be mantained.....well as far as i know LUMS is trying its best to keep up the quality..and succeeding to some extent as well. Sure there are problems with the accomadation facilities but they will go away with time as new hostels are already being planned. Furthermore we have to realize that the Hundred (supposedly extra i.e. 400 instead of 300 or 250 ) students which are being taken by the university dont lag that much behind the first couple of hundred students which were taken by lums previously and those who do lag behind are shunted out( sorry for using this word over here) by the relative grading system being used by LUMS. An example would be that the original strength of my batch was 202 and by the time we graduated that had reduced to 144. That alone is reflective of how quality is mantained in lums. Plus we also need to look into the fact that after 9/11 a lot of students which otherwise would have gone to USA are now applying to lums instead of going abroad. Lums also has to cater to them now. I cant seem to understand why people are so bent upon making an elitist insitituion out of lums and want it to remain confined to teaching a few selected no of students.

Apart from this those of you who cant even think of comparing LUMS to the top american schools also need to look into the fact that teaching brilliant students is a lot different from bringing out the best from an average student. Top schools like Harvard, Stanford and Wharton get the cream of students from all over the world ....and in my personal opinion they dont perform any miracle when they convert these already brilliant students into exceptionally talented managers and professionals. In my view a job well done is taking an average student and making an accomplished professional out of him. In my view the LUMS bsc program does that to a little extent (i wont actually call it a miracle but atleast a good attempt) by having the quarter system instead of the semester system because it makes one more used to pressure situations and tough work loads which compensates for that brilliance exuded by the top american students to some extent.


cheers
raza

`` firstly, most b/sc bachas, at least those that are vocal and make their presence felt, are from elite A level schools across pakistan. it wouldnt really matter where these general/ industrialist/bureaucrat`s kids went to for uni, they`d be haughty to a certain extent anywhere. of course, you can`t say this about everyone from these elite schools (hold your horses tayyab balagamwala;)) but its an argument that you can make``

Hey Lalib,
i dunno whether i know u but just a small question........your statement appears to imply that anyone and everyone who goes to Alevels is part of the elite and anyone and everyone who does his A levels is bound to be haughty and arrogant..........interesting......about half the people who do their A levels tend to go abroad......does that mean that American universities are full of Arrogant Pakis :)........and i guess some A Levels students also go to IBA and CBM etc ....that probably exonerates LUMS graduates from the allegation of being arrogant since according to your argument, arrogance is then prevalent across all educational institutions in Pakistan.

All i can say is gimme a break yaar.........sometimes i wish that us Pakistanis were arrogant and proud enough to get our country out of the mess we currently are in due to the continual decadence in our society.

And what exactly is your definition of an elite school..........the current imbalance in fee structures probably implies that all schools and universities, including LUMS are elitist.......using that argument what does that make you also........a product of an elitist university eh :):)

My friend, Lalib, Its time we let the horses free and let them venture onto their own stables according to their own desires :):)

Adios

rozy, i think you rock..everyone else fades away :P

`` It`s perfectly valid to disagree completely, but name-calling and turning a blind eye to the beliefs of others does not behoove someone like you. ``

I completely agree.......everyone must appreciate criticism and everyone is entitled to an opinion.

I also agree i should not have written that undeniably LUMS Is amongst the top universities in the world....i think i meant top universities in Asia............i hope this was not mistaken as arrogance...i guess `world` was written in the heat of the moment instead of `Asia`.

I am the first to admit that LUMS has its flaws and thats what i wrote in my earlier posting also. However, it is my opinion(with which of course anyone can differ) that the positives given the current educational structure in Pakistan by far outweigh the negatives.

Also, i feel that if you have not been to LUMS and have not studied at LUMS, jumping to conclusions about the standard of education there is a bit unfair. Once u have been through the LUMS experience, only then do you realize what a blessing the years spent over there are.

Also, with regard to whether Lums graduates are arrogant etc, i feel that too you cannot generalize because that is a trait that can vary from person to person and from institution to institution. People say the same about Aitchison graduates and about Karachi Grammar graduates but one has to look at that on a specific basis rather than on a general level.


Anyways, Zird if you are from BSC 99, email me at juxtapose99@hotmail.com

Adios

Sobia, do you think LUMS students are arrogant?

well said bilal. over the past few years, most lums alumni have noticed a downward trend in quality. quality of students, quality of faculty and quality of services provided. i`d like to believe that this is temporary, an effect that can be squarely pegged to the transition from a fledgling college to a proper university ... but i don`t know how true it is. i`m hoping though.

i can be cynical and argue that from what we`ve seen of most things in pakistan, quality is a temporary phenomenon. in that light, lums built up its rep and is now earning dividends. and the more the students, the greater the profit.
(let`s make note of one thing here. its not the b.sc. program at lums that ranks #23 in asia, its the mba program. those who`ve been at lums will agree that these are effectively two separate instituions with minimal interaction. and its not the mba faculty or students that have faced this downward trend in quality. lums is still very selective about who it takes into the mba, the faculty is still very well educated, and i presume the mba`s still have their own separate computer labs, hostels etc. so in that light, perhaps the b.sc batches were simply a money-making venture to finance the coveted and `in the red` mba program. perhaps.)

but like tayyab, i`d also like to point a few good things out about the place. i won;t go as far as to say that we`re better than most uni`s in amreeka. although many lums students firmly believe that our course load is a lot tougher (for many, tougher=better), especially due to the quarter system, it`s not the sort of statement you can make with a straight face. but, yes, we get an excellent education that is incomparable in pakistan and other developing countries. the course is diverse, the system is competitive (highly grade-oriented. not always a good thing i admit), there is ample focus on real world issues (development, politics, international relations etc.), emphasis on the arts (not enough but moreso than other colleges in paksitan barring nca and indus), and there is a high rate of college acceptance amongst top-tier foreign unis. all of my friends have entered respectable, if not kickass, universities for their masters or phds. (respectable. top 25. kickass. top 5. in the particular field of study).

but what is the best part of lums is its tolerance for opposing opinion. seriously, you can blaspheme in writing and get away with it. some of you, those in the west, may find this funny but thats the sort of stuff you get lynched for in this country. and remember, half of lums is mullah-controlled. its a great great deal, worth everyones respect. with this tolerance comes a degree of liberalism, which also is a good thing in this country, in these times.

as for the arrogance of lums students, alumni. well, i think theres one prime factor that accounts for this in the b.sc. program. i don;t think it applies for the mba though. firstly, most b/sc bachas, at least those that are vocal and make their presence felt, are from elite A level schools across pakistan. it wouldnt really matter where these general/ industrialist/bureaucrat`s kids went to for uni, they`d be haughty to a certain extent anywhere. of course, you can`t say this about everyone from these elite schools (hold your horses tayyab balagamwala;)) but its an argument that you can make ... somewhat. don`t put alllll the blame on lums. sprinkle some of it across the country.

lums is a great place. it offers a great education. there may be lapse in high quality standards, but it`s hopefully only temporary. i don;t think its the level of students thats falling by that much (after all in percentage terms lums lums accepts fewer applicants than it did in 97 when i got in. i refuse to believe that the extra number of applicants are all below par), its the quality of faculty and services provided. and both these things can be rectified. like tayyab, i`d tell you to have some patience. bide your time. the top echelons of lums faculty are generally sensible people, despite what you may think while you`re there. they don;t want to see a uni they created turn into a hollow shell either ... how else will they get their sabbatical at yale? ;)

Hey polly. `sup ma man? :P dint read much of wat u all rote here...terribly short attention span i guess...wat bilal rote is rite...conditions have gotten worse den dey were one year ago but den dat`s wat every1 always thinks bout things: they`r worse den dey used to b.
however, apart from the exceeding costs and the decline in hosel standards here, i believe lums is the best thing dat cud happen to Pakistani students...i mean where else cud u not study like crazy n still maintain a gpa above 3 easily...yes conditions r gradually getting worse but no need to go about shouting that the world is coming to an end...LUMS is not run by complete nincompoops u know...they prob realize where dey`r going wid it n wat they`r doin...so let`s leave the running of the univ to dem n just enjoy our stay in is place.
ciao.

If an institution like LUMS is giving so much to it`s students don`t you think that students too should bear with it and wait for new developments (regarding triple occupancy in hostels, new IT LABs construction / new PCs allocation in LABs, new hiring of faculty) ?

Technology is the most unreliable thing of the world... so is there any point to talk about it...? What do you think?

As far as educaton standard is concerned I don`t think so it is getting down. Faculty selection criteria in LUMS doesn`t let it happen...I hope. As far as these issues that you have addressed in your article are not affecting the education standard... everything is OK.

Faculty is not doing mis-management so they will teach simply ``management`` to students....I think.

You are also right because you have studied from such an institution (i guess). We as a nation have adopted the policy that ``ignore the positive things and point out the negative.`` Wait a while and see what developments are in progress at LUMS...

//RE: sobia thats the very problem kiddo..you havent said anything ..apart from harping about stupid things like what diff grads do in london or did to you as well over there...//

Huh????? WHAT are you talking about, dude? London? Who did what to me? I`m not getting your point.

//lums grads get the JOBS, ADMISSIONS and EDUCATION they need.......so it doesnt really matter what complexed desis like u think.//

Maybe it SHOULD start to matter what others think, that is precisely my point. What are you getting all worked up about? It`s funny you think i`m a complexed desi because you haven`t even bothered to define what that is. If you look at what I`ve written from the beginning, I have repeatedly said LUMS is a good school, I just don`t feel it can be compared to foreign universities, as a lot of LUMS faculty and students tend to do (and no, zird, this is not ``hearsay``, they DO compare and unnecessarily so, in my opinion). A lot of people who have interacted here have said let`s not compare LUMS to foreign unis and they`re right; let`s not, because LUMS is a local university that started out small, has grown and developed and is providing quality education. BUT...the quality has declined. If you`re not willing to accept that, that`s sad, because unless you accept a reality, you cannot work towards coming up with solutions to remedy the problem. I also said a lot of people from LUMS have attitude problems and I stand by it. I know most of you think that`s a ``gross generalization`` and if it is, I`m sorry. This is not my opinion after meeting ``ten`` people, it`s just something that I`ve seen over a period of time and which some of you interactors have reinforced. Anyhow, Hassan is right. It doesn`t really make a difference if LUMS students tend to be a little..shall we say...arrogant, because that`s probably the least of the university`s problems. Perhaps I did make a sweeping generalization and perhaps your reaction (though immature) was spontaneous, based on my rather caustic views. Learn to take a bit of criticism though. It comes with the territory, since you are a Luminite and are so grand and infallible! :-)

#145 by HassanShah

`` It`s perfectly valid to disagree completely, but name-calling and turning a blind eye to the beliefs of others does not behoove someone like you. ``

Actually i noticed, a lot of other `non-lums` ppl (not u) also got a little personal on this thread - so its only fitting that they`re replied in kind. As for turning a blind-eye...thats what almost everyone including xyz have been doing - i think a lot of lums ppl have conceded some shortcomings or that there`s been a decline in the quality, but seriously, excuse me for breathing? cuz the onslaught continues.

anyway most of the ppl posting here, have been making sweeping generalisations - based on hearsay (i know someone who knows someone who said....) or two (or even ten) ppl they met from lums.

``I find myself unable to follow your logic. It sounds to me as if you`re saying ``I`m fairly smart and since I graduated with an average GPA ...``

I think what Razz meant was that there is a weak correlation between GPA and SAT scores and obviously GPA is more of a measure of intelligence (i guess?). Although interestingly enough i`ve seen a few studies (statistical) that contend the opposite, that there is a fairly strong and positive relation, if not highly positively significant.

Uhm i agree with most of the stuff which Bilal has said.
I have spent a year at LUMs and am currently studying in a university in states.
After coming here i realize what a big blessing LUMS is for Pakistanies. I only left LUMs because they dont have the major that i was interested in. I still think they have the setup, to expand, i just hope that they sort out the problums that they are having at the moment.
And one thing more...if one wants to major in Economics or CS then i think LUMS is a better alternative then most of the university in states, unless of course one talks abt the ivy league universities.

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#144 by razzz

As I said earlier:

``You`re right about SAT scores being pathetically uncorrelated to intelligence. That holds true for O and A level results as well. However, my point was that students who have not done anything to distinguish themselves academically (in SATs, O/A levels, at school) are making it to LUMS these days fairly easily. That doesn`t sound like a positive development.``

Please read things in their entirety before jumping in to respond.

*****************************************************

The rest of this has nothing to do with LUMS, but I think I must point out a few things that caught my eye:

``i graduated with an avg GPA ``

I find myself unable to follow your logic. It sounds to me as if you`re saying ``I`m fairly smart and since I graduated with an average GPA ...`` Any claim that relies on such subjective assessments of personal capability is bound to be flawed.

As I mentioned earlier, a 1370 in SAT I does not indicate how intelligent you are. Nor, for that matter, does it translate automatically to a place at the Ivies, Stanford and MIT. Unless you`re one of the wealthy few who can buy their way into college, or are eternally indebted to your parents for giving birth to you in the US, or have done something to distinguish yourself otherwise (read Olympic gold medal) I don`t think you can be quite so certain about having been admitted to those schools. Sadly, a national of the land of the pure, requiring financial aid, without any stupendous achievements (or connections) needs a lot to make a compelling case for admission. If you`re male, that doesn`t help much either. Having worked at the admissions office at college, I can vouch for all that. MAYBE you might have made it, but just flat out claims that you warrant a place on the basis of the stats you mentioned are a bit hard to digest. I guess perhaps we are talking about different places when we say ``good university``.

``it doesnt really matter what complexed desis like u think``

Personally, I don`t care much for ascertaining without any reasonable doubt whether people from LUMS are arrogant or not. There are other, more important issues to debate. However, I think one should at least be a tad more open to criticism. It`s perfectly valid to disagree completely, but name-calling and turning a blind eye to the beliefs of others does not behoove someone like you.

Re :
Every univ has its share of proud students and so do lums.........but i guess its not lums faults..........lums dznt teaches its students to be snooty...dz it. It just expects a lot from them and thats why lums students feel more accomplished then people who basically buy their degrees in USA. As for the continous objections about students with LOW SAT scores going to lums..........that should nt be given such a big weightage cz some of the student body which comes to lums do their FSC`s and matric rather then O and A levels and thus are not that adept at giving concept and comprehension based tests even though they might be as intelligent and talented as their counterparts. I got a score of 1370 in SAT I and similarly my SAT II scores were enough to get me into a good univ in USA........but in LUMS i graduated with an avg GPA ........so lets not delve into stupid facts and scenarios being put forward by people who are out of touch.


RE: sobia
thats the very problem kiddo............you havent said anything ..........apart from harping about stupid things like what diff grads do in london or did to you as well over there.......i guess thats where the anger stems from. As for your repeated negative opinions about LUMs.........lums grads get the JOBS, ADMISSIONS and EDUCATION they need.......so it doesnt really matter what complexed desis like u think.

cheers
raza

razz #135
``So i guess our indian friends need to stay quiet over issues
which they dont know about.``

I realise that it is very tempting to take pot-shots at each other,
but Indians have by and large stayed away from interacting in this
board. Have they not ? I`d assume that the reason is their lack of
information in this matter. So, who was that statement directed at ?

#141 by zird

You`re right about SAT scores being pathetically uncorrelated to intelligence. That holds true for O and A level results as well. However, my point was that students who have not done anything to distinguish themselves academically (in SATs, O/A levels, at school) are making it to LUMS these days fairly easily. That doesn`t sound like a positive development.

