IIM Ahmedabad welcomes an eclectic mix of students into its PGP & PGP-FABM Class of 2024

Ahmedabad :  The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), a premier global management institute, recently welcomed the 59^th class of the Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) and the 23^rd class of the Post Graduate Programme in Food and Agribusiness Management (PGP-FABM). The PGP and PGP FABM Class of 2024 comprises 444 talented students (397 in the PGP and 47 in the PGP-FABM) from diverse backgrounds, disciplines, age, and experience.

Welcoming the students in his inaugural address, Professor Errol D’Souza, Director, IIMA spoke about the importance of building culture as an intrinsic value and advised them to use it as the driving force for character building, to achieve self-actualisation and to set a long-term vision in mind during their two years at the Institute. “It requires you to be aware of your biases, your prejudices, and understand that you are privileged. The fact that you are in an Institution like this makes you privileged and therefore you need to use those privileges wisely. It requires you to have a sense of service, when you do something, it is not just for yourself, it is for your friends and family, and for the world at large. And that is the culture that we hope you will imbibe at this Institute,” he said.

Among the 397 students of PGP, 66.5 per cent are engineers and 33.5 per cent from non-engineering backgrounds such as arts, science and commerce. The average age of the class remains unchanged at 23 years.  The PGP – FABM class has 47 students from food, agriculture, and allied backgrounds. The average age in this group has increased to 23 years, as compared to 22 in the last two years. Women students make up 23 per cent and 38 per cent, of the PGP and PGP- FABM classes respectively.

IIMA takes pride in its unequalled pedagogy, which provides a transformative journey for its students through a series of carefully blended classroom and peer learning interventions. To that end, its admissions process actively promotes diversity in the IIMA student body. It brings together a cohort of students with diverse educational, professional, age, gender, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds, who bring new perspectives and can learn from one another. The course curriculum is also designed to meet the needs of a diverse student community.

Professor Kirti Sharda, Chairperson, PGP said, “The PGP Programme at IIMA has created outstanding business leaders and managers, and remarkable entrepreneurs who have been trailblazers in their respective fields. Equally inspiring have been the journeys of some of the finest minds across PGP batches who crafted very interesting careers in the world of sports, writing, academics, government and policy, and not-for-profit ventures. We hope that the incoming students experience a transformational and enriching journey with the opportunities provided by the PGP programme.”

Addressing the new batches, PGP-FABM Chairperson, Professor Vineet Virmani said, “As the institute’s only two-year programme in management offering a specialization, PGP-FABM equips students with skills that go beyond general management and prepares them for careers in industries ranging from food marketing to agri-technology to agri-entrepreneurship. I am excited to welcome the PGP-FABM class of 2022-24, which is an eclectic mix of students coming from some of India’s top colleges in the field of agriculture, dairy, food and horticulture studies. With most of the batch in the age group of 21 to 25 years, it is a good mix of enthusiastic fresh graduates and experienced professionals.”

Here are graphs that reflect some of the data about the new batches of students:

The inauguration was held at the iconic Ravi J Matthai auditorium at the Institute in the presence of the Director, Dean (A & ER), the Chairpersons of other programmes and faculty members. This was the first physical inauguration since 2019. The excitement and joy reflected in the entire IIMA community – from faculty members to the staff, as they welcomed the new batch into Institute in-person after two years.