Sandpaper - The BITSAA Magazine

Please share with us something about the time you spent at BITS Pilani

Being from small town in Karnataka, I had experienced little competition or cultural diversity prior to BITS. The BITS environment was my first exposure to a large group of extremely talented individuals who knew how to work hard and play hard.

I have the fondest memories of my time at BITS. BITS gave me two great gifts. The greatest gift was confidence. For the first time in life, I thought I could attempt to accomplish something and actually stood a chance of succeeding. And secondly, it gave me wonderful, lifelong friendships.

We’d love to hear about your activities, particularly any special, memorable moments.

In many ways I (and to a large extent the entire group that I hung out with) was academically motivated. That being said, we were certainly consumers of all the activities that went on at BITS – movies, plays, cultural nights, Oasis, elections, and sports. Being a native Marathi speaker, I was also active in the Maharashtra Mandal.

A lot of current students as well as alumni grapple with the idea of making a transition from the US to India. Could you please tell us a little about your experience with the transition you made from India to the US?

My move from India to the US came about three years after I left BITS. I worked for a year at DCM as a Management Trainee, spent two years at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), for an MBA and then came to the University of Iowa for a PhD in accounting.

Settling in at the University of Iowa turned out to be remarkably easy and truly enjoyable! I found student life in a campus town like Iowa City quite similar to that in India . Iowa City being a small town, financially it was quite comfortable to live on a fellowship income. More importantly, my classmates and other students – Americans, other nationalities, and, of course, Indians – were all extremely helpful, which made life very easy. I was also impressed by the keen interest and concern the faculty showed in PhD students. I really benefited from the experience.

What made you choose teaching as a career after your PhD? And more specifically, why Accounting?

Once I joined the PhD program, which is almost all about research, simply put, I got hooked to it! I found it truly challenging and extremely satisfying to work on research. The thought of getting paid to read, write, and think with few constraints on what you work on and when you work was too good to pass up. I became more or less a workaholic because how much I enjoyed thinking of interesting research problems, be it in Accounting or in Finance.

Why Accounting? In retrospect it seems a trifle accidental. There used to be limited distinction between Accounting and Finance in India and I thoroughly enjoyed my exposure to Accounting while I was at IIMA, so I decided to apply to Accounting programs.

Accounting is not a subject completely understood by the average person, but certainly a subject that’s been in the news lately due to Enron and the other similar scandals. How does Accounting play a role in our lives?

Accounting plays a huge role in an economy, but mostly indirectly in our lives. Accounting is all about information that is used in making all sorts of decisions – investment decisions, buying and selling of stocks, pricing of bonds, hiring, firing, and compensating management, and so on.

Lately, the role of accounting in international context has become of great import to politicians, macroeconomists, and of course to accountants. This is all about what kind of accounting information should be disseminated on an ongoing basis so that people nationally and internationally would feel comfortable investing in a company’s stock. This issue is extremely important because every developing country is seeking foreign direct investment into its own country.

MIT is at the forefront of global technical and business education. What sets MIT apart? What makes the institute so successful?

MIT is a very, very special place. It has a long tradition of rewarding excellence and only excellence. Naturally, it attracts the very best minds from all over the world.

MIT is also a very special place because of its mission to make the world a better place. My own interactions with many faculty and students time and again leave me impressed with the selfless desire of so many to help the world through technology, management, sciences, architecture, and the arts. There is a fire in the belly of so many on this campus that it seems only natural that it does so well.

How does BITS start down the path of becoming an MIT? What role do you see the alumni playing?

A school’s reputation is built on that of its faculty, which attracts the brightest students, who in turn do well, and it becomes the self-fulfilling process. BITS has built an excellent brand name for itself over the years. The more it works on building a more research oriented faculty, the more it will benefit. Young faculty are attracted to a place that helps them build their human capital. For a faculty, research reputation is human capital. If you want to attract the best faculty, offer them an opportunity to do research and REWARD their research. Building a meritocracy is crucial.

You were involved in OpencourseWare, the project by MIT to put all coursework on the web. Please share with us how you are involved and how you have seen your department benefit from the initiative?