I guess you and I are talking of LUMS at different points of time. LUMS, when it started out, was fairly good. My complaints have primarily been regarding the downslide that`s been taking place of late. Rather than taking measures to arrest the decline, I think there`s way too much complacency going on. You develop a reputation by sustaining a high standard, not by achieving it and then letting things taper off.

# 136 HassanShah

``Please. Just take a look at the academic achievements of the people who`re entering LUMS these days. I know of more than a handful of people who had SAT scores in the 1100s, fairly ordinary O and A level results, were pretty close to the bottom of the class back in school and are now at LUMS. ``

Hmm yeah- actually i need to qualify my statements, i`m talking abt the lums i attended and i`m from the class of 99. Even till 2003, i`ve seen some fairly smart students - although since they`re taking a lot more students now, the overall quality of students may have declined. Although i do know that a lot more ppl : either those who`ve been rejected visa i.e. not by choice or those who don`t want to to go to US any long i.e. by choice, are going to lums - so maybe this yr the quality cld be better - than the 1100 SAT scores. Btw i don`t think SAT is a measure of intelligence, just like the GRE and GMAT aren`t, they`re just a measure of your test-taking abilities and there are surefire ways to beat those tests - which is a separate debate, but pls don`t judge quality of students, just by their SATs.

But u asked for numbers so here they are:

in my class of 100 graduating students

columbia law school
columbia - fin engineering
harvard
nyu -joint degree with bus school and sthg else
columbia bus school (admitted but didn`t go)
insead
cam
ox (3)
UT Austin
USC
Duke (2/3)
a couple went to some of the UC`s (not berkeley though)
lse (london)
warrick
georgia tech
sussex (2)
northwestern
dartmouth
jhu

So approximately 20 - (of 100) -(i`m not counting myself) thats 20 % and these are the ones i can recall. Oh and I have not counted that these ppl were admitted to equally decent places - but these are the ones they chose to go to. i know there are a couple of other ppl in CS that i`m definitely missing. `I think` these are terrific numbers (and i thikn all these places are pretty good - esp for the disciplines that these ppl went there for), given that another 7-8 ppl are working at Microsoft and then one guy is at accenture, another is doing actuaries and plenty working at mnc`s after their mba from lums as well .

In class of 2002 - I know there`s one person at Yale, 4 at Stanford, 1 went to berkeley, 6-7 are at oxford, and tons of others who i don`t know !

`` LUMS is not the equivalent of an Ivy league school, MIT, Stanford or Oxbridge. It`s such an utterly preposterous statement that I am absolutely astounded at the lack of temerity with which this ``fact`` is claimed. Shocking. ``

Ok I agree with that. But i think it is one of the best places in Pakistan (at least) to read for a degree and as u said: Insha Allah - it can be an even better place.

When people say that LUMS students have an attitude problem, well its totally true isn`t it! LUMS is good but like every institution it has its draw backs too. whether or not you admit it, what im saying is true! The losers that return from the US because they can`t cope with studies abroad might find it difficult to cope at LUMS too. be a little realistic and get off ur high horse for heaven`s sake!!

//razz: As for people like sobia and zahra j, their high flying opinion about american univ mostly stems from the fact that they are just part of that psuedo group who have an inferiority complex and cant accept anything good about pakistan//

That`s hilarious. That`s your best shot at me for pointing out some faults in your university? If this is your attitude, then everything I have said stands validated. Cheers!

#130 by Trekker

Granted. It`s not an exponential growth, but still a disconcerting attempt to make things bigger continuously.

``increasing the class size ... has to be done at a pace in tandem with the growth of the facilities (faculty, classes, infrastructure, etc). ``

I agree. I don`t think that`s what`s been happening though. Incremental drops in quality due to small increases in class size without a corresponding change in the facilities will eventually have an undersiable cumulative effect. I believe it`s time to pay heed to this.

You mentioned the politics associated with Dr. Shah, and then there`s that entire Dr. Azhar episode that wasn`t touched upon. I`m not sure what the truth is (like I said, we`ll probably never know for sure) but there have been constant allusions in what I`ve heard to the fact that things weren`t working out between him and the rest of the administration (and that there were a fair deal of personal biases involved). Quite unfortunate if you ask me.

Re: Tayyabbalagam/hassan shah/ Zahra J:

Tayyab and Hassan I completely agree with you. Being a lums graduate from the batch of 2002 i do claim to know a little about LUMS and i am surprised how these cynics are passing value judgements on LUMS without even having attended it. Sure Lums is encountered with some accomadation problems for the out of station students but it does not mean that as a university its standards are falling. Since when did expanding one`s program become a crime for a university. LUMS has definite plans for making new hostels so i guess that is no reason for crucifying the university on that account.

As for people like sobia and zahra j, their high flying opinion about american univ mostly stems from the fact that they are just part of that psuedo group who have an inferiority complex and cant accept anything good about pakistan. Almost everyone who has attended lums would agree that it offers one of the most tough undergrad programs in the world. A grad from lums can handle deadlines and pressure as easily as a grad from any foriegn university. We had a few tranfser students from US univs in lums and most of them complained about the tough program in lums and how their high transfered GPA`s from UPEN and Cornell were suffering at lums. Plus the reasoning provided by zahra is quite ridicolous .....i mean if lums has the ability to provide a good CS program to its students then why shldnt it do that. It does not need to listen to fools like her and change its vision. The Lums MBA program has actually reduced its intake over the last few years to improve its quality.
The no of students in that program actually declined from an avg of 110 to 65 in the last cpl of years.
How many univs in the world do that ? So i guess our indian friends need to stay quiet over issues which they dont know about. Similarly the whole fuss over ratings is quite ridicolous......as long as students are getting a good education, nice jobs and admissions into good univs after finishing lums then ratings dont mak a difference. My cousin was in the batch of 99 and he got into good companies like Unisys and accenture after leaving LUMS....i myself got into ICI....without any hassle..most of my friends from lums have gotten into nice univs in USA...like cornell and columbia etc.....i cant see why ppl are making such a big fuss over lums and its falling standards. I guess we need to come up with some constructive criticism about lums rather then just cynicism with no real purpose.

cheers
raza

Re: Tayyabbalagam/hassan shah/ Zahra J:

Tayyab and Hassan I completely agree with you. Being a lums graduate from the batch of 2002 i do claim to know a little about LUMS and i am surprised how these cynics are passing value judgements on LUMS without even having attended it. Sure Lums is encountered with some accomadation problems for the out of station students but it does not mean that as a university its standards are falling. Since when did expanding one`s program become a crime for a university. LUMS has definite plans for making new hostels so i guess that is no reason for crucifying the university on that account.

As for people like sobia and zahra j, their high flying opinion about american univ mostly stems from the fact that they are just part of that psuedo group who have an inferiority complex and cant accept anything good about pakistan. Almost everyone who has attended lums would agree that it offers one of the most tough undergrad programs in the world. A grad from lums can handle deadlines and pressure as easily as a grad from any foriegn university. We had a few tranfser students from US univs in lums and most of them complained about the tough program in lums and how their high transfered GPA`s from UPEN and Cornell were suffering at lums. Plus the reasoning provided by zahra is quite ridicolous .....i mean if lums has the ability to provide a good CS program to its students then why shldnt it do that. It does not need to listen to fools like her and change its vision. The Lums MBA program has actually reduced its intake over the last few years to improve its quality.
The no of students in that program actually declined from an avg of 110 to 65 in the last cpl of years.
How many univs in the world do that ? So i guess our indian friends need to stay quiet over issues which they dont know about. Similarly the whole fuss over ratings is quite ridicolous......as long as students are getting a good education, nice jobs and admissions into good univs after finishing lums then ratings dont mak a difference. My cousin was in the batch of 99 and he got into good companies like Unisys and accenture after leaving LUMS....i myself got into ICI....without any hassle..most of my friends from lums have gotten into nice univs in USA...like cornell and columbia etc.....i cant see why ppl are making such a big fuss over lums and its falling standards. I guess we need to come up with some constructive criticism about lums rather then just cynicism with no real purpose.

cheers
raza

#133 by zird

``not enough competition AT lums? where did u hear that ?``

Please. Just take a look at the academic achievements of the people who`re entering LUMS these days. I know of more than a handful of people who had SAT scores in the 1100s, fairly ordinary O and A level results, were pretty close to the bottom of the class back in school and are now at LUMS. If that`s the stuff competition is made of, then one wonders what the overall level of the students is. Moroever, it`s a simple fact: when you get larger, you can`t admit students who are that qualified any longer.

``some really smart people, who`re now at ivy-leagues. ``

Just how much is this ``some``. Please enlighten us as to what percentage of people in each class end up at Ivy league schools. I think the number is a lot smaller than what it`s made out to be. I`d like to see some stats.

``comparing my undergraduate education with that from other `developing countries`, i was pleasantly surprised``

Point conceded. Compared to universities in other developing countries, LUMS is probably pretty good. Just that it`s hard for me to readily buy the fact that it`s the out and out best around, or, more ludicrously (as Tayyab mentioned):

``udneniably, it ranks amongst the top universities in the world.``

Now that is clearly not true. I don`t know how you guys can seriously believe that. LUMS is not the equivalent of an Ivy league school, MIT, Stanford or Oxbridge. It`s such an utterly preposterous statement that I am absolutely astounded at the lack of temerity with which this ``fact`` is claimed. Shocking.

As I wrote to HisExcellency, I`m sure LUMS can inshallah become a great place. Just that they need to get their feet firmly planted on the ground first.

#132 by TayyabBalagam

You lost me at:

``But udneniably, it ranks amongst the top universities in the world``

Anyone who truly believes such ``undeniable`` facts, is perhaps beyond reproach. I just hope that others who`re associated with LUMS are capable of more realistic self-assessment.

#123 and 129 Hassan Shah

``but there just isn`t enough competition these days at LUMS. Places like MIT, Stanford, Princeton etc. share one thing in common; lots of very qualified students pushing each other to perform better. ``

not enough competition AT lums? where did u hear that ? LUMS is one of the most competitive places there is, and i think eventually it depends on your nature, but for most of us it really helped us learn to work under pressure and compete with some really smart people, who`re now at ivy-leagues.

When i mentioned lacked of competition, it was not enough competition for lums - since there aren`t many institutions at par with lums in pakistan (not many, i didn`t say none).

Hassan as for whether you are a lums rejectee or studied abroad..it doesn`t really matter. I agree with you that lums may not be all that it is touted for, but it is pretty good, given resource constraints - esp. the lack of qualified phd`s. Coming from Pakistan, and comparing my undergraduate education with that from other `developing countries`, i was pleasantly surprised with the good foundations i received at lums. Tayyab also mentions this - lums did give us the extra edge when we went for graduate degrees. I did notice certain shortcomings and so did some of the other lums grads and i`m pleased to know that they did incorporate many of our suggestions by designing new courses or altering existing courses.

Although i must commend you Bilal on your candid and frank assessment of the current state of affairs at LUMS, i must also say that unfortunately you too have succumbed to the traits of a quintessential Pakistani. The current traits of any Pakistani denizen include foremost impatience. We, in pakistan need results immediately and cynicism comes as normally to us as eating food is to other humans.

I graduated from Lums BSC program in 1999 and at that time I agree that there were not many students. But indeed the facilities at that time were also in their nascent stage and were being developed.

Today, LUMS has more facilities yet it also has more students. But udneniably, it ranks amongst the top universities in the world. And after having done a Bachelors degree from LUMS, a Masters degree from University of Texas at Austin was a piece of cake for me.

Please try to understand that we are a developing nation. There is limited financing available to LUMS also and it is this limited financing which needs to be channeled towards development of facilities and infrastructure at LUMS. If the LUMS administration were to shove three people into a room and say that this is it and u gotta live with it, then it would be rather unfair. But since they have already exhibited their commitment towards developing new hostel facilities, i feel that only a little bit of patience is required before you will get what you want.

Be optimistic rather than being cynical and reeking of pessimism. In a country where literacy is already excessively low, we must commend LUMS and its administration for having been committed to their goal of providing education and quality education at that consistently for almost the past two decades. We should commend them rather than being cry babies about trivial faults. No one is denying that faults do not exist at LUMS......there are many but in a broader perspective LUMS is undeniably the best educational institution in pakistan and the positives by far outweigh the negatives.

In addition, if you do not like the place, you have a choice of leaving it. Just like i use the cliche when speaking to our cynical Pakistani brothers that, ``Love Pakistan or leave it!``, i must say that the same applies to LUMS and you i.e., ``Leave LUMS or leave it.`` And perhaps by leaving LUMS, you would also be espousing some element of your pseudo intellectual freedom of expression (now now am i being a cynic or what :) )

All in all, LUMS is a renowned institution and the people over there are committed towards imparting high quality education. The infrastructure is bound to be developed....all that is required is patience and appreciation of all the positive things that do happen. Good luck to you Bilal and may you graduate from LUMS which provides one of the best degrees in the world, at times even better than that of internationally renowned universities!!

HassanShan #129

I completely agree that resting on past achievements is the worst thing that can happen and hopefully the admin and faculty are aware of that. There can be mixed opinions about increasing the class size -- it has to be done at a pace in tandem with the growth of the facilities (faculty, classes, infrastructure, etc). Let`s take a look at the approximate undergrad class intake at LUMS:

Class of 1997: 65 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ)
Class of 1998: 80 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ)
Class of 1999: 120 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ, Social Sciences)
Class of 2000/1: 150 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ, Social Sciences, Math)
Class of 2002: 190 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ, Social Sciences, Math)
Class of 2003: 240
.....
Class of 2007: 400 (Majors Offered: Comp Sci, Econ, Social Sciences, Math, Accounting/Finance, Law)

...this is by no means astronomical growth. If any chowk member can post details about the class/batch sizes at GIKI, NUST, FAST etc that would provide us with a good frame of reference.

Then there`s that other thing I mentioned. I don`t know how much truth there is in the rumours that I`ve been hearing (I doubt anyone can tell for sure) but I`ve been told that a couple of the professors at LUMS left because things didn`t work out between them and the administration

I can only say for sure that I know about Dr. Sohail Aslam because he told me himself. He wanted to get out in the field and practice software development rather than teach it. It was a personal decision. What I`ve heard about Dr Salman Shah was that he left after Dr Wasim Azhar was made the Dean and not him. Sort of like senior Corps Commanders resigning if a junior among them is made COAS. Again, a personal decision. Dr. Wasim Azhar was the dean/pro-VC for a decade and if he had issues with the admin ... well he WAS the admin the only ones above him in the LUMS org chart were Syed Babar Ali and Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf (or was it Tarrar at the time? Don`t remember exactly.... )

Trekker:

It seems that you have been trekking quite a bit, so you may have missed my point. So you are implying that LUMS, originally developed to attend to the intelle`k`tual needs of the business minded folks, should start focusing on technology related disciplines and follow MIT as a model ?

My earlier point was that starting a separate computer science program and other specific disciplines that may distract the focus is a redundant effort. Why not upgrade and extend the existing computer science programs at some older institutions and provide the faculty with better rewards? Why not have an equity investment there? The engg, science and technology universities existing in Pakistan(govt run) need to get a face lift along with the required makeup to look sexy like the private institutions. I am sure the private sector has the right cosmetics and formula that they can lend to the govt run institutions.

Lastly, rather than jumping to MIT to compare or consider as a model, why not look across the border and learn from them. Who is your audience and who are the stakeholders? 3rd world countries whether developed or on the road to development should not lose their vision and who they are. Point to ponder...

