Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics B.Com Review By Miral Rana

I am a former student of Sydenham College Mumbai and will admit to the fact that in recent few years, the college has lost the shine that it had probably 2 decades back. One can gauge the popularity of the college on how active the college is on web. The FB page of the college don’t have any recent post even on web, you will hardly find any details about the college which was once the best college for commerce this side of the Suez. I know after reading this review many people will do Google because there’s one fact about the college that no one knows and that is Sydenham was the first college for commerce incorporated by the Britishers in Asia. If you see the college prospectus and see the kind of gems that college have produced and that from all the fields be it politics, Bollywood or industrialists. I will share the reason of the downfall it’s the intake policy because if you compare it with the best commerce colleges like Poddar, NM, or HR, all of them are affiliated to Mumbai University and the low attendance with which the college is ok exists in all the colleges of Mumbai. What’s the problem then? It’s the intake and it’s high time that somebody starts taking note of that.

In entire three years of my time with the college I have attended college 60 times including the exams. You can imagine how lenient the college is with the attendance. The faculty has improved in recent past but as they say one man take a horse to the river but even 20 men can’t make that horse drink water so what can the teachers do when students themselves have joined this college for fun. The crowd that is there at the college is also students from the lower class and I have no problem with that but bunking the classes for doing part-time jobs is what they are doing. Check the Delhi University for that matter if you don’t have grades and can’t attend college due to personal issues then you can opt for distance learning but here the regular students are doing the same then where will academics lead to.

Absolutely class as all the professors were CA, MBA or M.Com and also had enough teaching experience behind them. The only problem here is that they don’t give a damn. It’s high time and if the college has to regain the name that is lost it will have to make sure that faculty becomes strict and urge students to come to the college. There can't be a turnaround overnight but things has to change soon.

Like me many corporate houses are a fan of this college and even in this torrid times that the college is facing they have been faithful. Axis Bank is one such name and one can visit the fort branch for that matter as the staff is passed out from Sydenham. I hope like this all the banks in South Mumbai have students from Sydenham. The placement cell has somehow managed to attract the industries and this has made some students getting direct placements but only some of them.

The college has a boy’s hostel just behind the main building of the college. Other than that government hostel also has a quota for Sydenham students and likewise the college has tie-ups with some girl’s hostel as well. The college for over the years has had students coming from other states and cities of Maharashtra and therefore a good hostel was and is still the need of the hour.

The college infrastructure is about the admin building that it has. The junior college and the senior college are functional in that. The college building has a library that has over 50k volumes of books. Not just during the college hours but library remains open till 9 pm and we were allowed to use the library till then. The college building also has an indoor sports room with TT table and carom boards. Also there’s a gym facility but I never saw students entering that. The college campus also have a volleyball and basketball courts. You will find maximum students there as 10-20 will be seen playing and rest will be seen hooting their favourite players. The auditorium with a seating capacity of 100-150 people at a time. That’s it I guess because as far I reckon I have given you a virtual tour of the college campus.

I have not spent more than 60 days at the campus and don’t think it’s ideal for me to review this part. Like many other colleges, this college too has communities formed and I don’t know but they must be participating at fests and all. All I know as the college has not done significantly in those areas as well otherwise people would have talked about it. The college has become a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The bits and pieces won’t lead anywhere and this opinion is not just mine but from many who have been a part of this historic college.