In the heyday of the Internet bubble, MIT put together a group of faculty and staff to look into whether MIT should offer distance learning programs. We looked at the issue and thought that perhaps MIT could make some money by offering distance learning. However, this did not appeal to the imagination of anyone on or outside the committee. We were primarily interested in finding out whether technology can help people all over the world get a better education. This led us down the path of recommending that MIT should make its educational content available to everyone free of charge. What a revolutionary idea. It was welcomed by everyone, especially philanthropic organizations. Soon OpenCourseware became a reality and now almost half of MIT’s courses are accessible on the net by anyone in the world.

Most of the benefit of OpenCourseware for MIT and for my department is through brand recognition. Once again MIT has established itself as a leader in furthering the mission of making the world a better place. What better advertising would one wish for?

Who is Gordon Y Billard?

Gordon Y Billard is extremely generous MIT Sloan alum. He has donated so much money that there are at least three Sloan faculty who hold the Billard Chair.

Name: Dr. S P Kothari

Position: Gordon Y Billard Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Head of the Department of Economics, Finance, and Accounting at MIT Sloan.

Education: PhD University of Iowa (’86), MBA IIM Ahmedabad (’82) and B E Chemical BITS Pilani (’79).

Other Interests: Traveling, fine dining, and occasional gourmet cooking.

What are the biggest hurdles facing US academics today particularly in your field? How can they be fixed?

We routinely compete for good talent, but face stiff competition from industry jobs that are quite lucrative. So, the biggest challenge is to figure out a way to make academic jobs sufficiently financially attractive for the successful academics so that we would be able to attract many excellent students applying for the PhD programs.

Have you ever worked with an engineering student from Pilani or even India? What are your impressions of them versus American-educated students?

Holding the raw intelligence constant, American-educated students tend to have a broad-based education and tend to have a better perspective. When we were there, BITS was a wild place. My BITS life is full of such memories and in terms of bonding with friends, it was a phenomenal experience.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing BITS today?

The scarcity of resources is certainly an issue.

And the admissions process seems to have broken down in the past couple of years with disproportionate students from a few states being represented in the student body. Regardless of the facts, the perception that the process is unfair has the potential to seriously harm the BITS brand.

Should BITS teach accounting alongside Finance as part of the MMS program at BITS?

Absolutely! I cannot imagine an MMS program without accounting.

BITS has a serious branding problem when it comes to its MMS degree. I don’t believe many see it as a serious alternative to the IIMs or even to schools like the newly-started ISB or other places like the Symbiosis Institute in Pune.

What advice would you give BITSians based on your experiences?

You must enjoy what you do. Unless your heart is in it, an activity that takes majority of your time in a day cannot be fruitful. There is no substitute for hard work. You compete with other very talented, hardworking individuals. Your odds of beating the competition without working hard are practically zero. Surround yourself with smart individuals. There’s so much to learn from others. However, smart individuals will be willing to spend time with you only if you contribute meaningfully to them in return. Think about what and how you can add to their human capital. Did I mention hard work?

What are your best memories of your time in Academia?

My best memories are all about the colleagues – fellow faculty and PhD students – I have met over the past two decades. I have been fortunate to be around some of the very best minds in Accounting and Finance. It has been a privilege to have had about 25 phenomenal doctoral students. Both these groups of individuals have made academic life enjoyable and memorable.

What can BITSians do better/start doing to compete with the world’s best?

BITSians do very well. So, anything more would only add further shine. I would suggest that they take some risks and introspect. What do you really enjoy and what’s your aptitude? It’s hard for me to imagine that every BITSian is only interested in an engineering job. Widening the horizons, attempting more creativity with some attendant risks might result in a greater blossoming of BITSians.

How was your Pilani visit personally and professionally?

I have difficulty finding words that can adequately express my joy, a sense of gratitude, and satisfaction from visiting Pilani after 25 years for the reunion. I was overcome with emotion by the hospitality and warmth of everyone there, the faculty, students, and staff. Seeing old friends and reminiscing about the old times and the juvenile activities, that was priceless.

Tell us about your family? Have they been to Pilani?

My wife, Dafni, and I have two daughters – Kavita (19) and Monica (12). Kavita is a sophomore at MIT and Monica is a huge fan of Boston Red Sox. She started following the Red Sox for the first time this year, and they won the World Series! (see photo)¨