Manav Rachna International University bags NZQA accreditation

Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) is the first Indian University to be accredited by the New Zealand Qualification Authority (NZQA) an autonomous agency of Ministry of Education, Govt. of New Zealand to offer degrees affiliated to Auckland Institute of Studies (AIS), New Zealand, in India. The University now offers a dual degree for two programs namely BBA-Global International Business and B.Sc. Information Technology (IT). The students can now avail the opportunity to procure a foreign as well as an Indian University degree having studied in India. With this global recognition, the students enrolled in BBA-Global International Business and B.Sc IT at MRIU will now be entitled for 100% credit transfers if they choose to migrate to AIS, New Zealand after completion of any year through lateral entry. The academic fee for these courses BBA-Global International Business is roughly 9 lakh per year if a student studies in AIS, New Zealand. But now Indian students can avail the same degree at academic fee of Rs. 1.5 L per year if they study at MRIU.

“We are committed to provide the best of exposure through various means to our students so that they develop as pioneers”, said Dr. NC Wadhwa, Vice-Chancellor-MRIU. This accreditation also entitles the MRIU students to get additional academic credentials in the form of Diploma in International Business/IT (Level 5/First Yr), Diploma in International Business/IT (Level 6/Second Yr), by AIS, New Zealand duly recognized by NZQA and is accepted all over the globe. “We are pleased to announce our association with AIS, New Zealand through NZQA and will be utilizing this platform to enrich our curriculum through information and faculty exchange programs”, said Dr. Anil Sarin, Dean Faculty of International Program (FIP), MRIU. NZQA award to Manav Rachna International University has opened new vistas for the students enrolled in the BBA Global – IB and B.Sc IT programs. Additionally, MRIU and AIS- New Zealand have signed an agreement for Faculty and Student Exchange and Joint Research Projects, to be able to provide global exposure to students.

The Power of Good Habits

If you've ever learned to play a sport or taken up a new personal interest, you'll know how satisfying it can feel to reach a significant goal. As well as learning something new, you've changed yourself for the better. That's an empowering thought!

Good habits lie behind many of these positive changes. The repeated actions – attending a weekly sports practice, for example – help you to build the change into your daily life. In this article, we'll discuss how good habits can help you grow, personally and professionally.

How Goals Affect Habits

You are more likely to achieve worthwhile goals if you have good habits.

Illustrating this, a 2007 study suggested that we're not motivated by goals alone. In fact, once we've decided upon a goal, we're more motivated – on a day-by-day basis – by the habits that we have set up to reach it, than by the goal itself. We're also motivated by reflecting on our progress towards our goals. A 2010 study reinforced this: here, researchers monitored people who were trying to form better eating habits. They found that those who were encouraged to reflect on how they were doing, and who adjusted their habits accordingly, were ultimately more successful.

Creating Good Habits

Follow these steps to develop good habits in your daily life, and to kick-start positive change.

1. Identify What you Want to Achieve

First, note down your personal and professional goals. You'll need to develop new habits to achieve these goals, so it's important that you're clear about what they are.

Now choose one goal, and think about the habits that you'll need to incorporate into your schedule to reach it. What do you need to start doing every day to make this vision a reality?

Example: Swati has always wanted to live in France. Her goal is to learn to speak French, so that she can apply for a role in her company's Paris office. She decides to spend 30 minutes each day learning French.

2. Build Good Habits into Your Routine

Find ways to build your new habit into your routine. Block out a regular time for it in your schedule, so that you can give your positive habit your full attention.

Tip:

It's much easier to establish good habits if they fall during your most productive time of day.

Example:

Swati knows that she's at her best earlier in the day. She also knows that she's usually too tired to focus on learning after work.

She decides that early morning will be the best time to learn French. She resolves to go to bed by 10:00 p.m. each night so she can wake up at 6:00 a.m. In the evening, she lays out her clothes for work, prepares the coffee machine, and makes her lunch for the next day. She also loads some French learning podcasts onto her laptop in the kitchen.

When she wakes in the morning, she turns on the coffee machine and starts listening to the podcasts as she waits for her coffee to brew.

