Ever since we last reviewed the Great Lakes Analytics program, there have been some very interesting changes that have happened under the hood. We at Analytics India Magazine studied the changes and have listed out the main ones below:
1. Multi campus
The first big change is that Great Lakes PGPBA program is now being offered across both campuses at Great Lakes Chennai and Gurgaon. This is great news for students from South who want to pursue the program as they can now do the same from the Chennai campus.
The program curriculum, pedagogy and even faculty continue to remain the same across the two campuses. The only difference being in the program schedule. While the Chennai program follows a 5 day campus rotation every 2 months, the Gurgaon campus follows a one weekend every month format. The online modules across the campuses follow similar formats.
2. Industry exposure
In our opinion, the Industry exposure that has been built into the Great Lakes’ PGPBA program is one of its most defining parameters. In the revised program architecture, the industry interaction has grown even further. With about 120 hours of industry led classroom sessions (that’s about 50% of total classroom sessions) and students getting to learn from senior analytics professionals from about 11 leading analytics companies (American Express, Accenture, Evalueserve, TCS, CTS, Mu Sigma, etc), Great Lakes PGPBA program does a fantastic job of helping students learn from the industry, thereby ensuring that the program is highly industry relevant and recognised.
3. Curriculum
The program curriculum has underwent some very interesting changes in including more industry relevant topics and bridging a clear link from Business Intelligence / Data Management to Business Analytics. The program now begins by building a strong business foundation and domain, followed by deep dive into analytical tools and techniques and concludes with industry led modules in domains such as Financial analytics, Retail analytics, Web & Social media analytics, Telecom analytics, Healthcare analytics and Supply chain analytics.
It is interesting to note that all candidates get to learn from leading analytics organisations across domains though candidates can choose one domain in which they would want to pursue their industry linked capstone project.
4. Program flexibility
Great Lakes PGPBA program has attracted a lot of working professionals across different experience ranges and hence, the program has now built in multiple flexibility factors to ensure that the learning stays continuous. All class sessions get recorded and are put online for candidates to access later. This helps for revisions and should you have missed the session, gives you an opportunity to learn as the class happened. Secondly, the classes would now also be streamed live so that students can login and attend the class as it happens. Finally, if the candidates want to re-attend classes with any forthcoming batch, they are given the option to do so.
5. Student experiences
We had met and interviewed some students from Great Lakes PGPBA about ten days back. The students we interviewed were from diverse backgrounds such as Consulting, Technology and Analytics. In our candid discussions with them, we were impressed by their feedback for the program. Quality of faculty and content, Industry exposure and Peer group were three clear factors that were identified by all as crucial to enhancing their learning experience at Great Lakes. You can read more about the interviews we conducted here.
Amongst many other things, we believe that since Great Lakes maintains small batches across Chennai (50 students) and Gurgaon (30 students), the individual attention and mentoring that the candidates get in the program leads to better outcomes.
We believe these changes that have been implemented reflect the dynamic thinking of a young business school that is focused to be more industry relevant and student friendly as compared to some of their senior counterparts. Clearly defined learning outcomes, Well thought out program curriculum, Extensive industry interaction and High levels of student satisfaction have prompted us to consider Great Lakes PGPBA as one of the top three Business Analytics programs in the country today!
Links that can be useful:
Our previous review of Great Lakes PGPBA: https://analyticsindiamag.com/analytics-at-great-lakes-a-unique-course/
Great Lakes’ PGPBA students’ interviews:
Student Musings on the Great Lakes PGP in Business Analytics (GL PGP-BA)
Program page and Admission information:
http://pgpba.greatlakes.edu.in
