Renaming Our Educational Programs

Indian Institutes of Management in India used to have one flagship MBA program-except that it was called the PGDM, or Post Graduate Program in Management, and was a Diploma. Now, the new IIM Bill converts that potentially into a degree, along with other programs of the institute.

IIM Indore has a few other programs like the 5 year Integrated Program in Management and a Weekend PG Program for Working Execs. in Mumbai.

These will also get a new name in line with the change in the name of our flagship program.

What's in a name? A lot, actually. The Ph.D. is currently known as the Fellow Program , and will get a more easily recognisable name-the Ph.D- very soon. Makes the graduate more marketable, other things remaining constant. Same is the case with the 5 year Integrated Program in Management which may become MBA (Integrated).

A welcome change for many students.

American Desi Names

Most people in the US can't (or think they can't) pronounce Indian names. Anyway, whether that's true or not, names of Indians in the US get modified (no, this is not a political statement, even if it contains the word 'Modi' hidden somewhere).

So the names of people change, usually to a short and easier-on-the-tongue version. I used to teach at the Clemson University as a grad student, and my name Rajendra was shortened to Raj, which was similar to Rog (for Roger) and therefore easy to say. A friend in California, Kiran, shortened his to Ken, which proved useful to him in business- he was into real estate broking. He also converted his last name from Kenjale to Jolly, which I think is a stroke of genius.

In academics, we now have several Indians at US universities, who have adopted a different strategy. They use a name twice, one in a shortened form and another in the original. So you have a Nat Natarajan, or a Das Narayan Das (who is a friend, incidentally, a prof at Harvard), or Rajan Varadarajan (not sure if his is of this form, because Rajan could be a name too). I think this is an interesting way to do it, from a marketing point of view. Remember, there is an adage in advertising that the more you repeat your (product) name, the better it is for people to remember. So it is with people's names.

So I henceforth will rename myself as Kar Nargundkar. By the way, that does not rhyme with Car.