3. Reflect on Your Habits

As you progress with your new habit, reflect on how it's working for you. If you're struggling to stick to it, think about why this is. Were you too ambitious? If so, consider setting a more manageable short-term goal to remotivate yourself.

Or, if your new habit isn't delivering the change that you expected, reflect on what's gone wrong. You may need to tweak your habit to make sure that it's delivering real change.

Example:

After listening to her French podcasts for three weeks, Swati realizes that she's forgetting some of the words that she's learning. She knows that she remembers more when she makes notes, so she starts writing new words and their meanings down in a notebook.

4. Develop Self-Discipline

A 2012 study showed that it can take up to 66 days to form a new habit. That makes self-discipline essential.

One way to strengthen your self-discipline is to create a Treasure Map: a collage or visual representation of what you want to achieve. This will remind you why your new positive habit is so important to you. This can be just what you need to get motivated on days when your enthusiasm is waning.

Example:

Swati creates a Treasure Map the night before she begins to learn French. She creates a collage full of pictures of Paris. She feels excited about the opportunities ahead.

After two weeks of getting up early, she starts thinking about sleeping in. However, when she looks at her Treasure Map, she is reminded of her goal and she remembers how excited she feels about it. This goal is too important to give up on, and she can always sleep in at the weekends. She recommits to her morning learning.

5. Get Support

It can be hard to stick to a new habit when you're on your own. So share your goals with colleagues or friends, and ask them to support you. For example, you could ask them to call you check on your progress. Or, if they share your goal, you could meet them each week to support one another and maintain progress.

Example:

After Swati tells a colleague about her goal, he agrees to talk French with her over lunch one day each week. Swati feels more energized about reaching her goal now that her colleague is supporting her, and she has a new opportunity to practice what she's learning. In return, Swati helps her colleague towards his goal, which is to improve his English.

Key Points

Habits are powerful. They bring about change one step at a time, and they help you ensure that these changes become part of your life.

However, you're far more likely to reach your goal if you make your new habits part of your regular routine. Follow these steps to make good habits stick:

1.     Identify what you want to achieve.

2.     Build good habits into your routine.

3.     Reflect on your habits.

4.     Develop self-discipline.

5.     Get support.

When you decide to establish new habits in your life, focus on one at a time. If you try to overhaul your entire schedule at once, you'll likely get overwhelmed and quickly revert to old behaviors.

How to retain 90% of everything you learn

Imagine if you had a bucket of water. And every time you attempted to fill the bucket, 90% of the water would leak out instantly. Every time, all you’d retain was a measly 10%. How many times would you keep filling the bucket? 

The answer is simple: just once.

The first time you noticed the leak, you’d take action

You’d either fix the bucket or you’d get another bucket, wouldn’t you?

Yet that’s not at all the way we learn.

Almost all of us waste 90% of our time, resources and learning time, because we don’t understand a simple concept called the Learning Pyramid. The Learning Pyramid was developed way back in the 1960s by the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine. And if you look at the pyramid you’ll see something really weird.

That weird thing is that you’re wasting time. You’re wasting resources. You’re just doing everything you can to prevent learning. And here’s why.

To summarize the numbers (which sometimes get cited differently) learners retain approximately:

90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately.

75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.

50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.

30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration.

20% of what they learn from audio-visual.

10% of what they learn when they’ve learned from reading.

5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from lecture.

So why do you retain 90% when you teach someone else or when you implement it immediately?

There’s a good reason why. When you implement or teach, you instantly make mistakes. Try it for yourself. (In this article for instance, after I’d read the information, I cited the loss rate as 95% instead of 90% to begin with. I had to go back and correct myself. Then I found three more errors, which I had to fix. These were factual errors that required copy and paste, but I still made the errors).

So as soon as you run into difficulty and start to make mistakes, you have to learn how to correct the mistake. This forces your brain to concentrate.

But surely your brain is concentrating in a lecture or while reading

Sure it is, but it’s not making any mistakes. What your brain hears or sees is simply an abstract concept. And no matter how clearly the steps are outlined, there is no way you’re going to retain the information. There are two reasons why.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Yes it does. And the only way to understand this concept is to pick up a book, watch a video, or listen to audio. Any book, any video, any audio. And you’ll find you’ve missed out at least two or three concepts in just the first few minutes. It’s hard to believe at first, but as you keep reading the same chapter over and over, you’ll find you’re finding more and more that you’ve missed.