113:ZehraJ
Very good observations. Thanks.

This is a very good discussion board. Very informative and productive. Let us have more of such kind.
Pakistanis! chugg along, You`ve been steeled by graduating from the school of hard-knocks as well. More than anyone else in the world.

You are our real hope & joy.

#127 by HisExcellency

``none of these claims are baseless``

Perhaps it wasn`t clear what I was referring to. ``Claims`` is referencese to LUMS being in the league of other world-class institutions. I fully believe (though don`t care much for) the bit about the student to computer ratios etc. What I don`t agree with is the claim of LUMS being right up there with the best.

``The fact that LUMS students trounced IIT, CMU and several U.S. universities in the CSIDC contest (see Romair`s post #23), is ample proof that the difference between LUMS and other schools is not that huge. ``

I think that`s more what I was referring to. One contest. You guys draw way too much from these things. It`s like the Bangladeshis getting all excited after they beat Pakistan in `99. These things happen. Even if LUMS did thrash the living daylights out of CMU in the contest, I think no one ought to be fooled into thinking that the CS departments at both places are even remotely at par. I hope by ``other schools`` you meant something more reasonable.

``Of course it lags behind IIM Ahmedabad and 20 odd Asian B-schools. ``

Phew. Now that`s more like it. LUMS is 20th in Asia, and numerically, given that most of the good schools around the world are in US and Europe, that`s not a stunning performance.

Comparing business schools to medical schools is a big no-no ? I don`t think so. A good school is a good school. A mediocre one is just that. You don`t need a mapping function from MCAT to GMAT scores to say that much.

``Why am I optimistic about LUMS and not IBA? Simply because LUMS has more money at its disposal than IBA. As a result, LUMS can always reach down its pockets and afford good faculty and facilities. Deep pockets often make all the difference. ``

Yes ! I fully agree with that. I also believe that LUMS has the opportunity to take the lead over all the schools in Pakistan (save AKU perhaps) for precisely the reasons you mentioned. I also think (and hope inshallah) that LUMS can one day really be world-renowned. They have enough resources to provide the base for all that. I just don`t think that all this has happened quite yet and I think that the administration is delaying this promising future. I still think that it`s far more important to have a smaller student body, encourage competition, have a great faculty and provide students with excellent facilities. Making things bigger, is not necessarily making them better. A couple of people pointed this out earlier, and I touched upon this as well, but there just isn`t enough competition these days at LUMS. Places like MIT, Stanford, Princeton etc. share one thing in common; lots of very qualified students pushing each other to perform better. This just doesn`t happen at LUMS (and some of you have admitted to that already). I fully support the view that people learn most things at work. However, learning to thrive under pressure and succeed amongst qualified peers is what adds that extra edge to you when you venture forth into the workplace. Also, if you have a smaller student body, you can find enough fanstastic, well-qualified professors to teach them.

Then there`s that other thing I mentioned. I don`t know how much truth there is in the rumours that I`ve been hearing (I doubt anyone can tell for sure) but I`ve been told that a couple of the professors at LUMS left because things didn`t work out between them and the administration. If this is the case, I think that reflects quite poorly on the people running the place. Personal biases should be kept in check.

Also, I think overall there`s an impression of complacency associated with LUMS. I remember listening to Harsha Bhogle talk once on the telly (yeah, so I`m a cricket fanatic) and the thing that impressed me the most about him was this bit about never being satisfied with things because ``the day one thinks they`re good enough, they stop getting better``. I`ve met some of the members of the board of governors and a few of the other people involved in running LUMS in person at various conferences. There`s way too much self-adulation going around, sometimes to the extent that it`s not even reasonable (one would think they were churning out Nobel laureates by the dozen after listening to a few of them). Be realistic, keep your feet on the ground, and strive for the best. That`s my advice.

#123 by HassanShah

++
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
++

FYI, none of these claims are baseless. I encourage you to visit the link posted by Romair (post #23). For your convenience, I am reproducing the link here again: http://www.lums.edu.pk/law_school.html

++
AKU is comparable but you get a much better education there AND medical degrees seem to be more expensive than others around the world
++

Hehe.. It seems like you have a crystal ball hidden in your closet. But seriously, how can you compare a medical school with a business school?? Its like comparing apples with oranges.

The criteria for med schools and business schools are not the same. Generally, quality of business schools is judged:

• student attributes (average GMAT score, average age, work experience)


• faculty attributes (industry experience, areas of expertise, qualifications, faculty size)


• campus attributes (# of classrooms, student/computer ratio, library, equipment, security, recreation facilities, housing facilities)


• institution attributes (reputation in market, years of operation, reputation abroad, affiliations, funding, scholarships)


• Teaching methods (case method vs. lecture method)

One of the distinctions between a Med school and Business school is that the former must be affiliated with a hospital where students can complete residency, etc. Business schools on the other hand, do not need to set up a corporation just to teach students how to run a corporation.

If you go through the general criteria above, LUMS is not that bad at all. Of course it lags behind IIM Ahmedabad and 20 odd Asian B-schools. The fact that LUMS students trounced IIT, CMU and several U.S. universities in the CSIDC contest (see Romair`s post #23), is ample proof that the difference between LUMS and other schools is not that huge.

Why am I optimistic about LUMS and not IBA? Simply because LUMS has more money at its disposal than IBA. As a result, LUMS can always reach down its pockets and afford good faculty and facilities. Deep pockets often make all the difference.

How many universities in Pakistan offer inexperienced teachers a salary of Rs. 1 lakh per month? At LUMS, the salaries of teachers are almost at par with industry levels.

Nevertheless, the faculty for undergrad classes is not as good as MBA programme. However, if you compare undergrad programmes around the world, you will realize that even this is not an issue. Not every Assistant Professor in UPenn undergrad school is an MIT graduate. Many get their degrees at mid-tier colleges and then teach undergrad classes to gain some experience. You don`t need super faculty for undergrad classes (especially during freshman and sophomore years).

Ideally, LUMS should recruit Ivy school graduates to teach undergrad courses. Traditionally, all university professors in U.S. colleges are PhDs. Initially when LUMS was small, it successfully implemented this guideline (i.e. only PhD-holders could teach classes at LUMS). However, once you expand the university... the extreme shortage of PhDs in Pakistan has become a biggest hurdle.

Finding PhDs is hard enough. Finding PhDs with Ivy school credentials is impossible. This is a problem perplexing all Pakistani institutions, even those who can afford to pay good salaries. It is not a management problem. It is a supply-side problem. (Incidentally LUMS has initiated a 3-year PhD programme with the express purpose of creating a domestic supply line; since hiring foreign PhDs is too expensive. Naturally this does not mean that suddenly a miracle will happen in the next year or so. LUMS intends on a long-term sustained strategy, not a knee-jerk one).

I hope this dispels your incorrect impression that the LUMS management is resting on its laurels.

Faisaluno #125: Thanks for the info.

I had a discussion with an ex-top BCCI guy, a year after the coup. I asked him about the financial future of Pakistan. He told me the following:

- Military govt. is taking the correct steps on finance
- Mullahs need to be kept away
- Local investors will stay out for four years, since the rules are changing (i.e control on bribery etc.)
- After four years, there will be a more level playing field, and they will come in

I think, in the end, more important that politicians, are the financial decision makers that are in place. Pakistan’s future will be decided more by the Shaukut Aziz’s and Hafeez Sheikhs, then by the Musharrafs and the Benazirs. The best thing any PM can do is to appoint the best and most honest people in these positions, and create an atmosphere where they can work independently, without any pressures. This is the first time in my lifetime, that I am seeing that happen.

BB and NS need to be kept away from Pakistan’s coffers. I am still curious to find out how much money BB and Zardari have in the 61 off-shore bank accounts they have in places like Virgin Islands etc. Leghari says its more than 1 billion. If one account in Switzerland had $12 million, I wonder how much money is in 61 accounts. 12 x 61 = 732 million. It is sad to see some educated people wanting her to come back, and rob Pakistan again, withouth having to face the courts. I guess one cannot blame her. Anyone would do the same, if they could rob a country and still have stupid people want them back in power.

Mullahs need to be kept away, because of their narrow-mindedness in economic affairs. Though, they tend to be quite a bit more honest than the BBs and NSs.

It seems like Arab money is coming into Pakistan. Maybe, Arabs are scared the Americans are going to freeze their accounts, or accuse them of financing violence. So they have to put their money somewhere. I think National and Habib are the only two govt. owned banks now (other than the Agricultural, Homebuilder finance type banks). I think National will be the only one the govt. holds on to. I wonder how big these banks would have been had Bhutto not nationalized them. Pakistan was into privatization 30 years ahead of India. Who know how big these industries had been, if they had remained in the private sector from 70 onwards......I think a few of them would have been Asian level players.

An area which I have always thought needs to be privatized are the defence industries. Having worked with them a bit, they are quite good and quite efficient. Pakistan is now jointly producing fighter aircraft with China. Not a small achievement. And has been doing maintenance work for Arab countries on very hi-tech military equipment for decades. A govt-private partnership in this area could prove very useful, since Arab countries want a lot of armament, and don’t want to be dependent on the Western monopoly.

romair:

until few year ago, cbr used to publish a list of top tax payers in pakistan. heading that list would always be the chief of citibank. in many cases however, multinationals illegally assume tax liability of their top 2-3 executives so that the money these executives earn is tax-free. i would estimate that top levels executives at these firms earn around rs. 1mn p.m.+ house and car.

as i mentioned before, salary increases (at all levels) in the private sector is going to be driven by increased hiring from local private and public sector corporates after these are privatized. and people buying these companies will be foreign investors largely arabs, europeans and s.e. asians in that order. i don’t see a dollar of american money coming to pak which in my opinion is a good thing. list of major investment that has taken place or is in the pipeline is as follows:

- ubl. bought by arab/british-asian investors
- hbl. will probably be bought by an arab conglomerate after a feeding frenzy
- ptcl. will probably be bought by orascom, egyptian phone utility which already owns paktel, and is in the process of doubling its investment in paktel.
- pso (jewel in the crown). no idea who the buyer will be
- ogdc (very valuable asset). no idea who the buyer will be
- liberty power. tenaga (malaysian utility) is in the process of doubling its investments
- british telecom. will enter the market with local partner

we will see a real momentum in pak if these transactions are executed in the next couple of years without a hitch. challenge as always will be political rather than economic. benazir and the mullahs cannot be allowed anywhere near the finance ministry. keep your fingers crossed.

# 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. ``

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.

zird, funny you don`t know how snooty the faculty is considering that you seem to be defending lums like you`re a student/ ex-student...one would think you would have a fair enough idea of their attitude. As far as the students are concerned, i guess you`re just not ready to admit something that`s common knowledge in the market! I`m not talking about students becoming `cliquish`; I`m talking of their attitude when they go out into the work field. A lot of employers complain of the neverending `nakhras` of the lums-walas which is really amusing, considering that in the end, it is just a local university, as opposed to bigger, better schools abroad.

#88 by Faisal Uno,

are you sure the person who moved to mcb was number three ? In any case, a lot of people are moving over to local banks and that has more to do with better opportunities.

#90 by Sobia,

firstly a correction, there were not 110 students in classes of 97 and 98. The numbers started increasing in 99.
secondly, i have no idea how snooty the faculty is or is not. But as far as the students are concerned, its a pretty preposterous assertion - it doesn`t come from the fact that they go to lums, it has more to do with the fact that it is an elitist university, most students know each before hand, so they`re likely to become cliqueish.

i actually worked at one of those foreign banks in pak whose name is being branded about here and my experience with lums grads during that time was very positive. and there is no question that right off the bat, lums grads bring more to the table in terms of problem solving skills and technical abilities than iba grads. hence i would prefer a lums grad if i was hiring a candidate for an analyst type position which involved running financial models and building ppt presentations. otoh, i would prefer an iba grad if i wanted someone whose job would be to convince memon and chinnioti seths to route more of their business with us while at the same time, paying us top rupee. (not as easy as it sounds and might involve a lot of salan spills).

also as things are shaping especially in the financial sector, demand for mba`s in pak is going to be driven by local rather than foreign banks. no foreign bank in pak is currently willing to commit capital or assume risk to the extent needed to compete with behemoths like habib, ubl and mcb. and for the first time in the history of pak, top talent from foreign banks are willingly moving to local banks with salary packages that are two to three times higher. (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). and demand and salaries are going to go even higher after habib is privatized probably by the end of the year. and incidentally, the number three ranked guy at our bank who was also a lums grad very recently moved mcb. dont know however if fresh lums grads would be excited at the prospects of working for a local bank. still they might not have a choice.

Romair:
Hey Romair u always seem to be talking about hiring people for IT and stuff. 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 can be reached at famalik@engmail.uwaterloo.ca


and yeh a student from Pakistan going into a high school in Canada can easily out score the ABCDs by a margin of atleast 10-15%, and that is no exaggeration.

and yes SFU is a really good university and the campus at Waterloo is very ugly (but some of the research labs are pretty slick).

//Sobia: your comments are a gross generalisation. LUMS grads may have their own cliques, but all unis have that. At my work, a large proportion of students from a certain ivy-leage generally hang out together, but that does not imply that they are snotty.//

Zird, I admitted myself that it IS a generalization, but unfortunately it`s also something I`ve observed over a period of time, having lived in Lahore and seen people from LUMS very frequently. There`s a difference in being proud of where you`ve studied from (like I am of my university!) and from being arrogant and snooty about it. More than even the students, the staff/faculty at LUMS really needs a reality check.

No one is denying LUMS is good, perhaps even better than some other schools in Pakistan, but my main point of contention is that the standard is declining, and I can say this from watching people I know get admitted into LUMS easily while having mediocre educational backgrounds. The average class size used to be 110 at LUMS (not sure of this number, just an observation from knowing people who went to LUMS is 1997, 1998 and 1999) and has now increased more than three-folds, with the faculty size not increasing proportionately. If you`re going to admit 400 students in your Bsc program and not provide the requisite facilities that go hand in hand with it, there will surely be problems...

//Romair: I think it is unfair to compare South Asian colleges with North American colleges. //

exactly...perhaps someone should tell this to the LUMS faculty too? There`s no comparison, so stop comparing.

#84 by HassanShah

Ok so a couple of IBA grads also make it and LUMS grads do too, but it has developed a better rep relative to IBA, so i think it attracts better students on average. I think we seem to be repeating the same arguments over and over again. IBA grads go to uchicago or nw - so lums grads do too : harvard, mit, yale, stanford, nw? In one of your earlier statements you implied that iba grads are superior to lums grads, i don`t understand how you reached the conclusion - its like comparing oxford and cambridge, they`re all great institutions, but one of them has better facilities and more money.

As for post-docs - A post-doc is a great acheivement too, though i`m not to familiar with CS. It offers you more opportunities to get a publication and get an academic position later on. I know some people (not this gentleman) who also preferred taking up a post-doc position to strengthen their research before they entered the job market. I don`t think doing a post-doc is entirely that `embarassing` as you put it.

btw there are a lot of other Pakistani in academics, but they all have undergraduate degrees from the US/ UK - I don`t want to mention names, they`re all very well placed, but they went to Harvard and MIT for their undergraduate degrees too, so their is a still diff.

rsridhar #83,

Actually, I happen to be from one of them and have visited most. The campuses have
basic amenities, and that`s about it. Compare it to something like TIFR and you can
see the difference. Things might`ve changed in the past 4-5 years; haven`t been back
there recently.

