This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, Co-Founder and CEO of iPleaders, mbl.nujs.edu, startup.nujs.edu.

My parents never interfered much in my education. Mostly they allowed me to study what I wanted to study. The one time they were really upset was when I decided to study law instead of medicine, but once my fate was sealed after a crusade in that regard, they went back to being ambivalent about my career choice. Do what you want, we are there to support you. They didn’t always say it aloud, but I knew it.

There was one exception though. They keep telling me: when will you do your master’s degree? You can do it in law, or management – whatever, you should go for it.

I do not feel it is very relevant in my line of work at the moment (though many may disagree, I am after all CEO of an education company). What I need to learn I learn on the job. And it’s often hard, often crushing, many a times magnificent. I believe mostly in learning through practical exposure than academic pursuits, but even then, someday, I think I will want to get that master’s degree. I just know it in my guts.

Well, most people in the world will never do a master’s degree. It is only a small percentage of the population, till now, that got around to pursuing a master’s degree.

It’s not just that it is difficult to get the right course or get through the right university. It is hard to do a master’s degree because it is the choice between earning a lot of money in a year or two or completely sacrificing it for an academic pursuit that may or may not financially pay off.

When your job is going well, you are rising fast, do you really want to interrupt the home run for a year or two in order to get that degree?

If you have the home loan or car loan to pay off, can you really take off from your practice for a year or two to attend college all over again?

It’s a different thing if things are not working well on the professional frontier and you want to take a rain check: probably taking yourself out of the professional world and planting yourself in the academic world for some time is not such a bad idea.

However, till now, higher education was the prize of a privileged few, and many of those who would have liked to do it had to keep out due to many constraints.

Well, that is changing quickly with emergence of online education. Top universities around the world are now offering higher education, including master’s degree, online. That has changed the game.

How amazing is it that you don’t need to leave your work, or practice, to pursue a highly rewarding master’s degree course online?

NUJS, Kolkata has been a leader in online education in India, and even in the world as far as legal education is concerned. We are also proud to be running India’s most successful and popular online Master’s Degree course in Business Laws – taken up by MDs, CEOs, IAS officers, judges, Advocates on Record of the Supreme Court, law professors, law firm founders and partners and many upcoming business leaders and legal eagles.

However, keep in mind that if your ultimate goal is to teach in a law school, or pursue a PhD from a prestigious institution, you would probably do better to get your master’s degree in a traditional university by attending lectures full time. If you do your master’s degree through online or distance mode, irrespective of whether such a course has recognition of UGC or not, you will not benefit from such a course. Indian academia is very staunchly against recruiting teachers or research scholars who pursued master’s through distance or online courses. This is how it stands as of now, though it may change in the future. However, today if you ask me, I will strongly suggest that if you have academic ambitions, do not do your master’s degree online or through a distance course unless you already have one master’s degree done through a regular course or plan to get another master’s degree soon through a regular course requiring full time attendance.

There are many law teachers from some of the most prestigious law schools and colleges who are pursuing our online Master’s courses from NUJS in order to learn more practical insights from the industry for the benefit of their students, and we humbly welcome them.

If your career and future lies in the industry, legal or otherwise, we welcome you to join our next batch, the last date of enrolment for which is 30th June. The batch begins from 7th July, and we can’t wait because some amazing people are already part of the batch.

Here are the specializations available

1. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN M&A, INVESTMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL FINANCE
2. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND CYBER LAW
3. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND STATUTORY COMPLIANCES
4. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN DRAFTING, NEGOTIATION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION
5. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN BANKING, INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
6. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN SECURITIES AND CAPITAL MARKETS
7. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND CROSS-BORDER TRANSACTIONS
8. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN COMPETITION LAW
9. M.A. IN BUSINESS LAWS WITH SPECIALIZATION IN ENERGY LAW

Seats will fill up fast, so please hurry if you are interested. If you have any questions, feel free to call us on 011-3313-8901.

All the best! Let me know what you think about doing a master’s degree online even if you are not interested in our courses. Just hit reply to this, I reach each and every one of them.