India Sends Most Students to the US

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Indian students, Institute for International Education

The Institute for International Education is an independent non-profit organization founded in 1919. It is a world leader in the exchange of people and ideas. IIE administers over 200 programs serving more than 20,000 individuals each year.

The number of international students enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States increased by 3% to a total of 582,984 in the 2006/07 academic year, according to the Open Doors report, published annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE) with support from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This is the first significant increase in total international student enrollments since 2001/02.

India remains the leading sending place of origin by a large margin, experiencing a 10% increase to 83,833. This is the 6th consecutive year that India has sent the most students to the United States. China remains in second place, with numbers up 8% to 67,723; and the Republic of Korea, in third place, increased 6% to 62,392.

The top ten most popular fields of study for international students in the U.S. in 2006/07 were Business and Management (18% of total), Engineering (15%) and Physical and Life Sciences (9%), followed closely by Social Sciences (8%), Mathematics and Computer Sciences (8%), Fine & Applied Arts (5%) Health Professions (5%), Intensive English Language (4%), Education (3%), Humanities (3%). Fields experiencing growth include Intensive English Language (up 30%) and Social Sciences (up 6%).

For the sixth year in a row, the University of Southern California is the leading host institution (7,115). Columbia University hosts the second highest number of foreign students (5,937). Other campuses in the top 10 are: New York University (5,827), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (5,685), Purdue University (5,581), University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (5,429), University of Texas at Austin (5,303), UCLA (4,704), Harvard (4,514), Boston University (4,484), and University of Pennsylvania (4,484).

The Global Talent Gap

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global talent, London Business School

Like many other organizations, is yours struggling to attract and retain the best of talent? Read what Dr. Douglas A. Ready and Dr Jay A. Conger have to offer in their Wall Street Journal article on the Global Talent Gap.

After researching more than 40 companies, they found 5 common problems faced in recruitment and talent development. These were:

• Emergent Markets
• Narrow Thinking
• Demographics & Economics
• Expectations Gap
• Blind Spots

These problems are described and solutions offered by Dr. Ready and Dr. Conger who are visiting professors of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School.

According to the authors, to meet the challenge, companies must rethink how they hire, train and reward their employees. They must place these tasks at the heart of their business plans. In doing so, they have an opportunity to address all these separate problems with a unified plan, rather than waste time and resources attacking each of the issues individually.

Dr. Ready is the President of the International Consortium for Executive Development Research in Lexington, Mass. Dr. Conger is the Henry R. Kravis Research Chair in Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.,

Life Style Diseases

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, life style disease

If you thought that life-style diseases like heart ailments, diabetes and obesity are restricted to India’s large metros. think again. The “couch potato” syndrome is trickling down to small cities and villages as well.

According to figures released by the National Health Survey III, 13% of people in the country are obese. “With rising income levels and changing life-styles, people even in rural areas and small towns are facing problems like coronary blockage and diabetes due to richer diets and sedentary life-style,” senior cardiac surgeon Dr Ravi Kasliwal said.

Lifestyle diseases are diseases that appear to become ever more widespread as countries become more industrialized. They are different from other diseases because they are potentially preventable, and can be lowered with changes in diet, lifestyle, and environment.

Lifestyle diseases are a result of an inappropriate relationship of people with their environment. The onset of these lifestyle diseases is insidious, they take years to develop, and once encountered do not lend themselves easily to cure.

Lifestyle factors that are known to impact your overall health and well being include: Alcohol, Exercise, Sleep, Smoking & Stress.

Managing- The Dilbert Way !

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Dilbert, Scott Adams

Scott Adams has given millions around the world great pleasure over the years. Through his cynical look at managers and management using his creation, Dilbert. It now turns out that Adams has been called on to demonstrate those very same managerial skills himself.

In “The Tables Turn for Dilbert’s Creator”, Brad Stone writes in the New York Times: “To make matters worse, this befuddled manager has never run a restaurant before or even supervised another person’s work in more than 20 years. His greatest qualification for the job, one might say, is 17 years spent satirizing cubicle culture. In other words, Scott Adams, the “Dilbert” creator and the progenitor of the multimillion-dollar Dilbert empire, is now a pointy-haired boss himself.”

Adams has been quick to acknowledge his latest challenge in his blog. He writes:” It’s more entertaining than whatever drivel I was planning to spew today, so I direct you to it:” !!

All The World Is A Stage

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, Shakespeare

The Diwali break is over. It’s back to work and back to school.

While out for a walk this morning we saw school children walking reluctantly to school- after a break of a few days which makes going back to school that much more difficult for both the students and their parents. As a young mother told me” I don’t know why they have so many holidays at a stretch. It becomes tough for all of us to get back to our routines.”

I told my wife I was reminded of the famous extract from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” said to be written in 1598-1600.

“All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

This passage makes more sense to me now that it did when I first studied it over 40 years ago. How true it is that all of us play the different “parts”- each with it’s own joys and challenges.