This is because the brain gets stuck at the first new concept/obstacle. It stops and tries to apply the concept but struggles to do so. But you continue to read the book, watch the video or listen to the speaker. The brain got stuck at the first point, but more points keep coming. And of course, without complete information, you have ‘incomplete information’.

Incomplete information can easily be fixed by making the mistake first hand.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand

No matter how good the explanation, you will not get it right the first time. You must make the mistake. And this is because your interpretation varies from the writer/speaker. You think you’ve heard or read what you’ve heard/read. But the reality is different. You’ve only interpreted what they’ve said, and more often than not, the interpretation is not quite correct. You can only find out how much off the mark you are by trying to implement or teach the concept.

So how do you avoid losing 90% of what you’ve learned?

Well, do what I do. I learn something. I write it down in a mindmap. I talk to my wife or clients about the concept. I write an article about it. I do an audio. And so it goes. A simple concept is never just learned. It needs to be discussed, talked, written, felt etc. (I wrote this article, ten minutes after reading these statistics online).

The next time you pick up a book or watch a video, remember this.

Listening or reading something is just listening or reading.

It’s not real learning.

Real learning comes from making mistakes.

And mistakes come from implementation.

And that’s how you retain 90% of everything you learn.

Which is why most of the people you meet are always going around in circles.

They refuse to make mistakes. So they don’t learn.

They’d rather read a book instead. Or watch a video. Or listen to an audio.

Their bucket is leaking 90% of the time.

But they don’t care.

The question is: Do you?

Study Smart: How to Make the Most of a Cram Session

It’s finals week, and you’re trying to make the most of your study time. You probably know by now that cramming isn’t the best way to learn (or live), but even the best students usually have to hustle at the end of the semester to prepare for a busy line-up of exams.

Before you hit the books, review these study secrets, which will maximize your cramming efforts and help you stay sane, too.

Plan Your Attack

At the beginning of any study session, review exactly what you need to accomplish and set your priorities. How much time do you have? What do you need to study? How and where will you work best? Taking a few minutes to devise a plan will keep you from feeling overwhelmed, plus make sure you won’t forget an essential task or prioritize inappropriately.

When I sit down for a study session, I make a list of the topics I need to review and how much time each will require. I then create a schedule with 30-minute time slots, which I fill first with the topics that are giving me the most trouble. 

Review Readings

You won’t be able to re-read your assignments for the semester, but you should go over all of your reading notes. If you didn’t keep good reading notes, find book reviews or secondary sources with summaries of themes and important points.

Next, if you have time, read the introduction and conclusion of the articles or books you’ll be tested on. It can also be helpful to work with a classmate to review the most important passages and talk through the main arguments.

When I review readings, I rely on annotations that I made the first time I read to help me skim later. Obviously, annotating is something you have to do before you cram, so it may not help you this week. But, if you didn’t use an annotation method this semester, you should next semester. Careful annotation will help you identity key arguments and supporting points without having to reread the entire text. Here’s a short tutorial on one method for annotating a text.

Space Out Repetitions

If you have a lot of information you need to memorize, you’re probably planning to rely on repetition. It’s widely known that repetition aids memory, but what most of us don’t realize is that how we space those repetitions is important, too. We learn better when we space out study repetitions over time, rather than bunching them together.

What’s more, intervals—or leaving time in between repetitions—are not the most efficient use of study time. Instead, try interleaving. Leave one subject of study, review another, and then come back. You’ll find the best results if you block your study repetitions in a randomized order. For example, if you have three subjects to review, start with the first, then move on to the third, back to the first, on to the second, back to the third, then second. Try not to repeat the pattern so that your brain has to guess what comes next.

Study in a Similar Context

Have you ever walked into a familiar room and had an old memory pop up? That happens because contextual information—sights, sounds, smells, and feelings—can affect our ability to recall. In other words, our surroundings often cue memories.

I like to study in a library or an empty lecture hall since the temperature, sounds, and smells are similar to the exam setting. I begin by taking five minutes to sit quietly and clear my head in order to get into an exam-like state of focus before studying.