#82 by zird

LUMS grads are better those from IBA ? I`m not really convinced of that. I think I said this earlier, but I`ll mention it again; a fair share of the people who go to IBA end up at places like University of Chicago and Northwestern. Both of those universities are about as good for business as CMU is for CS. At best, IBA and LUMS are at par.

``your argument does not explain ... lums grads managed to get jobs at places in the US, where one w(ou)ld say that the selection process is fair``

I wonder why people consistently turn a blind eye to the fact that a whole bunch of graduates from IBA are also working in the US. I personally know of a few associates at McKinsey, a VP in one of the larger banks in the US and another person who just landed a great job at GM. In any case, the belief that the job selection process is ``fair`` in the US is quite naive. Contacts matter everywhere. Period. Even if you have a distant relative working in a group that`s hiring, he or she can always pull a few strings to give you a massive edge. Not to mention, if you`re rich and your parents flew over the States to give birth to you there are all those little visa issues that never crop up. Face it. If you`re rich and well connected, you automatically have an advantage.

#81 by plats8

I think being a post-doc at a place like MIT is definitely an achievement. However, I agree that it`s been blown out of proportion. Most colleges have a large number of post-docs to do all the (if you`ll excuse me) grunt work that professors don`t want to touch themselves. Since PhD students are busy with their research and professors are invariably tied down with a whole bunch of things ranging from raising funds to teaching and supervising research projects, post-docs often serve as the glue that binds things together. The majority of the people from places like MIT and Stanford, who get their PhDs in CS, prefer to take up teaching positions at smaller universities over a post-doc position. For one, you get to start your own, independent research projects and aren`t condemned to tying up loose ends for someone else. So yeah, I agree with your opinion that being a full professor at a decent research institute beats being a post-doc at MIT.

Incidentally, there are quite a few Pakistani professors teaching in the US at top schools (and I`m fairly certain they`re really professors and not research staff). I find it quite surprising that there`s been so much talk about this gentleman in question and almost nothing about them. I would be interested to hear where they got their degrees from.

HassanShah!

As for the fact that LUMS grads manage to find jobs, well, if you belong to some of the >>richest families in Pakistan, I would be surprised at your inability to do so. I think places >>like IBA should get credit for sufficiently empowering their students to go out and get ??>>jobs despite the greater diversity of student backgrounds.

It may be diff for u to swallow, but it is true, lums grads are better than those from iba. I know ppl who hire at mncs (iba grads and khi-ites - ppl from karachi tend to prefer iba) and they all admit that they wld prefer a lums mba anyday. I think u`re placing too much emphasis on the need for connections to get a job. In any case even if u think this is prevalent in Pakistan, your argument does not explain the fact that these lums grads managed to get jobs at places in the US, where one wld say that the selection process is fair.

I think u misconstrued my earlier remarks too (abt lums grads getting jobs at ms etc through connections, that is not true, it was a `sarcastic` remark cuz nothing cld be further from the truth)- by your argument if every lums grad only gets further in life due to his / her connections, then its diff to understand how they got placed at universities (and jobs) abroad.

Sobia:
your comments are a gross generalisation. LUMS grads may have their own cliques, but all unis have that. At my work, a large proportion of students from a certain ivy-leage generally hang out together, but that does not imply that they are snotty. Though I do agree with HassanShah, that lums students may not get to interact with as diverse a set of students, relative to iba or qau etc, but that is a shortcoming that lums is trying to overcome. As far as i am aware, they have initiated a scholarship program for students from under-represented areas.

As for lums being elitist - that argument can be made for oxford and cambridge too, where a large proportion of intake students are from public schools (in England public schools are like the private schools we have in Pakistan and in the US).

The bottom line is that instead of only looking at the negatives, how abt considering the good aspects too? For instance, more students from pakistan in the area of econ and social sciences are going to grad school at great unis in the US and UK - More Pakistani students are going for research degrees and hopefully some of them will stay on in academia (given the v. few pakistani academics, this wld be a change for the better).

re:#65 by plats8
There are obviously no IITans here to contradict your statement. I have visited IIT Delhi when my friend was doing his Civil Engineering there (and i was a medical student). I will not call IIT campus ``spartan``. By no stretch of imagination! The same goes for other IITs.
http://learning.indiatimes.com/campus/pages/college/iitdelhipro.htm
http://www.iitd.ernet.in/
Sridhar

#76 by rsridhar

++
Indian students are more submissive types, unable to take up a leadership role when circumstances demand it.
++

Pakistanis also have the same problem, though to a lesser extent. This is a cultural difference. In subcontinent culture, we are taught to respect authority and seniority. Most of my Indian colleagues readily share ideas with their peers including myself. But the moment a manager enters the room, they suddenly get self-conscious.

Strangely, ABCDs (both Indians and Pakistanis) don`t have this problem.

I think Indian and Pakistani corporations and universities should encourage an informal culture in which people address each other by first names, instead of ``Sir``.

This will take care of the cultural problem at least. The other dimension is leadership skills such as facilitation, presentations, coaching/mentoring and brainstorming. There are a number of clubs like ToastMaster International that can help individuals acquire leadership skills.

#74 by HassanShah

I am in agreement with your second paragraph. We need a broader base for primary, elementary and high school enrolment.. especially female enrolment in NWFP and Baluchistan.

#77 by Romair

Well said. We had a similar discussion about education in Pakistan a couple of weeks ago in which I also echoed these views. Lack of private investment in Pakistan`s higher education system and low female literacy rates are the primary reason for low ratings of Pakistani colleges.

Salaries, facilities, libraries... everything needs money.

Luckily, there are a lot of international donor agencies that are willing to dole out money for schools and colleges in Pakistan. It just takes a couple of adventurous souls to start another LUMS, IBA, GIK or Agha Khan Med College.

Trekker #68,

Sorry to disappoint you, but being a post-doctoral associate at MIT is not a great
achievement. There are bundles of people who are that, and teach graduate level
courses there; it is a routine thing in many universities. And it most definitely does
not beat being a full professor at an average US university.

His research accomplishments in his field need to distinguish him from his
contemporaries. Flashing a post-doc at MIT certainly won`t.

I think it is unfair to compare South Asian colleges with North American colleges. The differences in the budgets are so huge, that there is no way even an excellent Pakistani college could have the same facilities as a mediocre North American college. In addition, the North American colleges attract professors from all over the world, who voluntarily want to move to North America. While Pakistani colleges face the opposite.

The Univ. of Toronto has 80 Ph.Ds professors in its CS dept., the last time I counted. Many of whom are foreigners. Its annual operating buget is around Can $1 billion. It has professors that make over 150k and a few even over 200k. And I believe its research grants are $500 million or higher. And it has 85 different types of doctorates offered. And its library has over 15 million books. And it has a facutly of over 10,000.

I don`t think there are 80 CS Ph.Ds in all of Pakistan. I don`t think the total budget of all the universities/year combined, in Pakistan, would be 1 billion dollars. And I don`t think the total research grants of the whole country are 500 million. And I doubt there are 15 million books in all the libraries in Pakistan combined.

The average salary of a Harvard prof in 2001 was $147,000/year. http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu/UPA/peers/current/research_intensive/profsal.htm

So it is like comparing apples to oranges. I think a better comparison would be within the Asian context. In those rankings, in 2000, according to AsiaWeek, LUMS has the 3rd best full-time MBA program in South Asia, after Indian Inst. of Management(s) Ahmadabad, and Banglore. In student selectivity for MBA, LUMS is 5th in all of Asia+Australia. And second in South Asia, after Ahmadabad. So it is ahead of all other Indian and Pakistani business schools in this area.

Interestingly, Asiaweek also ranks the best cities in Asia. Amongst South Asia, in 2000, Islamabad is apparently the best city, at no. 23. Its main asset is that, it has the second lowest level of crime in Asia/per total population. Banglore is second at no. 27. It has the 10th lowest level of crime in Asia. Delhi is 3rd at at 31. After that, it is :

Bombay (33 best- Apparently, the safest city in Asia at no. 1, i.e. lowest level of crime/total population)
Chittagong (37)
Karachi (38 )
Dhaka (39)

So, Bombay and Islamabad are the two safest cities in Asia/per population. In 1999, Islamabad was the safest city in Asia. And Singapore is 25th safest. Go figure.

I guess Pakistan isn`t as unsafe as people keep saying. At least not in 2000 and in 1999.

re:#75 by tahmed32
Indian students are more submissive types, unable to take up a leadership role when circumstances demand it. Americans are trained to look after themselves. That is their culture. I won`t say that they are trained to think. Indian schools carry a tougher curricula than american counterparts. Also, American universities are better equipped. In the fellowship program i studied in, the Library itself was a huge 9 storied building with all latest facilities. PCs were everywhere. Research facility was excellent. One need to have infrastructure to show results. Sadly, such an infrastructure is lacking in India in most medical colleges except the very best.
Sridhar
P.S: i am not commenting on Engineering in India or facilities in Pak as i do not know what is going on in these areas and am not qualified to comment.

some excellent points have been raised by various posters, i think. after having gone through the drill that others posters are starting, my experience reinforces what some of the various posters (who are at the other end - the beginning - of the drill) seem to know already. a good name university is good for the first job - and that too if it is in an area of demand. what comes next has to do with the kinds of things romair lists.

in the long run, in fact, what turns out to be most important is not the grad school you went to but what you learnt in kindergarten and at home. also, the main difference between pakistan education and US education i think is not a difference in knowledge - it is a difference in attitude. the US students, i found, had a lot more confidence in themselves than those of us coming from india and pakistan in particular. again, confidence is what they teach you in kindergarten, whereas my experience in pakistan was that the entire education system (particularly at the Panjab University economics department, and later in the civil services academy) was designed to ensure that I dropped any faith I had in my own brain. Many indian students with me at the time told me they had the same feeling - they knew as much as the US students, but lacked the ability to think for themselves. My brother (who studied engineering in Germany) told me he had the same experience when he first came to Germany.

#72 by HisExcellency

Hmm. An interesting spin on things. My personal opinion is that that adage of quality superseding quantity holds true and I cringe at the thought of accepting low standards, but I can understand where you`re coming from. I think it`s better to do something well rather than to bite off more than a mouthful (and after some time working in the industry I am reluctant to credit certifications and short courses for much) but I guess only time will tell whether producing ``less graduates with excellent qualifications`` is necessarily better than churning out ``more graduates with decent qualifications``.

About IIT. I think one of the reasons it has done so well over the years is because India has a much bigger population (and a higher literacy rate) than Pakistan. Whereas our primary education sector is excellent, it just isn`t extensive enough. We simply don`t produce enough good students to feed into our higher education institutes for them to be competitive. At the end of the day, any place is about as good as the people who go there to study.

Interesting discussion.

My experience has been that the university one goes to, though important, is never the deciding factor in one`s career. I used to think otherwise, when I was starting out in entry level jobs and when I was studying. Since then, I have had a chance to consult with a lot of companies, helping them set up, and reorganize, their IT depts. Often times this involves hiring a lot of people for them. One gets a pretty good idea of who`s who and what`s what, as far as qualifications and characteristics go. I would prioritize the important features, in getting a job and moving up, in the following order, from highest to lowest:

1. The field of study/experience: A person with a CS degree with Joe Schmoe university (or equivalent experience) has more chances of getting a job than a person with a BA degree in Philosophy degree from Harvard.

2. Successful job experience: After the entry level jobs, it is really a job experience record that counts. Ivy Leagues degrees, by themselves, without an excellent job experience record are useless, for moving up in management and executive positions.

3. The personality of the person: How the person behaves. His/her work ethic. Personality. Dress sense. Soft skills. etc. etc.

4. The College he attended: This is where the college comes in.

5. The level of degree: Unless it is for a research position or a position in academia, the level of qualification (BS, MS, Ph.D) etc. doesn`t matter much

One of the most interesting selections we went through once was for an Java developer. The company paid a lot, so we were always able to attract good candidates. We interviewed a small group of people. One had a Ph.D. from Harvard in Physics (or something, can`t remember). One had an BS from MIT (in Computer Science). And one had a Bachelors degree from Jawarlal Nehru University, with no degree from USA. We ended up hiring the guy from JLNehru. Primarily because the Harvard guy had a terrible attitude. The MIT lady had seven years of experience, but in C. The JLN guy was a nice guy, with three years of Java (which at that time was a lot), and knew his stuff.

So University Name matters, but only at three stages: a) Entry level b) When one gets to the executive ranks (this assumes one is good to begin with) c) When a candidate is approaching someone who knows nothing about him - they will get you an interview

Other than that, its who you are as a person and your experience record, that counts. Of course the ideal professional is someone who scores high on all four of the areas mentioned in the first para.

And I have found that Pakistanis do quite well - doesn`t matter where they are from in Pakistan. This is why I think Pakistanis overly and unnecessarily criticize themselves. Three countries, about which I can safely say, on the average, one can hire candidates from for IT, without worrying too much (specially if they have supplemented their BS degrees with a US degree): a) India b) Pakistan c) Iran

Chinese are good also, but their communication skills are severely lacking in many cases.

#69 by JacobianMatrix

Well said. Having worked with this gentleman, I don`t think he needs to create such a hype about himself. If he delivers even 50% of what he promises, inshallah prominence will follow him. And not vice versa. He has the capability to deliver. Let`s hope he also has the initiative and perseverance for this task.

Sigh. After going over some of the posts below, let me make a couple of small clarifications.

Firstly, social networks are important, but they`re not everything. Secondly (and more importantly) there`s a significant difference between possessing social networking skills and having contacts. The former may lead to the latter over time, but things don`t necessarily work in reverse. In other words, simply having contacts does not suddenly endow you with social skills.

By charging exorbitant fees LUMS ensures that the MBA program consists primarily of the upper strata of society. Doing so, it provides you with a set of useful contacts that may help you get jobs... not a set of skills. If the people at LUMS got together and sat around in Gymkhana, I don`t think they would achieve any less.

As for the fact that LUMS grads manage to find jobs, well, if you belong to some of the richest families in Pakistan, I would be surprised at your inability to do so. I think places like IBA should get credit for sufficiently empowering their students to go out and get jobs despite the greater diversity of student backgrounds. That`s really the key point: a college helps you develop abilities. It doesn`t just introduce you to people.

#66 by HassanShah

++
It`s about time LUMS started realising things are amiss and checked the rabid expansion that`s been taking place of late till they get a set of individuals capable of leading research efforts. Jobs at Microsoft, ABN Amro etc. might keep the applications coming in, but till philosophicla enquiry takes root, LUMS will never be recognized around the world.
++

I disagree. The present student population is too small to meet the market demand. I think it is better to produce more graduates with decent qualifications, than less graduates with excellent qualifications. I say this because no matter how good a student you are, the real learning takes place on the job. The market follows the 80-20 rule: 80% of the time, you only use 20% of the skills you learned in university. The remaining skills can be picked up slowly ``on the job`` depending on seniority and role.

Like a person, institutions also go through several phases of their lifecycle. From 1986 to 1994, LUMS was a baby that offered just one programme. Between 1994 and 1999, this baby took smaller (baby) steps towards boyhood (or girlhood if you prefer) by offering new programmes (BBA, BCS) with small class sizes. Having learnt its lessons and worked out the administrative requirements, this child is now poised for teenage and adulthood. The undergrad program has been expanded. More majors (e.g. Social sciences, Mathematics) are being offered. A Law school is being started. The MCS and PhD programmes have already been launched. In years to come, class sizes must expand further.

