XLRI freshers at Tata Auditorium on Monday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

A bunch of 566 wide-eyed students took the first step towards achieving their big entrepreneurial dreams at XLRI on Monday when Jamshedpur’s premier business cradle flagged off its academic session 2014-16.

The B-school extended a warm welcome to the freshers with a short introductory programme at Tata Auditorium. The newbies were given a pep talk on values and ethics that XLRI as an institute follows and expects the students to tread the path of integrity and excellence. XLRI director Fr. E. Abraham and dean (academics) Pranabesh Ray addressed the welcome ceremony. A prayer service was also held to commence the new academic session.

“The creation of world-class skills is the only way to economic prosperity, reduced income inequalities and social cohesion. For a company to do well in this age of globalisation, one needs to combine innovative ideas with technical expertise,” the director added.

Pranabesh Ray, dean (academics), highlighted XLRI’s efforts in instilling entrepreneurship skills to churn out managers with values.

The students have enrolled in either of the three flagship programmes — business management, human resource management and general management. While the business management and human resource management course have 180 students each, the general management accommodates 120 students.

Besides, 14 students have enrolled in the fellow programme in management, 16 in executive fellow programme in management and 56 more in the business management evening programme.

The newbies will take part in a special orientation programme designed to refresh their knowledge before classes kick off from Thursday.

Apart from a flurry of classes, presentations and research, the new entrants have plenty of offbeat delights to look forward to in the first term. They will be taken on a village exposure programme as well as a Tata Steel adventure stint.

The new batch, from all over the country, sounded ecstatic. “I joined XLRI because I have heard that the culture, ethics and practices they follow is the best across all B-schools. The general feel of the place is better than any other institute,” said Dhruv Sengar from Mumbai who enrolled for the business management programme.