At the beginning of the PGDM/MBA program, students don’t have the core building blocks to take full advantage of the curriculum. Most of them have very little or no business experience. They see most of the first-year curriculum for the first time. They are strong in two to three functional areas and will need to work on strengthening themselves in the other areas. For example, an engineer is going to be great at operations and may need to focus on accounting and strategy. A student with a degree in commerce may feel comfortable with the accounting and finance classes, but he/she has not been exposed to the vocabulary and concepts of operations management or marketing. As a result, he/she has to work two to three times as hard to keep up with engineers in operations management class and with the students having sales experience in marketing class. In other words, he/she has to work really hard just to have basic type of discussions while the engineers and the sales managers are capable of intermediate or even advanced discussions.
 

How fast a student moves from engaging in basic level discussions to more advanced level discussions will determine his/her success in business school. If a student only has minimal awareness of the issues and concepts, then he/she has a basic level comprehension in a particular course. As he/she gains a better working knowledge, performs quantitative analysis, and can solve problems, he/she now has an intermediate comprehension level. With an advanced comprehension level, he/she can apply the concepts learned in one class to other classes in his/her PGDM program.
 

It is often said that the hardest part of a PGDM programs is getting in. However, getting admitted is just the starting point. In today’s environment, there is more at stake than ever in doing well at school, so it is imperative that the student prepares for what happens after he gets in. He/she needs a solid foundation across the entire curriculum so that he/she can interact with peers and professors at a higher, more advanced level. The better prepared he/she is in terms of subject matter, the more he/she can get out of the PGDM program, ultimately resulting in getting the job that he/she wants, which is the primary goal of attending business school.
 

A business schools provides learning opportunities outside the classroom, such as team projects, independent study, job search and interviewing, attending company presentations, and socializing and networking with fellow classmates. If PGDM students have to spend too much time just keeping their heads above water with coursework, they are not maximizing all of the learning opportunities that the business school has to offer.
 

This orientation program will enable the students to extract the maximum mileage from their coursework due to enhanced business knowledge and to be well prepared to take advanced PGDM courses. It has been designed to give the students full-time, intensive 4 weeks (100 hours) experiences in which they study the "big picture" of business and build basic competencies in business areas such as accounting, finance, statistics, economics, marketing, and people management. Students are introduced to the unsettling truth that business problems don't come in tidy packages, but spill out chaotically across disciplines and departments. Orientation helps students grasp at a gut level that a crucial part of management is the ability to define such complex problems, and bring diverse skills and people together to get things done.
 

The needs for soft skills such as negotiation, leadership and presentation-making are also explored. The Orientation Modules also provide an opportunity for students to interact with their fellow classmates, faculty, and staff of the business school. Orientation is also designed to help students chart their own unique path to success. Students who get the most from their business experience are those who begin with the clearest personal and professional goals, Orientation includes exercises that help students pinpoint what they hope to gain from their two years at NSM.