LUMS should not remain an exclusive university where only 1000-odd Lahorites, Karachiites and Islamabadis study. It needs to be a national university where even students from smaller towns like Faisalabad, Peshawer, Quetta, Multan, Hyderabad, Bahawalpur, etc can study.

In the end, it is all a numbers game. This is the secret of India`s phenomenal success in IT... i.e. Produce more graduates, even if their quality is just okay; then let them polish themselves on the job through certifications and short executive courses.

very impressive. definitely. no denying that. im proud of any pakistani who ends up at mit. wow. only point is that hes not a faculty member as i hear he keeps telling people he is. lets give credit for what is and not what isnt. i was excited when my friend at lums told me about the youngest professor ever at mit being from pakistan and it later turned out the he was not even close to the youngest and not even a prof. also turns out that research assistants at mit do teach classes as instructor from time to time. disappointing were not content about what we are and must fool others by pretending to be things we arent. lums even published an ad about it. im going to wait to see what the `institute` in lahore does before getting my hopes up high again. simply getting a grant from the govt doesnt count for anything.

zird:
grad school: despite the faculty from `not so great` unis, i think its still quite a feat that lums grads are studying at grad schools in ivy-leages in the US and are surviving the rigours too.

so? a lot of other pakistani students who haven`t gone to lums are also doing the same, from GIK, NED, UET etc...my question is: what`s with the attitude, dude? You guys are not even being hired by local firms now because of the badass attitude...me me me i`m special i want this i want that...get OVER yourselves! What is it about desis and superiority complexes? You get a little and you want the whole nine yards. Jeeez! Even foreign grads don`s have these `nakhras`! This is more so in the case of MBAs. Of course, I am generalizing greatly. I`m sure there are lums grads around who don`t have their heads in the clouds but most of them do have a problem dealing with the `common` folks...i wonder what the deal with that is!

Sobia #47,

If LUMS compares favourably with mid-level American Universities in terms of the undergraduate curriculum it offers, I would say it has done rather well. Would you
disagree with this assessment ?

To digress a little, the IITs have maintained their standards through a ridiculously
difficult entrance exam, which ensures a very motivated and intelligent
undergraduate student body. From what I have read in this article, LUMS seems to offer better infra-structure (student/computer ratio) and the living conditions in IIT campuses
used to be spartan at best.

#57 by dost-mittar

Well, to be quite honest, my knowledge of SFU, as I have already admitted, is close to zero. I did surf the web and it seems that SFU is rated well outside the top 100 economics programs around the world, behind places like Queens, University of Montreal, McGill, U of T, McMaster, York, U of Western Ontario etc. in Canada alone. Besides, the point I`m making is not critically dependent on the merits and demerits of SFU alone (it was just one in a list of places).

When LUMS started out they had a pretty impressive faculty. For various reasons (interesting in their own right for they are a consequence of the smug attitude of the administration), that`s no longer the case. I think it`s a startling decline for the university and one they need to check. The standard of education does not merely depend on the most accomplished one or two professors in a college but on the majority of the faculty. It`s about time LUMS started realising things are amiss and checked the rabid expansion that`s been taking place of late till they get a set of individuals capable of leading research efforts. Jobs at Microsoft, ABN Amro etc. might keep the applications coming in, but till philosophicla enquiry takes root, LUMS will never be recognized around the world.

Of course, for all this to happen, someone needs to wake up to reality. Unfortunately, it seems that those who matter in LUMS think everything`s just nice and dancy.

I did my BE (CSE) from GIKI and then went to graduate school here in US at CMU.

I think universities can be compared to democracies. The older the better, they get refined, stable, reknown and nurtured. The fact that NED and UET have produced great professionals can be partly attributed to the reason that not only have they been around for quite a while, many of the alumni have contributed in some way or another to improve the ambience as a whole. However, it is to note that as great leaders are born in a corrupt governments too, so are great students in mis-managed universities, and I believe in larger numbers.

Pakistan is Pakistan and US is US. You have to change your mind-frame when you compare, or even talk. The objective of a university is to impart education. Why am I not too worried about `not-the-best` living conditions at LUMS? I think the foremost should be what do they offer. LUMS, GIKI along with other institutions offers an oppurtune way for people to come abroad for better jobs and education. On a comparison with other institutions in Pakistan, I see one of the most creditable faculty at LUMS. A GIKIAN recently got his doctorate from US and returned back to Pak, and is teaching in LUMS and has opened a Computer Vision research centre - I doubt such an oppurtunity for research or exposure exists anywhere else in the country. Now which student or how many students can cash on it, is a different matter - let`s remember we are Pakistanis too and all the things that come with it and our nature.

GIKI had great resources but was isolated and did not have the faculty and suffered and still suffers from such mis-management rumours too. Does that mean that it did not produce good students? Did they not end up at top universites in the world or in top firms? No. This applies to NUST and LUMS also. NED/UET have made their marks, and these new universities are, perhaps not in the best-est of ways or the ways we would like, but they surely are. They are making and producing students - good ones and individuals - with strong fundamentals. And they are usually cheaper compared to any place here in the US.

As I did my graduate studies here in the US, I did not feel that my undergraduate university (GIKI) hampered my grooming by not offering facilities/time/resources to learn, instead I realized that I did not actually make use of all they had to offer (like most people).

JacobianMatrix #56

Yeah so his formal title is Postdoctoral Associate - who cares. But the fact remains that he is an ``instructor`` for courses at MIT. e.g. http://cag.lcs.mit.edu/classes/6.898/ and not just ``TA`` or ``staff``. And being an instructor for an MIT graduate-level course sure beats being a full professor at a run-of-the-mill US college.

#56 by JacobianMatrix

++
yeah! i keep hearing about him all the time from people. there was an ad in the newspaper about him too. i checked out the mit site and also asked a couple of people i know there and it turns out hes not really a prof... some kind of staff or something but definitely not faculty. from what i hear he has just been creating that impression just because he was involved as an assistant for some class or something. still impressive but only half the truth.
++

I believe he is a Research Assistant in the Ubiquitous Computing group at MIT. During his PhD at Cambridge, he contributed to the Oxygen Project and now he is in the process of setting up a Research institute in Lahore. Apparently, the govt has apportioned a grant of $30m for this purpose. More details will probably emerge only after this project materializes.

On the contrary, I think this is the best school to go to for learning business and management sciences or art. It teaches you, by examples, how to maximize profits by squeezing available resources to the limit. Learn it well as you have to implement it routinely in your practical life to come.
You and your school are part of the commodity market, where education is the product that you two are exchanging. You want more bang for your buck and school wants thicker stream of cash flows flowing. The school has to grow and growth comes from raising money. You are the capital providers. Did you say they are admitting more students than they can handle? No! they are accumulating more money and guess what, one can always handle more money. You know that.
And don’t sweat too much about the quality. Think of this way, you are far superior than those third grade government school poodles even if you don’t learn nothin’. When you walk into that interview room with your LUMS chip on your shoulder, you will get priority over crippled public school graduates with no membership in the Rich People Club (I am implying(I am not implying that u are part of the club but the majority is).
The quality wavier applies to you only if you decide to remain in the country, but if you want to go to Umrica, for instance, then it may turn out to be a whole different ball game.

Caution: response may sound bitter for I sensed a brat in 2nd to last sentence of your post.

#54 by HassanShah

I know quite a few LUMS MBAs who are working for McKinsey, A.T.Kearney and Goldman Sachs in NYC. One of my former classmates is working at Citibank in London. Most of the folks have gone into Investment banks and Management consulting companies. Quite a few have joined Internet venture funds and startups in D.C.

Compared to the early and mid-1990s, the only difference now is that LUMS MBAs need to wait longer to find jobs. My IBA friends tell me that they also face the same problem. So I don`t think this has anything to do with LUMS or IBA. Too many MBAs are entering the market and many have returned from the U.S. because of visa problems/layoffs. Effectively, LUMS MBAs are now competing with U.S. qualified MBAs. Strangely, though most of the times, employers still prefer a LUMS MBA (albiet with good grades) to a foreign MBA from mid-tier universities.

++
Perhaps my view of an educational institute is skewed, but I thought a college is meant to educate people. Not to merely serve as a social networking club.
++

LUMS is much more than a social networking club. The average MBA student at LUMS spends 70-85 hours a week in class, group discussions, assignments and case studies. Networking, no doubt, is one of the benefits of joining LUMS. But it is not the entire picture.

To put it bluntly, professional education is not about education alone. Networking and soft skills are equally crucial, especially during an economic slowdown.

Graduate studies are very different from elementary school, high school or college. The focus in grad school is specialization and networking, not general education. It has to be seen as an investment, not an exercise in character-building. It is no different from a business investment which ultimately must yield a financial return.

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20030915.html

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20030916.html

SR #41 Agreed with you that the day of the mutual fund is probably over, but only as far as MANAGED mutual funds go. This as I understand (based on my ``serious`` study of literature in the motley fool and morningstar) is because three-fourths of managed funds have in fact done WORSE than the stock market as a whole. index funds (like the vanguard 500) which are essentially unmanaged thus did better than the ``managed`` funds while involving very little fee (0.18 percent for vanguard 500 vs. 2.5 percent average for managed funds, as i recall).
When I mentioned a 30-40 year time horizon, i was thinking of pension funds for ``new adults`` (i.e. someone in his or her late teens/early twenties). vanguard may be gone by then, but surely the stock market will still be around. and even if the stock market has been totally transformed by then, the companies in which the stock investment is made will still be around. and even if they are not around (due to takeover for example) the stock would have been exchanged for some new stock.
However, i agree that it would not make sense to put all of one`s retirement money into a 30-40 year horizon. In that case, one could have a MIX: say anywhere from 20-90 percent (depending on one`s risk averseness) of portfolio in some kind of stock index funds, and the rest in specific industries or even companies.
Which brings us to the mining sector. Why do you favor it??

PS: We can continue the discussion on ilog if you wish, but let me know if you want to do that.

I enjoy discussing universities. Better to have discussion on whose university is better, than whose ideology or country or religion is better.

HassanShah $53: “``... the LUMS guy(s) were more upper class, more Westernized etc. ... If I were to hire a manager, probably the LUMS guy.`` ….I`m not sure what to make of that.”

These statements weren’t supposed to be connected. I just meant that in a Western country, the social skills of a LUMS graduate (which may have nothing to do with LUMS) would prove to be an asset in management.

“College education in Pakistan is decent. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I agree. It just needs more funding and needs to be more accessible. But I don’t think it is as bad as people make it out to be. One rarely hears of a Pakistani flunking from a US university.

“LUMS is probably the equivalent of a middle-tier school in the US and UK.”

I would agree, and this holds true for all good Pakistani schools. They can never have the funds to compete with the top-tier Western schools. They can only compete in Asia. However, the selection standards of places like LUMS (and NED, etc.) are probably quite a bit higher than the middle-tier US schools, hence the standard of their graduates will be higher than those of middle-tier US schools.

“ABCD Pakistan candidates leave a lot to be desired ? I can`t say, but it seems like a sweeping generalization.”

Yes, an obvious generalization. I was just talking about the ones I have run across. Pakistanis who make it to the US, specially from middle class neighborhoods, tend to be more desparate and more resourceful, and thus more successful (in my experience). Though I could be wrong.

“I`ve never really heard of Simon Fraser University. When I think of Canada, the schools that come to mind are Waterloo (which I have great respect for), McGill, UofT etc.”

Please read dost-mittar’s comments. I have recently learnt quite a bit about Canadian universities, since I help my clients recruit from there now. The only three well-known universities outside Canada are the ones you mentioned. They are generally in the top three always. McGill is the Harvard of Canada. Waterloo is the MIT of Canada. And U of Toronto is the only very large university in Canada (I believe it is the 6th largest in North America). It has the best Ph.D programs in Canada and the most degrees offered, and by far the largest research grants.

After these, come two more: Queens and Simon Fraser. Sometimes these sneak into the top three, in Mcleans magazine ratings (US News equivalent for Canada).

“and campus beauty does not a university make”

Yes, this is true. But one must make an exception for the ones that are spectacularly beautiful. The two that I have visited, that come to mind, are Simon Fraser and University of Colorado. Boulder, Colorado is a slice of heaven. I was actually accepted there, but decided not to go. Sometimes I still regret it. And the view from the Simon Fraser cafeteria’s balcony, which hangs out over a small peak, overlooking a green valley on one side and the Vancouver seacoast on the other side, is worth the price of admission, on its own. And Vancouver is rightly considered, by many, the most beautiful city in the world, with the most beautiful ladies in the world. So the most beautiful view, in the most beautiful campus, in the most beautiful city, surrounded by the most beautiful student body, has to be worth something. U of T, McGill and Waterloo campuses are quite stale, in comparison.

HE:
[When I think of Canada, the schools that come to mind are Waterloo (which I have great respect for), McGill, UofT etc. I spent considerable time helping friends who had applied to Canada, but never once heard the name Simon Fraser crop up (and campus beauty does not a university make)]

That is because it is a 2nd tier university in Canada. By second tier, it means it does not cover all types of courses; in particular, it does not have professional courses like law, medicine, dentistry or teaching. It is located in a suburb of Vancouver, Burnaby. Vancouver also has a first tier university, the University of British Columbia.
In its class though (comprehensive) SFU consistently scores at the top or near the top in the Maclean magazine rating, the most popular ratings in Canada.

Thank you all for your comments. There are a few clarifications that I`d like to make:

1. The cost is of the FULL MBA PROGRAMME and not per annum as some of you have beent thinking
2. I have not raised any point about the financial aid programme of LUMS. I think it is pretty good. Frankly, most of the people in LUMS are on a financial aid. In fact, I think it`s probably the best in Pakistan.
3. a correction: I was informed by a few ppl that student to faculty ratio is calculated over all the student and faculty. What I have stated is an observation of the number of people in the courses that I have taken thusfar, which usually range from 40-180 per class. (And it is a norm).
4. Trekker #52: I am glad that an ex-LUMINITE also read this. However, about your comment:

``The new library building and labs are steps in that direction but it will take time.``

What I and the rest of the existing student body is complaining is about the current infra-structure not being able to support it. We all want LUMS to grow to a population of 20,000; but we insist: facilities first!

Bilal

trekker:

... one of them after completing his phd from cambridge is now a faculty member in the eecs dept at mit..

yeah! i keep hearing about him all the time from people. there was an ad in the newspaper about him too. i checked out the mit site and also asked a couple of people i know there and it turns out hes not really a prof... some kind of staff or something but definitely not faculty. from what i hear he has just been creating that impression just because he was involved as an assistant for some class or something. still impressive but only half the truth.

#45 by Romair

``... the LUMS guy(s) were more upper class, more Westernized etc. ... If I were to hire a manager, probably the LUMS guy.``

I`m not sure what to make of that. Enough rich, snotty, Westernized types have led institutions, corporations and even countries to their downfall. Surely, being a manager necessitates some qualities other than the ones mentioned. In any case, I think you hit the nail on the head about LUMS; little in terms of knowledge, but it most definitely allows you to mingle with the rich and famous of Pakistan. Not that developing a social network is a bad thing, but a university should focus on imparting a quality education, not gear itself towards developing an image as a haven for the sons and daughters of businessmen, landlords and politicians. I have mixed feelings about any group that revels in exploiting class distinctions.