Don’t Skip on Sleep

Studying is the key to testing success, but what many students fail to appreciate is that sleep is also essential. Sleep deprivation hinders your ability to perform complex cognitive tasks, so, sacrificing a few hours sleep for extra cramming time can actually be counterproductive.

Even if it means less time spent with your material, make sure you sleep well the night before an exam. Stay away from caffeine, limit naps to 30 minutes, and turn of your mobile devices.

First Impressions: You’ve Got 30 Seconds to Make the Right One.

Justin Timberlake’s sense of urgency is clear. He’s only got four minutes to save the world. In your job search, you won’t be that lucky. First impressions are formed in less than 30 seconds.

Psychology Today says we process small clues, everything from tone of voice to posture, and in a snap we form a larger picture in our minds. This means that hiring managers may draw conclusions, and finalize their opinions, in under a minute.

One study found that people shown 20 second video segments of job applicants formed similar opinions to hiring managers who were given 20 full minutes with the applicants. Now that’s a snap decision.

Beyond The Boardroom

The importance of first impressions goes beyond your hiring manager. When you get the job, you’ll need to impress your co-workers, vendors, clients, and so on.

Honestly, it’s just as important in the non-work world. How long does it take you to make a yae or nay decision when you’re introduced to a potential date?

The bottom line is that you need to keep your first impression top of mind and walk into each situation prepared for your review.

The Eyes Have It

Good posture and strong eye contact are key physical attributes to think about. Dressing appropriately is always high on the list impression triggers. And good personal hygiene? We don’t need to mention that, right? Bed Head may be a great line of beauty products, but actual unwashed hair won’t cut it.

On the flip side of that, too much personal hygiene can be a bad thing. I once interviewed a job candidate whose perfume was so strong I had to keep leaving the room to get fresh air.

Relax

Take a deep breath. We’ve all seen people who come off as stiff or even arrogant in an attempt to make a good impression. Take a breath and try to relax. The more relaxed you are, the more naturally confident you’ll appear.

Be Attentive

Ask questions and listen to the answers. Making other people feel like the center of attention is a great way to become desirable yourself. People love to talk about themselves, help them out by asking questions and listening to them attentively.

Watch Your Language

We’re judged not only by what we say, but also by how we say it. In the business world our language is viewed as a sign of intelligence, education, and culture. This doesn’t mean that being overly formal or sounding like a walking dictionary is a good thing. It’s not. But neither is sounding like you didn’t finish elementary school.

Shake On It

You hear this all the time: you’ve got to have a good handshake. Yet people still struggle with this simple act. Get it right! All the good work you’ve done can be undone in an instant if you offer a limp, clammy, or fingers only handshake. Make your handshake firm and solid. Period.

There’s an old saying you only get one chance to make a first impression. Now we know that the one chance comes and goes in an instant.

5 Things Recent Grads Wish They Had Done in College for Their Careers

It’s hard to focus on the future when you’re soaking in every moment of your college life. However, many recent college grads out in the job market are looking back and wish they had prepared themselves a little better for the ever-looming “real world”. In fact, a survey conducted shows that 71% of college graduates wish they had done things differently before graduation day arrived. Thankfully, post-collegiettes are sharing what wish they had done for their career during college—here are the top 5 ways to prepare for the real world before graduation.

Use Your Resources

At Manav Rachna International University, Career Development Center works with a mission of helping students realize their full potential and help them be employable. Career Development center has good amalgamation of highly skilled faculty from the education and the corporate world.

Career Development Center works with the philosophy that a persons Employ-ability is his or her ability to do Intelligent Self Assessment with an objective of exploring personal assets (Skills, Values, Strengths, motivations etc.), explore opportunities in the market, make informed career related decisions, identify and bridge training gaps in terms of assets required for the desired jobs and current inventory of personal assets, create a compelling action plan (Effective resume, Covering letter, Preparation for Personal Interview etc.), Gain the first employment, ensure self development throughout professional career, grow in an organization and gain subsequent employments. To achieve this objective Career Development Center provides coaching on not only basic Employ-ability Skills and Business Communication but also on Personal Productivity Skills (Time Management, Problem solving, Decision making etc.), Quality (Lean, Six Sigma) and Managerial Skills (Performance Management, Effective Coaching, Team Building etc.) which are rated very highly by corporate across the world

Career Development Center plans to achieve its employ ability enhancement objectives by conducting Intensive Process Oriented classroom training and by organizing events related to both Soft and Hard Skills”

Get a schedule of all of the workshops that the career center is offering and find the ones that interest you. Motivate yourself to go by putting them in your planner and finding a friend or two to join you! You can also set up a meeting with a career counselor who can give you more information on what services they offer and how they can best help you.

