Thursday, May 5, 2011

Can Economists Build Brands?

Recently in a conversation with my colleague Dr. Shamim Mandal we were discussing about higher education opportunities for Indian students at various U.S. universities. We concurred upon one point in this regard that beyond scholastic aptitude of the student it is the recommendation(s) that plays a major role.

Dr. Shamim and I hail from the same academic discipline - Economics, and thus essentially we focused on students majoring in Economics who wanted to go to U.S. for higher studies and research. The outcome of the discussion was that someone from India, essentially a bright scholar, sometime in the past would have impressed his American professor with his intellect and talent quotient so much that he became a hallmark and his recommendations can be relied upon without second thoughts. In the following years that bright scholar would create a legacy by recommending other Indian fellow mates and help them explore their pursuit of knowledge and success in the U.S.

Sukhamoy Chakravarty was one such brilliant and most trusted scholar of Paul Samuelson who can be attributed with the credit of creating a legacy of Indian economists at M.I.T. Similarly, Amartya Sen caught the attention of his professors and built his own brand at Stanford University.

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