College education in Pakistan is decent. Nothing more, nothing less. I think that`s the main point I`m trying to bring across. LUMS is probably the equivalent of a middle-tier school in the US and UK. In fact, even in Pakistan, its status as the premier educational institution is under fire. What vexes me no length is the smug contentment shown by the administration at LUMS. Rejoicing in mediocrity is inexcusable, more so because it stems from a mistaken (dare I say arrogant) belief that LUMS is a top-notch research institute. To make matters worse, then there`s the constant disparaging of places like NED, FAST etc., which manage to achieve arguably more with fewer resources. Unless the people at LUMS reconcile themselves with reality, they`re not going to improve.

As far as doing well in the IT market goes, I think a fair chunk of the credit should be given where it`s due; our primary education sector. Unlike the universities in Pakistan, our schools are actually fairly competitive with the best around the world. Maybe it`s due to the fact that brain-drain does significantly impact them. Maybe not. The broader point here is that singling out the weak higher education sector as the driving force behind the stellar performance of Pakistanis abroad is perhaps unfair. There are countless other factors; excellent primary education (though only available to a small nano-percent of our population), social conditions where only the fittest (read most successful) survive and, yes, even some ``natural talent``.

ABCD Pakistan candidates leave a lot to be desired ? I can`t say, but it seems like a sweeping generalization. Some of the ones I met at college have actually fared quite well and aren`t an entirely different breed from the rest of us. Even if the anecdotal evidence has some truth in it, again, I think you`re attributing too much to college education at places like LUMS. As I just mentioned, there are other, more powerful forces at play.

Georgia Tech I must confess is a great school. It was probably the lack of sleep more than anything else that let that one slip in. I`ve never really heard of Simon Fraser University. When I think of Canada, the schools that come to mind are Waterloo (which I have great respect for), McGill, UofT etc. I spent considerable time helping friends who had applied to Canada, but never once heard the name Simon Fraser crop up (and campus beauty does not a university make). Putting aside Acadia, Kent, University of Florida etc., I think that the merits of the aerospace program at Kansas State are debatable and in any case, to the best of my knowledge, LUMS does not have an a program in that area. Nor, from what I`ve heard, does it plan to anytime soon.

#48 by HisExellency

Things are down for Wharton grads these days ? Well, from what I hear from my friends in LUMS, they`re not that rosy for people there either. As for IBA, I don`t think it`s doing that badly. True, it has had its ups and downs over the years, but I know of quite a few people who managed to get admitted to MBA programs at University of Chicago, Northwestern etc. and have landed jobs are places like McKinsey.

There was another post down there somewhere stating that by mingling with those with wads of cash, LUMS graduates manage to get jobs at Microsoft (a company that produces products of debatable quality). Perhaps my view of an educational institute is skewed, but I thought a college is meant to educate people. Not to merely serve as a social networking club.

Hassan !

ok so the avg lums mba may not be a great as the avg wharton mba, but perhaps that is because they`re looking at two diff markets. Its a pretty illogical statement - that job opportunities after a wharton mba are better. Ppl who `choose` to get a lums mba, are those who want to live in Pakistan and there`s nothing better than a lums mba in that case, where u`re more aware of the local market. Most firms wld prefer to hire a lums mba than a person with an mba degree at least from a middle tiered US uni (of course hbs sloan and wharton wld be a diff case). Btw many of these lums mbas (with only their lums degrees) are working on wall-street and doing v. well: i-banking and also in consulting firms, guess they`re not so bad after all - so are they still lemons, that wall street cld not screen out? so much for their several rounds of interviews.

fin aid: lums does give a significant amount of financial aid and a few scholarships. The size of these may not be a large as those given out by liberal art colleges and ivy-leages in the US, but u have to admit that these institutions have been around for much longer. They have trust funds and donors, and are generating a regular income stream from them. LUMS has a long way to go - but given its short history, and not a huge amt of funds to depend on, the fin aid given is still sthg.

cs majors: i don`t know which lums cs majors u grilled - but its preposterous to claim that they`re not as good as ned etc grads. I guess that is why half of the past few lums cs class are employed at microsoft.

grad school: despite the faculty from `not so great` unis, i think its still quite a feat that lums grads are studying at grad schools in ivy-leages in the US and are surviving the rigours too.

and lastly

In fact, the only real edge LUMS provides is that you get to mingle with the rich elite of >the country and might be able to find jobs more easily that way.

yes of course...it was the connections that got `em jobs at microsoft, in i-banking and consulting in the US !

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Lets forget about LUMs, NED, GKI, FAST, or SLUM or whatever. Thesea re not that famous compared to others in Pakistan.

Well, more than LUMS, NED etc there are more important institutions in pakistan. These are world famous for they have made their presense felt in afghanistan, india, NYC and the US and now in China. These are the jehad terror camps in Pakistan. Well the Islamic Republic of Pakistan should rename itself (no not the Dominion of Pakistan as the Pak embassy in US calls Pakistan) but the International Institution for Terror (IIT) -8-()! Atleast there will be one acronym which has a brand feel to it!

Check this out from UNI

China points finger at Pak militant camps

Washington: Trouble could be brewing between long-time strategic allies China and Pakistan.

Recent statements by a senior Chinese official that separatist forces in the country`s restive Xinjian Autonomous Region have had training in several camps in Pakistan have led to speculation on the ties between the two nations, according to Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor).

Separatists in China`s predominantly Uighur-populated northwest were receiving assistance from international militant groups, including instruction in ``several training camps in Pakistan``, regional Communist Party secretary and Politburo member Wang Lequan said at a September 11 press conference for foreign journalists.

The statement is a shocking deviation of protocol between long-time allies China and Pakistan, the geopolitical analytical firm said in a report.

In the past, it said, Beijing has gone out of its way not to implicate Islamabad when speaking of the activities of Islamist militant groups. However, if the quote attributed to Wang is accurate and his views are official, it contains ``startling implications for Chinese-Pakistani relations``.

Speaking about Beijing`s struggle with Muslim separatist groups in the Xinjiang region, Wang reportedly said a small number of training camps had been found in Xinjiang since September 11, 2001, but that several more camps exist in Pakistan. He gave no further details.

The official`s statements could have been poorly translated or unsanctioned, off-the-cuff remarks, Stratfor said. But if his words reflect the current party line, a very sharp policy shift vis-a-vis Islamabad has occurred in Beijing, it added.

About 10 million of Xinjiang`s 19 million people are Muslim Uighurs, many of whom claim they are a distinct ethnic group with a right to declare their own homeland.

Beijing has suppressed a Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang for more than a decade, and more than half a million Uighurs reportedly have fled from China into neighbouring Pakistan and Central Asia since 1996. From there, Stratfor alleged, they slip arms, aid and insurgents back across the border, aiding the rebellion.






UNI

Romair #45 and Hassan Shah #42.
I agree with most of what you have said Romair but disagree with you Hassan. The Virginia-based company I work for employs 5 LUMS CS grads (including myself) and they have performed very well. I interview 3-4 job candidates per week for the company which have included Indian nationals, Chinese and of course US Citizens from places like U Maryland College Park, UVA and my sense is that the average LUMS grad has a better mix of technical and ``soft`` skills than their US counterparts and better communication skills than other foreign nationals. Now keep in mind that the TOTAL number of CS graduates to date is approximately 350 (Classes of 1997 to 2003) which is a small number as compared to graduates of NED, FAST etc. In my class approximately 20% of the graduates opted to pursue higher education and one of them after completing his PhD from Cambridge is now a faculty member in the EECS Dept at MIT. Of course, as you say Hassan, one or two people gettin into good places does not mean anything but the fact is that consistently from each graduating class students have been getting admissions in the top-5 CS schools in the US such as Stanford, CMU, Cornell. The main problem they are facing right now is to get F1 visas in time! I know of several students who got admissions in top schools but their background check required by the US Embassy for Pakistani nationals was taking months+ and they had to either defer their admissions or withdraw.

Bilal, coming to your original post and concerns - I hear you. And these concerns were raised by the alumni as well with Dr Zahoor and Syed Babar Ali at alumni meetings in the US and they are alive to the situation. The new library building and labs are steps in that direction but it will take time. I remember in my time there was no on-campus student housing and students used to share rooms in houses in Defence that LUMS rented (plus if you`re finding so much time to spend in your dorm room they`re not driving you hard enough ;-) ). So hang in there and concentrate on your coursework.

#42 by HassanShah

I don`t think any top Ivy school in the US has a 1:1 student/computer ratio. Even MIT has a 1:7 ratio. Nevertheless, I agree with you that a good student/computer ratio is not as important as student/teacher ratio and the faculty profiles.

However, for some programs such as Comp.Sci, the student/computer ratio is extremely important. You learn more in the computer lab than in the classrooms. Almost all Comp Sci courses at LUMS assign 10-15% of the grade through class quizzes. A staggering 40-50% of the grade depends on biweekly assignments. And another 40% depends on mid-term exams and finals.

Even if you recruit professors from MIT or Stanford, without enough computers you simply can`t teach a CS program. This is the bottomline. NED should contact its alumni for donations and upgrade its computing facilities.

Not many people know that the American University of Beirut is rated as high as the top 25 universities in America. In its list of best international institutes (from 1998-2001 I think), U.S. news included it in the same category as INSEAD (France). During late 1970s and early 80s, it was rated even higher until turmoil struck Lebanon in 1983. About 70% of the faculty is foreign and does not allow any political interference from Hezbollah.

++
LUMS, on the other hand, seems to believe most stringently in being penny-wise
++

You must be an outsider to the LUMS community. Those who attend LUMS can attest that the university offers plenty of scholarships, bank sponsorships and Qarz-e-Hasna. In my batch, there was a Baluchi student who had aced his FSc exam but didn`t speak English. He couldn`t even travel to Lahore for his interview. He expressed this problem in his application essay.

LUMS sent him an airticket, conducted his interview in Urdu (as a special case), gave him the admission and gave him 100% need-based financial assistance. (During the course of his study, he picked up English and is now working at an NGO in Quetta)

Here is another example. Another friend of mine lost his father at very young age and had to rely on scholarships throughout school and high school. He aced his O-levels and A-levels and then applied to LUMS. He got the Razak Dawood scholarship and did not have to pay a dime out of his pocket. This guy was so brilliant that he maintained a 4.0 GPA in every quarter at LUMS. He is now completing his Ph.D. at CMU.

An Urdu-speaking friend of mine came from Karachi. He had similar problems but didn`t have high grades. LUMS found him a sponsorship with ABN-AMRO bank. Under this deal, my friend was required to maintain a GPA of 3.5 for three years and work for 2 years at ABN-AMRO after graduation. In return, the bank would pay for his education at LUMS.

Just because there are some rich spoilt kids at LUMS doesn`t mean that LUMS discourages hard-working students with financial problems. In fact, all the shining stars at LUMS are people from the latter category who don`t waste their precious time at LUMS in dating, partying and cricket.

#43 by plats8

You are missing the point here. Bilal Tanweer (author of this article) should realize that in terms of computing facilities, LUMS is probably as good as even the best U.S. universities. If he really wants to criticize LUMS management, he should focus on student/teacher ratios and space problem in hostels.

I don`t disagree with HassanShah that LUMS is expensive. But he is overlooking the fact that those who really need financial assistance at LUMS, do get it. The LUMS management is very generous with need-based Qarz-e-Hasna and scholarships.

saynanza: IIT? Right... temme about it? I can give ya names of dozens of your IIT brats who got nuffin better to do than smoke weed n shag gals 24/7 here in london. If you can not rate... do not hate either. And didn`t any one teah ya at your IIT that

Oh please..don`t diss something just because it`s Indian..IIT`s standard is so much better than LUMS, there`s no comparison. What does LUMS boast of? A mediocre faculty, snooty kids paying a hell of a lot to get standard education and a big campus (which, btw, is much much much smaller than that of the smallest American university)...LUMS used to be good, but now a lot of the teachers who worked with the instiution to make it good have left, they`ve gone back to where they came from because of the current mafia that is ruling LUMS now...some faculty, and I say this from personal experience, in the social sciences dept actually have the nerve to insinuate that a LUMS degree and education is better than that of a good American univeristy..insane! shocking! HELLOOO?? wake up and smell the coffeeeee!

#42 by HassanShah

++
keep in mind that an average Wharton grad has much better job prospects than an average LUMS grad. Finally, if you`re still not satisfied, let me remind you that the comparison isn`t really even valid. LUMS is no Wharton and any such pretensions are quite misplaced.
++

Job prospects for Wharton grads were only bright while the economy was doing great. Now they have to wait for months to get offers. In fact, 75% of the class of 2002 had to sit out for 8 months before getting any offers.

LUMS is no Wharton, but it is certainly the best MBA school in Pakistan. IBA is a close second, but all the other schools are definitely way behind LUMS. Every year the key offerings from Citibank, ABN-AMRO, Shell, Maersk, and other multinationals still go to LUMS grads.

And here is another thing. A LUMS MBA is internationally recognized as well. I am not sure if IBA enjoys the same reputation that it did 20 years ago.

Hassan Shah #42: “CS degrees from LUMS and I have no doubt that the candidates from FAST, NED and UET are far better qualified.”

I have run across a large group from NED. A small group from FAST. And one or two odd from LUMS. So not enough of a spread to consider it a clear opinion (except for NED). I would say in CS, I found all of them to be about the same. The NED guys were generally more middle-class, with weaker English, but more resourceful. FAST were in the middle in both. And the LUMS guy(s) were more upper class, more Westernized etc. If my company was on the line and, I were to hire an engineer, I would hire the NED guys. If I were to hire a manager, probably the LUMS guy. The FAST person would be in between, on both.

On the whole, all of them, have proven to be quite good. And have been easily able to compete in the North American IT market, specially the ones who went on to get Masters degree. That is why I find it hard to believe that the Pakistani education system is bad as everyone makes it out to be. They all couldn’t have made it due to just natural talent. I just think the education system is under-funded and only caters to a small group, since there are very few universities.

Interestingly, the group, on the average, I have found to be the weakest are the ABCD Pakistani candidates. The ones who grow up here. They are no match to the ones who come from Pakistan.

The other country, surprisingly, that I have noticed quite good candidates from, is Iran. And they have a higher percentage of girls in the field than Pakistan. So the girls seem to be getting some good education there, apparently. And Iran seems to make really good movies, that win an award or two in international film festivals. The mullahs may have gotten something straightened out there.

These are all based on personal experience and not any statistical data.

“Well, if you go through the latest cached versions of the faculty profiles on google, rest assured you`ll see the following pop up more often than once:

University of Florida
Simon Fraser University
Kansas State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Acadia University
University of Kent
University of Texas at Arlington”

I cannot vouch for the other ones, but some of these are actually very good universities. Simon Fraser was ranked the best university in Canada a few years ago, ahead of universities like McGill. It is usually in the top five in Canada, and has the most beautiful campus I have ever seen. Georgia Tech is widely recognized as a good school in its areas of speciality. Kansas State University is pretty good in the Aerospace area (though not as good as University of Kansas, which is one of the best in this area along with Stanford, MIT, Univ. of Colorado etc.).

#37 by rsaxena

IIT? Right... temme about it? I can give ya names of dozens of your IIT brats who got nuffin better to do than smoke weed n shag gals 24/7 here in london. If you can not rate... do not hate either. And didn`t any one teah ya at your IIT that

Pride Hath A Fall ?

Learn n Live a lil now.
peace!

Rsaxena #37,

I do believe that the IIT comment was unnecessary. Good institutions should be secure
enough in their standings - the IITs have consolidated their position as good undergraduate institutions and do not need to be defended in all fora.