Network, network, network!

Networking is one of the most important aspects of getting a job post-graduation. According to Fox Business, almost 80% of jobs are filled through networking. But many collegiettes graduate only to realize they did not make the most of the networking opportunities they had.

Vicki Salemi—author of Big Career in the Big City, founder of Career Boot Camp for College Grads and host of Score That Job on MediaBistro.com—stresses the importance of networking. “This is the one area where college students could really tap into on campus,” Salemi says. “Your network is bigger and more robust than you think! Your roommates’ parents, professors, the works!”

Vicki also reminds students that networking is not as hard as they might think. “A lot of students sometimes get overwhelmed by the notion of networking but they don't realize they -- rather, YOU, are already doing it!” she says. “It's nonchalant and doesn't have to be oh-so-formal. It could be getting to know members of your lacrosse team, going to an alumni mixer and chatting it up. All you need to do is be open and friendly to meeting new people and asking for help in terms of informational interviews, find out what they enjoy doing and why, etc. to get your foot in the door.”

Learning how to network is an essential skill to develop during your time in college. Go to networking events on campus, create a LinkedIn profile if you haven’t already, and keep a list of connections you already have (such as previous employers, family friends, and former professors). These are all resources you can turn to when working toward a career or internship opportunity!

Dream (Realistically) Big

In our society, we are told that we can do anything we put our minds to. Unfortunately, the economic recession and the crisis in the job market have made it tougher to get jobs after graduation, and many people are facing “underemployment,” or working jobs that don’t utilize the knowledge or skills they learned in college.

Many collegiettes are coming to the realization that they may have set their expectations too high straight out of college. Resham Parikh, a recent grad, says she wishes she had “aimed higher (with goals, internships, ambitions) but was more practical at the same time (knowing what was a realistic goal for the future -- what would land me a job, what could get me into graduate school, how much money I would make to live decently, etc.).”

Talk to recent college grads about what to expect after graduation. They can tell you how they landed their job, how much money it really costs to live, and what they wish they had done differently to prepare themselves.

Start Earlier

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in college life that you put off the job search. The G-word can be pretty scary, and there are tons of memories to be made during senior year. However, waiting to look for jobs until the last minute can be seriously detrimental.

According to Forbes, students should be starting the job search as early as the beginning of their junior year so that they have plenty of time to keep applying and secure a job before graduation.

Resham realizes that she and her friends were so focused on living in the present and that they put off thinking about their future. “We thought, once we graduate anything is possible -- that's what a college degree is; that's what life is,” Resham says, “but it's not true! You need to actually begin working toward your career goals in college, and even with experience you need a network of supporters.”

Take advantage of school breaks and summer vacations to start looking for career opportunities. It is never too early to see what kinds of jobs are out there! Talk to friends and family working in fields that interest you, add more people on LinkedIn, sharpen up your resume, and start perusing job sites. You can never apply to too many jobs, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will land one you love!

Do Your Research

Tons of students go into college thinking they know what they want to do with their lives. Once they start looking for jobs in those fields, often they realize it isn’t quite what they were expecting. It is important to research various fields before graduating so that you are not limited to a narrow career path.

“My advice to college students is to look ahead to your career and figure out what knowledge and skills you're going to have to know,” says 2012 grad. “The best way to do this is to ask people working in the field you're looking to go into.”

“If I could go back and re-do, or offer advice to those who are in college now, it would be to look at the jobs out there now, even if you’re a freshman,” says, a 2011 graduate. “This way, you're aware of what the market wants from recent college graduates, what you should know, and you can follow the changes and take the extra classes needed or snatch up an internship in that area.”