Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development MBA Review By Jatin Suryavanshi

The Symbiosis group’s SCMHRD is best known for MBA in HR. This wasn’t my first choice but was happy with it as the college is much better than many B-Schools which are ranked higher than this. My alibi can be trusted as in my firm there are students from SIBM and XLRI and the kind of knowledge that SCMHRD provided is much better than that. SNAP is the only way to enter the colleges of Symbiosis as per the score you can put the preferences. My first preference was none other than SIBM but failing to get the cut there, I decided to go ahead with SCMHRD. From my experience all I can say is that SCMHRD student has outshined many. In relative terms the course, placements, and events that are a part of SCMHRD are much better than that of any other Symbiosis Institutes. The alumni of SCMHRD are serving at the top posts in major industries. It was started some 30 years back and being a part of Symbiosis group I knew which college can serve the purpose that I want and SCMHRD though wasn’t my first choice turned out to be the biggest positive of my career.

The college offers MBA in other streams as well but avoid being a part of those as HR is what that have a course that no other college has and the kind of opportunities that are provided relevant to the course. The college has ticked all the right boxes to make sure you know about HR jobs in and out. The college conducted various workshops alongside students of other Symbiosis institutes and that is how we learned about the work we will be engaged in. The institution knew that only gaining knowledge through books won’t help us survive and therefore practicals were given a larger importance.

All the professors were serving as HR managers in some or the other companies. This made their experience vital for us to learn. They knew exactly how to train us and they did that with all their heart. Since the strength is relatively less as SCMHRD only accommodates 80 students for HR, all the faculty knew us personally. Not just the curriculum but the faculty members also gave us free space to try our hands at other activities too. Some of the subjects that SCIT and SCMHRD collide and therefore faculty members took those lectures at the open auditorium. The faculty members didn’t leave a single stone unturned in making us understand the basics of the course.

Since Jio was its full run a lot of mobile careers actually showed interest in our batch. Companies like Voda-Idea, Reliance Jio and Airtel were all there. The friends at the campus have turned foes today as me and my bestie are working for rival companies. The point here is that all got placed and the placement record of SCMHRD since 2012 is 100%. I don’t think even SIBM has a 100% placement record but SCMHRD does. Other than mobile careers, IT and Auto companies were also there and the average CTC of our batch was Rs. 14 lakhs. The highest was in dollars as American multinational Cognizant took 3-4 students from our batch and in Indian currency the offer was around Rs. 48 lakhs per annum.

The institute shares its hostel with 2 other Symbi institutes that is SCIT and SIIB. The hostel building is just outside the campus. The boys and girls hostel buildings are separate and there’s a common area as well as boys can’t go beyond that. The security is tight and there’s no chance of any breach. The fees is also reasonable as Rs. 1.4 lakhs a year including food in Pune can be considered cheaper while many complaint that it’s too much. The dining area or the mess was clean and hygienic. The menu was fixed but had enough choices. The only problem was that you won’t be allowed to pack the food and take along. You will have to eat it inside the dining area. Now the timings were such that in some cases we were not even done and the dinner time was on.

The only problem with SCMHRD infrastructure is that the college campus is small. I mean just 2 buildings one is that of SCIT and one is ours. The area between both the colleges was the one where stage was set-up as the events took place there only. The basketball court and the gymnasium were the only facilities that the college gave after charging Rs. 20 lakhs as fees. Unfortunate but true and this is where Symbiosis needs to learn from other colleges. The college is in IT park of Pune and therefore in a range of 1km you will have almost everything that you want. From 5 star hotels to food outlets. Talking about food outlets the canteen at the campus which is called Symbieats was cute but the food was limited and that too pathetic. The college is beside a busy road and vehicle noise was never pleasing.

I have mentioned one negative in terms of infrastructure but the campus life even in that compact campus was larger than life. Got the opportunity to have a guest lecture by none other than Sudha Murthyji. Our annual fest was attended by none other than Mr. Sharad Pawar. The events, classes and friendship goals ended my 2 years with my eyes full of tears during the last day at the college.