NBS grads may dress idiotically, but they have a lot of meat!

A rather angsty article about the Nanyang Business School Convocation in yesterday's ST:

"NTU grads may lack style but not substance"
Business school dean, noting that SMU students may have better presentation, says NTU grads have their strengths too


NANYANG Technological University (NTU) students, 'may not be so sharply dressed', noted its business school dean yesterday, but 'the test of the pudding is in the eating'.

The Nanyang Business School's Professor Hong Hai said he 'can sympathise' with assessments that Singapore Management University (SMU) students 'are more articulate, better dressed and carry themselves well'.

They 'do look like the smartly dressed McDonald's kids who prance about on SMU posters', he said - referring to ads of SMU students photographed by fashion lensman Russel Wong in such poses as jumping off a chair or doing a handstand.

But Prof Hong, at the school's convocation ceremony, pointed out that hundreds of graduates from NTU held important jobs in government, business and industry. They weighed in heavily, according to him, on the list of partners in leading accountancy firms, or the list of financial managers and financial controllers in Singapore's largest companies.

Further, NTU has for the last two years beaten 'all the business schools in Singapore' in vying for the L'Oreal Marketing Award. The team even clinched top prize at the world level last year, and were runners-up this year.

Prof Hong's speech was entitled Comparing Schools: Style Or Substance? He had said the graduating students would want to know how the business school stood, referring to 'some amount of public perception, largely engendered by the press', regarding SMU students.

But while training that emphasises presentation skills may account for SMU's strength on that score, he invoked his 25 years in the corporate sector - 'most of which were in chief executive positions' - in saying he had 'seen my share of good presenters who lack substance'.

He even quipped that he could think of 'at least one country in the Asean region that has an unusual share of good talkers and presenters' but whose economy 'never seems to move'.

NTU undergraduates, he said, were quite balanced. Some spoke well, others are good thinkers but may not be so sharply dressed.

Prof Hong also cited an article in The Straits Times, in which columnist Alvin Pang said 'as a prospective employer he would look at an SMU graduate first'.

The IT professional said SMU graduates' had a 'reputation for being articulate, confident, out-of-the-box thinkers - and it's not just marketing hype about being 'different' '.

Mr Pang also praised the attentiveness and open-mindedness of the average SMU student, whom he felt demonstrated a refreshing knack of engaging with the topic at hand even on material as diverse as Greek tragedy, Filipino erotic literature and blues music.

SMU students had to take electives in subjects ranging from creative thinking or politics, he said; a recent SMU-organised accountancy conference had 'cultural performances, poetry readings, even a creative writing workshop'.

Prof Hong noted yesterday that the test scores of local undergraduates did not differ much among the universities. But the school's 4,000 students were served by a 180-strong faculty, mostly PhD holders, he said.

'I would not claim that on average they were better or worse than those in National University of Singapore or SMU, but the fact that we have a much larger number means that our faculty resources are much deeper.'

That said, he did promise that 'better marketing of our products and our graduates is high on Nanyang Business School's priority list'.

I find that NBS has just dug a marketing grave for itself (ironic isn't it, considering that it's a business school). It has essentially admitted (veracity notwithstanding) that:

• YES, our graduates dress idiotically;
• YES, we suck at presentations;
• YES, we are not as savvy;
• BUT, we have more substance!

Let's play: 'Who can spot the logical leap?'

NBS should market their own successes instead, and showcase their own 'differentiable qualities'. They are after all the established school. For them to risk igniting a mud-slinging contest with SMU just suggests to the public that they are somehow lacking in some way.

I shan't hazard a guess as to which system of education is better, but as a layperson reading the papers, I would find that it reflects poorly on NBS for it to feel the need to compare itself with the pre-pubescent SMU as though SMU is some kind of established benchmark.

And as a SMU student reading the article, I would smirk at the notion that in this corporate world, substance is more important than presentation. That comparison itself is a misnomer:

Presentation is the substance.