HisExcellency #various,

Sorry, but you are using completely erroneous criteria to judge the standing of an
academic institution, and HassanShah is essentially right on the money here. I know nothing about LUMS, but institution building is a time-consuming business and premature comparisons with more well established universities will seldom be taken seriously.

#39 by HisExcellency

Which posts ? A bunch of the earlier ones regarding some competition where LUMS managed to edge past CMU and a couple of the IIT schools, another one on the MBA student to faculty ratio being great and the one you mentioned about the student to PC ratio being better than the Ivy-plus schools.

Bottom line: all of these factors don`t count for anything. Using them as crutches to support the claim that LUMS is an institution of international repute (even alluding to the fact that it stacks up well against some of the top schools in the US and UK) is merely a manifestation of an inability to accept the current mediocrity the school is mired in. I`ve already made my point regarding student to faculty ratios and the less said about the even more ludicrous student to computer ratio, the better (some high schools in the US have ratios of 1:1 -- that doesn`t automatically qualify them as quality centres for research and learning). Using machines to fill the void created by all else is an approach that is bound to be doomed.

You get a LUMS education for half what it costs at places like Grinnell, Oberlin, Ohio-Wesleyan ? Ahem. Not true. Most of those places are quick to offer grant-based financial aid. LUMS, on the other hand, seems to believe most stringently in being penny-wise (ironic isn`t it that it`s easier for people to acquire education abroad than it is at a university in Pakistan). I`m not even sure that the education at LUMS is better than some of the places you mentioned.

Faculty at LUMS ? True. There is a small set of faculty members who`ve got their degrees at places like Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford. In fact, I mentioned as much in my post. What I was more concerned about, however, was that the rest of the faculty hails from places I`ve never even heard of (American University of Beirut being one of them). Not convinced ? Well, if you go through the latest cached versions of the faculty profiles on google, rest assured you`ll see the following pop up more often than once:

University of Florida
Simon Fraser University
Kansas State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Acadia University
University of Kent
University of Texas at Arlington
...
(the list goes on)

The graduates from Stanford and Berkeley may go a long way towards painting a rosy picture of things, but there`s a whole lot more than what meets the eye. In fact, I think that about sums it up. LUMS is an excellent marketing ploy... a lemon.

It takes a Wharton MBA graduate 3-5 years to pay of his or her loan ? Keep in mind that an average Wharton grad has already been earning for a good several years before being saddled with the loan and is in fairly decent financial condition not to warrant financial aid. Even if that isn`t the case, keep in mind that an average Wharton grad has much better job prospects than an average LUMS grad. Finally, if you`re still not satisfied, let me remind you that the comparison isn`t really even valid. LUMS is no Wharton and any such pretensions are quite misplaced. Maybe once LUMS improves it`s finance program to be the best in the world I won`t grudge them the right to charge outrageous fees.

Most US universities don`t offer financial assistance ? I beg to differ. Clearly you associate too much wealth with all of us who`ve obtained degrees abroad.

LUMS is better than IBA, GIK, FAST, NED, UET ? You`ll have a hard time convincing me of that my friend. In fact, the only real edge LUMS provides is that you get to mingle with the rich elite of the country and might be able to find jobs more easily that way. I`ve grilled quite a few people who recently obtained their CS degrees from LUMS and I have no doubt that the candidates from FAST, NED and UET are far better qualified.

tahmed #35

Ahmed sahib, thank you for your generosity of praise. I`d like to point out though, that in this business there are NO wizards, ever, anywhere. Whosoever claims to be one is surely a con-man. Beware of them.

This has nothing to do with LUMS, but I hope that others will forgive this digression.

FYI, in the i-Log section I now regularly post material related to this sort of stuff... very few people have enough interest in such matters for this to be a general topic of articles, therefore the i-Logs. USER ID is FOMC-minutes.


Gold & mining stocks

Yes, I`ve been advocating gold investment for now almost two years and the gold bull market has only just barely begun. Look for a price pull-back in the near future for more buying opportunities. In a few years get ready to see the fire-works. The real thing is gold the metal itself, but the headline dramma will, unfortunately, take place in the mining stocks. The gold mining stock mania will put the internet mania of 1999 to shame. There will then be more hype and fraud and rediculous over-pricing of mining stocks than anyone can think possible today. That mania will exceed the Dutch Tulip mania. That will be time to SELL, not buy, as the lemmings will be buying then. Today is the time to buy. The only stocks worth putting money in (for ``growth``) are the mining stocks. They are today where semiconductors, internets and telcoms were in 1989. Beware the coming mania in gold and silver stocks. There is no fever like gold fever.

[``...vanguard 300 index funds ... in roth ira for ... 30-40 years?...``]

To start with, 30-40 years is an unrealistic time horizon. We`ll all be dead and the world will be an unrecognizable place compared to today. Who knows the US dollar may have long been replaced by some other monetary instrument by then and vanguard may have gone the way of the do-do bird. The heyday of the mutual funds is gone. They will be remembered with the same distaste and mistrust as were the ``National Trusts`` of the 1920s after the depression. Today is time to GET OUT of bond mutual funds and equity mutual funds (of any and every kind), not the other way. Put your hard-earned money in tangibles and get out of paper assets.

I keep harping upon the issue of fiat paper money like a broken record. But I`m not alone by any means. Please look up the following link, it may perk up your interest:

http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2003/pr073103.htm

...SR

#23 by Romair

Thanks for your post, sir. I read the news item in CIO magazine a couple of months ago. The article was all praise for the LUMS team since it had outclassed relatively well-established colleges like IITs, Tel Aviv Univ. and quite a few U.S. colleges.

Who cares if a bunch of Indians don`t acknowledge it as an achievement?? Carnegie Mellon has the best Computer Science programme in the world (along with MIT and a few other schools). The entire industry including the big 5 consulting companies rely on CMU`s software classification system for their blueprints. Therefore, when CMU organizes a contest, almost all major IT vendors sponsor it. The U.S. government also keeps a tab on such developments because the Department of Defence conducts a lot of its research at CMU. Hence, a good performance at CMU is bound to be noticed and acknowledged in circles that really matter.

#34 by HassanShah

++
I`m stunned by a few of the earlier posts tooting the horn that LUMS is right up there with the Ivy-plus schools in the US.
++

Which posts are you referring to?? The one I wrote was about student-PC ratios. And in that department, LUMS is definitely faring better than most Ivy schools. This is a fact.

Student-teacher ratios and average GMAT/GRE/SAT scores are quite another matter. In this realm, LUMS is not as good as the top 10 U.S. colleges or any of the Ivy schools. But it is definitely better than the rest. Given a choice between College of Wooster, Grinnell, Oberlin, Rutgers, Texas A&M, UC Santa Monica, Ohio-Weseleyan... and LUMS, I would pick LUMS any day. You get better education for less than half the price.

++
Even if it did, the point remains that the faculty at LUMS is scarcely much to rave and rant about
++

This is quite an uninformed comment. LUMS faculty members have PhDs and MBAs/MSEs from Wharton/Penn, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, UT Austin (MS program), Univ of Sussex, American Univ of Beirut, Columbia Univ, Urbana-Champaigne, etc. You name it. I am not counting Assistant Professors yet to keep the list short. I can even give you names of these people if you think I am bluffing here.

++
Sadly, LUMS is run as a business and little more.
++

Take a peek at U.S.News and you will realize that professional education is an expensive investment all over the world. Perhaps you don`t know that after graduation, it takes 3-5 years for the average Wharton MBA graduate to pay off his student loans.

Moreover, in most U.S. colleges they don`t offer grants as a policy. Students are only offered loans at reduced interest rates. International students don`t even get loans. So you basically have to view an MBA or MS as an investment. Compared to foreign universities, LUMS is still a cheaper bargain since you can pay off most student loans within 3 years of graduating.

++
Pity no one spares a thought for places like IBA, NED, UET, GIK etc. that provide quality education without the associated frills and gaping hole in the pocket
++

IBA, NED, UET and GIK are no doubt good schools. In fact, most employers prefer graduates of these schools to LUMS graduates because the latter are hard to retain. You offer a LUMS graduate 5K more, and he will switch jobs in an instant. Most LUMS graduates work for a few years and then invariably go abroad for a Phd/MBA.

But in terms of quality especially in Business management and Computer Science, LUMS is way way ahead of the rest. Better facilities and better faculty are part of the reason. But the most critical success factor is that LUMS employs the ``Case Method`` in its MBA program. LUMS is the only Pakistani business school that publishes its own cases. (I don`t know if IBA is also teaching with the ``Case Method`` now. I checked about 4 years back, and then they didn`t).

s2 #37: I agree.

I know a lot of Pakistanis from NED in Silicon Valley. In fact, it seems like NED sends the most engineers from Pakistan, to Silicon Valley, by far. Though I don`t have exact statistics. All the NED guys seem to be doing well. Most have MS degrees, and are well-adjusted into the industry. Doing as well as anyone from any university from South Asia, that I have met.

Interestingly, they all do have complains, similar to Urstruly`s (though not to that extreme), about NED. And they make fun of it, a lot. Interestingly, their combined income in the USA must be tens of millions/year, if not higher. They could build another NED, if they wanted.

SR #30 Arent you the one who said ``Buy Gold`` an year ago on chowk? And lo and behold, we now find that gold has risen as if it was on extra-strength viagra. You, sir, are a financial wizard. What is your advice on this: buying plain vanilla vanguard 300 index funds and putting them in roth ira for someone to sit on for 30-40 years. make sense?

freemysoul #31 I believe that LUMs was the baby of a Pakistani World Bank staff who took leave from the Bank (this was at least 10-15 years ago) to start LUMs. I dont think any Bank funds were lent for this purpose though. Are you sure you are right?

re: romair

...stop making an a$$ of yourself citing some anecdotal info about ``LUMS`` having beaten US schools and IIT....hardly anyone at goldman sachs or McKinsey or any elite firm has any idea what the fcuk LUMS is, but i guarantee you IIT is on everyone`s radar, which is where McKinsey`s last CEO was from....

I`m stunned by a few of the earlier posts tooting the horn that LUMS is right up there with the Ivy-plus schools in the US. At the expense of belabouring the blatantly obvious, it`s not.

Assuming for the briefest of instants that there was some modicum of truth in this nonsensical belief, one wonders why all and sundry related to the LUMS Board of Governors are lining up for admission to educational institutions abroad. Clearly, there is a wide gulf between LUMS and the better institutes around the world. The teacher to student ratio might be lower than that at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and MIT, but does that really count for anything ? A statistic is a numerical datum and nothing more. It does not translate to greater ease of access of faculty and increased personal attention. Even if it did, the point remains that the faculty at LUMS is scarcely much to rave and rant about. A smattering of post-graduates from respected research universitites in the US and UK, and a whole bunch of people from places one never knew existed till the day one stumbled across the faculty profiles up on the web (as an aside, that link no longer works now).

Then there seems to be the myth about LUMS graduates being admitted by the dozen to research programs at some of the best schools around. Again, there`s no shred of truth in this. Graduates from UET and NED greatly outnumber those from LUMS at most places. Although some really smart individuals from LUMS do occasionally manage to end up at places like CMU, one swallow does not a summer make.

Coming now to the long rants about financial aid, lets face it... LUMS offers a few loans and one or two merit-based scholarships, but nothing along the lines of grants. Surprisingly, one would have thought they could manage that with the exorbitant fees they charge. Almost every other place in the world that fleeces its students for so much does.

Sadly, LUMS is run as a business and little more. It achieves a huge profit for those who run it, a few scraps of paper for those who attend it and some unwarranted praise by the people in the Higher Education Committee who see it as the panacea to all of Pakistan`s ails. Of course, the first and the third group just mentioned are actually the same.

Pity no one spares a thought for places like IBA, NED, UET, GIK etc. that provide quality education without the associated frills and gaping hole in the pocket. Maybe some day we`ll realise that what makes an quality educational institute is not a fabulous campus, but quality academics and a concerted effort not to raise the financial bar so high that income tax returns have more to do with admissions than SAT I math scores.

I am an NEDian - BE(EE) and then obtained a couple of other degrees in the US. NED is no Caltech or MIT but it is no pushover. Given the environment and the resources, NED (even UET) has produced remarkable professionals. For Rs 100/- per semester I would rank NED one of the finest schools on this planet. There are over 20 engineers from my class (out of 122) in the US - they include a tenured Professor and Chowk writer (guess who?), senior managers in Motorola, Juniper, Cisco, Cypress, HP/Compaq, Synopsys, ... and many more. These individuals are as good as anyone out there. The same can be said for UET - a number of fantastic engineers have come out of UET.

Anyway.

LUMS is a good place BUT IBA accomplished similar results with way less expense. I would be inclined to argue that Pakistan or any poor country stands to benefit way more by replicating NED, UET or IBA. Since it costs less, more students benefit. LUMS is not a mainstream education resource - it is a boutique model and it should be treated as such.

#27 by Urstruly

I am quite amazed by your story. Did this happen recently?

16: Azure
Your claims are unfounded. It may appear that the elite classes are the only ones welcome, but you might need to take a deeeeeper look into the whole `hard to get` image.
It might have been that at the time LUMS only had an MBA programme, they selected very few people and charged exorbitant tuition & attained the `hard to get` image...and then they suddenly became `elite` when they moved to a bigger and better campus with the help of funding from the World Bank.
However, the BSc. programme no doubt caters to give an OPTION (at the least) to students after their A levels or FSc. to choose between going to a public institute or one abroad if they have the resources or the talent. The fact is that the BSc. programme at LUMS offers more scholarships and funding options than any other private university charging almost the same amount of fee for their BSc. Programme. These universities have made high and false claims of affiliations and have an academic curriculum outline replicated to that of LUMS. The point I am making here is not to defame other institutes but to falsify your claims of the ‘hard to get’ image.
I personally know of several exceptionally intelligent people who having deserved the scholarship (and didn’t have the resources to afford studying at LUMS otherwise) study their whole four years without paying anything. However, I also know of the exceptionally intelligent who won the scholarship, didn’t need it because they had enough resources to afford the fee, that being an ethical decision left by LUMS to the person to either forgo it for the next best student or keep it (I do have my reservations on this opportunity to choose). Despite the full scholarships, I have stood in line to pay my bill with people from the remotest areas and have seen with my own eyes their bills being slashed to one-fourth.

So your idea of LUMS being `hard to get` with `keeping their noses high` needs to be appraised, because it’s always easier to criticize something further when it’s already been put on the spot.
Azure, if its of any consolation…”We remain committed to ensure that no one admitted to our academic programmes is prevented from joining LUMS due to financial constraints. We offer generous financial assistance to those who need it.”

FYI: http://www.lums.edu.pk/lums_outreach.htm

LUMS invites students with exceptional Matric and FA/FSc results (75% & above) to apply through its National Outreach Programme for a four year BSc (Hons) degree.
Objectives:
To facilitate this process, we have started the National Outreach Programme, which has the following objectives:
Identify bright and motivated students all over Pakistan at the Matric level who are keen to pursue higher education at LUMS.
Work with schools and colleges all over Pakistan to encourage their principals and teachers to help their students aspire for admission into the BSc (Hons) programme at LUMS.
Provide assistance to potential applicants to prepare for the entrance exams at LUMS.
Provide full financial assistance in the form of scholarships to all those candidates who qualify for admission through the National Outreach Programme.

rozaiba #17

Karachi stock exchange is no place for decent people to hang around. I won`t ever touch anything of KSE with a thousand foot pole. The happenings in KSE make that den of thieves called NYSE look like a church choir. As I`ve mentioned before, that what goes on in the stock market is basically organized theft which has the sanction of law. But that applies to NASDAQ and NYSE etc. KSE does not even get the qualifier ``organized`` before the ``theft.`` Actually ``theft`` is too kind a word. KSE conducts `rape & robbery.` Don`t know if you`ve noticed or not, but the Shaukat Aziz financial administration of that country is following all the dirty tricks of Rubin & Greenspan and have thus managed to create an unsustainable stock bubble which creates an absurdly overvalued equity market that cannot be justified by any valuation metric and will result in yet another round of mass rip-off of the investing public of Pakistan.

You`re welcome to any of the books, as long as I eventually get them back.

...SR

Urstruly #27: Your long story was quite interesting. I am sure NED is not ranked anywhere in Asia. Though NED students seem to be in the highest nos. amongst the Pakistani IT professionals in Silicon Valley. And they all make fun of NED. Yet I have found nearly all of them to be quite bright. And most of them have MS degrees in technical fields. So they must have learnt something.

By the way could you expand on the following, a bit more. It`s an interesting twist in the story:

``when one day I found lab incharge eyeing me``

HisExcellency #25: Thanks for the info. I had a feeling my info on salaries was correct.

It the senior professors and Deans get between 2-5 lakhs, then, this would mean that the Vice Chancellor probably gets between Rs. 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh per month. This would be my guess. This is around what the IT heads of major US companies in Pakistan make. The senior IT engineers/managers that return to Pakistan, I think, can make in the 1.5 to 2.5 lakh/month range (I believe).

Its hard to spend that much money in Pakistan, in one month.

LUMS has some one week to one month training courses for local managers, I was told. And they bring in instructors from abroad to their executive center to teach these courses. Would you happen to know how much those guys get paid, per week? Per hour?

Romair

`` LUMS is the 23rd best business school in Asia. ``

I don`t know what it means in real world. For example, the engineering college I attended (NED ) had department of electronics which was designated as the ``Center of Excellence`` by Japenese ministry of education, their ministry of Industry, and couple of other institutions and regularly received funding from them. The first semester class usually consisted of 250+ students, since it was the only institution in Pak offering electronics engineering, other than Mehran Engineering (which was controlled by jiye sindh and decoits and any non-Sindhi if dared entered there was found to be hanging from one of the trees in the campus). So one teacher and 250+ students in the class; students literally sitting on each others shoulders; and a secod year student couldn`t tell the differenece between amperage and voltage; well a lala from FATA couldn`t tell that even in 4th year. The computer lab was a glass room where about 10 comodores along with about 5 PCs with 4.7 MHz speed resided. Only one computer had a color monitor and rumor had it that one had to sleep with the lab incharge to get to work on that. Only students from electronics department were required to work on computers but students ususally avoided the computer lab like little children avoid the dark closet. Only some hardcore nerds, who didn`t bathe for months were seen in the computer labs. I, though not an electronics student, managed to get in the lab and got familiarized myself with the machine but when one day I found lab incharge eyeing me I decided to buy my own - bad se badnaam bura. I sold my bike and bought a 10 Mhz pc; I became the king in the land of blind. But one day when we saw that HP had broght out its latest 50 Mhz Pc into the market we all fell down to prostrate in humility.

#20 by Romair

I stand corrected. I was overlooking the PhD and MSc Comp Sci programmes. I am sure there must be another 40-60 students in that programme.

The student-faculty ratio is poor no doubt. But this too is more of a problem in the MSc and undergrad programmes. Most of the MBA professors do not teach any undergrad or MSc classes. As a result, the student/faculty ratio in MBA program is still very good.

It seems like LUMS management is giving preferential treatment to MBA program and experimenting with the other programs.

#20 by Romair

All the figures quoted are accurate. LUMS teachers are paid exorbitantly and also get soft loans for car and housing. Recently a friend of mine got a JD from a U.S. university. After spending a few months hunting unsuccessfully for jobs here, he decided to go back to Pakistan. He was offered a 1 lakh per month salary as Assistant Professor by LUMS. (LUMS is starting a new Law Programme).

If you visit the LUMS website, you will actually find visiting professors from Harvard, McGill, Essex and UCLA on the faculty list. When I was at LUMS some time back, there were also two Indian visiting professors who used to fly over from Ahmedabad to Lahore for a few weeks every month. Apparently, Pakistan govt and LUMS board of directors has given a huge grant (something like $30 million) to LUMS just to recruit faculty.

#21 by Urstruly

Are you talking about LUMS in particular? I don`t know enough about the other Pakistani universities, to comment on the general level of higher education. Can you be more specific?

++
The whole ministry of education, deans, rectors, and chancellors deserve to be fed to the pigs
++

The ministry of education has revamped itself lately. The new minister (Zubeda Jalal) is actually very dedicated about increasing literacy in Pakistan. However, the ministry is presently focussed on female literacy, which is in critical conditions especially in NWFP and Baluchistan.

The govt is not directly involved in higher education. It is attracting private investment in that sector and giving grants (e.g. to hire faculty).

Here is some good news, for LUMS folks:

``LUMS in CSIDC Top 10!

``Shop Easy`` project, designed and implemented by students of Lahore University of Management Sciences, was selected for World Finals of IEEE Computer Society`s fourth annual International Design Competition(CSIDC 2003), starting today (June 28th) in Washington D.C. The LUMS team made it to the top 10, out of more than 170 teams for some of the best universities of the world. To reach the finals, LUMS beat some heavy weights like Carnegie Mellon, Iowa State, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Florida at Gainesville, University of Massachusetts at Boston, IIT Bombay, IIT Roorkee, Delft University, Nanyang Technological University, University of British Columbia, University of Hong Kong and University of Queensland. (http://www.lums.edu.pk/law_school.html)

Urstruly #21: ``The students who manage to come to foreign universities and perform well do it because of their god given talent and only because of that. I think its God who deserves all the credit.``

God does deserve some of the credit. But I don`t think all of it. The students deserve a lot of credit also.

I think the higher education system in Pakistan is bad, but I wouldn`t go as far as you have gone in criticising it. LUMS is the 23rd best business school in Asia. I wouldn`t call that bad. The overall system in Pakisatn is definitely under-funded. And needs to be expanded a lot. But all these students must have learnt something at these universities in Pakistan, if they can do so well in the USA universities. It cannot all be natural talented. Us Pakistanis aren`t that naturally gifted. Are we?

I didn`t have any trouble transitioning from a Pakistani university to an American one. The level of students was about the same. In fact, most of the students were actually Indian and Chinese. The facilities in the US university were much better. The air conditioning was great. Sports facilities were excellent. There were a lot more professors (many of whom were Indian and Chinese also). The cheerleaders for the sports teams were much better looking (most of whom were not Indian). The parties were a lot bigger. But, on the whole, the curriculum wasn`t any more difficult. And it cost a lot more than Pakistani universities.

Is it true that the tuition for King Edwards Medical College is less than the tuition for a good children`s nusery school?

Romair & HE

Excuse me gentlemen but I think the system of higher education in whole Paksitan in particular and at all levels in general is a heap of garbage. The whole ministry of education, deans, rectors, and chancellors deserve to be fed to the pigs. The students who manage to come to foreign universities and perform well do it because of their god given talent and only because of that. I think its God who deserves all the credit.

HisExcellency: Are the total no. of students in LUMS, at any one time, only 750? That is not a whole lot.

Also, I heard LUMS now has a Ph.D. program, and is starting a law program. Is that true?

And what is the student to prof. ratio? As well as the standard of the graduates, in comparison to the ones you saw in the USA. I get resumes from LUMS grads, every now and then. I interviewed Comp. Sci grad, recently. He seemed to be alright. About as good as an average US grad with a BS degree.

They seem to have a good faculty. Within Pakistan, the only institution that has a better one, would be Aga Khan, according to my research.

I was approached to teach a small course at their executive center recently. A person familiar with those programs told me they charge around 25k to 30k per week (or something) to the individuals attending those courses. Is that true? I asked them about how much they pay their profs. to get an idea of how much to ask for. I was informed the senior professors make 2 lakh + per month. While the dean(s) can make around 5 lakh. And the associate professor level teachers are in the 1 lakh per month range. Do these sound accurate?

Having studied at LUMS myself, I can understand author`s angst.

A few points need clarification.

Firstly, most of the problems that the author mentioned pertain to the undergrad program, not the MBA program. The student-faculty ratio in MBA program is excellent and even the facilities are sufficient, though more would certainly help.

The MBA program at LUMS is quite mature. It was started in 1986. The undergrad program is relatively new. It was launched in 1994. The first batch comprised 70 students, the second one 85 students and the third 120 students. After this the batch size jumpted to 150 and 210.

This basically means that university population is 100 MBA students (1st year and 2nd year) and about 600-650 undergrad students. This brings the PC-Student ratio to 170/750 or approx 1:4. Compare this with Harvard (ratio 1:10), Cambridge Univ (1:12), Yale (1:9), Princeton (1:8) and MIT (1:6). The LUMS ratio is still better than all these prestigious universities.

Most U.S. students usually get their own laptop or desktop in their dorms. Given that PCs cost a dime in Pakistan nowadays, buying a cheaper one from Hafeez Center wouldn`t be a bad investment at all.

Nevertheless, the space problem in dorms is still an issue. Where do you put a desktop PC when you don`t even have space for a third bed!

It was coming...LUMS has finally reached the pivotal point where the management of infrastructure becomes critical to its reputation.
I hope your article draws sufficient concern to amend the quality at LUMS .

Mantolives, `hey spastic` to Kaul from me...

Despite it`s claims to support the less priviledged classes it still seems to welcome the elite only. Is this it`s way to `maintain the standard` by discouraging the ones who are not able to spend that much money for a two year course in the institution and thus keeping their noses high by giving itself the `hard to get` look, thus increasing its value? I`ve been thinking about enrolling myself in the MBA programme next year since I`m almost done with my engineering, but now feel that going for an MSc specialization in my field of study would be a much better option and worth the money.

$12K is the total fee for both years of MBA.

Still damn expensive. One reason- heck the only reason - I chose to not accept their offer of admission.

SR:

I need to steal some more books from you. How has Karachi Stock Exchange been treating you?

38:temporal

That was good.

JudeEaton, the poacher, has not met some real Pakistanis. The rag tft is a reflection of the editor it picks.

But then in the boot-licking community of crowswans nothing is demeaning or dishonourable. Cocacolonised and Mcbuggered crowswans shamelessly wiggle,wobble & waddle their bums & bumpers.

LUMS is hardly a slum ofcourse.... the campus looks like such a fun place to be with all the dating, hanging out, partying going on in and around LUMS...

However the author is spot on with the conclusions on academic standards...

LUMS transforms to SLUM

Why is it surprising at all? No institution thrives (or decays) in isolation. What you describe at LUMS is simply a reflection of what goes on in the society at large. What seems remarkable and worthy of credit is that it didn`t get much worse much earlier. On a relative scale, I`m sure SLUM still shines like a bright star. As Urstruly`s points out, in The Country of the Blind the one-eyed is still king.

One of the two biggest problems of Pakistan is over population (the other biggie is fresh water shortage). The growth rate is higher than all the other top population countries. China, India, Russia, US, Bangladesh and Indonesia may have a larger total polulation but the Paki growth rate is higher than all of them. Only countries like Afghanistan, Oman, Kenya and Saudi Arabia (all fairly small populations) have higher growth rates. During the 1980s when Zina-ul-Haq cut off family planning funding the growth rate shot up to 3.2 which was highest in the world at the time (along with Afghanistan).

If current trend holds, by 2030 Pakistan will have the world`s THIRD LARGEST population (only after India and China). You`ll probably have five kids to a room then so why complain about three per room today?

...SR

12k per year is quite a fee. Where does the money go? And why do people keep paying it? This would indicate there is a market for another good private university in Lahore.

I suppose it all comes down to supply and demand.

Jude...

We met at the Mekaal Hassan Concert...

I am Mateen Kaul`s friend...

-YLH

It seems to me that the LUMS is that one eyed man who is king in the land of blind; but he is king nonetheless.

bilal, the reason LUMS is going down is, as you pointed out, because of the large number of students that are admitted into the program...many of these students have below average SAT I and SAT II scores; where the merit used to be determined by an inhouse LUMS test and interview, it is now judged on the basis of SAT scores - and surprisingly, those with lower scores are admitted easily into the Bsc program. I know many people who graduated from LUMS a few years back and have excellent jobs and have also been admitted into foreign universities easily, but lately this has been changing...what I find really weird is the attitude of the faculty of LUMS. I have never seen a more pompous and arrogant group of people teaching anywhere in the world, let alone in Pakistan! They actually have the nerve to say that their degree is better than the degree of a good American university, which, after having studied in a good American university, I can safely say is pure crap. LUMS has its merits and it still produces good, skillful people but it really needs to get itself in shape before it can make any tall claims.

jude

you write..... My name`s Jude and I`m the features editor for TFT, if you are interested in writing for us send me an email to judeheaton@mail.com and we can take it from there.

...and if you are interested in writing for chowk please send me an email (temporal@chowk.com) and we can take it from there.

rgds,

t

`` LUMS` MBA Program (rated at #23 in Asia – Asiaweek May 5, 2000) costs US $11,957, compared to National University of Singapore (which is rated at #2) and costs US $7,180 while Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (which is rated at #1) costs US $1,967. Quality is the reason parents are willing to bear the relatively higher cost of education here. ``

Jeeezus!!! Why would you guys pay 12 grand a year to study in Pakistan? Maybe IIMs in India can charge $6000 per student for a quota of Pakistanis. Mmy brother is an IIM Calcutta grad and I thought his fees were very high. Apparently not.

I have sent the post to two of my most `die hard` LUMS supporters...Let us see what they have to say about it...

The cost of MBA was no surpise...Pakistanis, especailly Punjabis, are known to put their money where their mouth is, and when it comes to `brand names` no one does it better than Pakistanis/Punjabis...

The Babar Ali empire is known for its monopolistic ventures...companies that fleece consumers/customers...why should LUMS be any different from Tri-Pack, Packages, or Nestle? There is hardly any competition in the local market as far as LUMS is concerned and like the oil companies they can charge whatever they feel like..who cares what other are charging!

Brave attempt young man! I hope it helps!

Bilal i agree with you completely. the supposedly `online` registration system in particular is nothing but a hassle and a disappointment. By the time one does find the server free to register, most courses are blocked and students are left with all the social science ones to fill up their credits.

As for the faculty `justifying` everything...heh! that is what they seem to be propagating to their students as well! a pity.

Lastly i was amazed at the way students have to misquote their `personal information` inorder to be eligble for a scholarship, which btw rarely considers students with a good GPA. All one has to do is reflect `poor income` to get on the scholarship list. So much for `pride of LUMS`!

LUMS is still a good university, esp. when compared to the rest of the hoodlums, BUT they NEED to maintain their reputation which might very soon go down under. All educational institutions face such probelems at one time or the other, however, LUMS managment should take practical measures to live up to their claims of being `the best in Pakistan`.

my sympathies. this really sounds like one of the lower-rung indian univs/management schools where one wouldn`t pay anything like $11,000.

Interesting article. My name`s Jude and I`m the features editor for TFT, if you are interested in writing for us send me an email to judeheaton@mail.com and we can take it from there.

pakistan and management bat kuch jami nahi

Touché.

Ciao