Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay MBA Review By Vishal Rajpurohit

I couldn’t enter IIT for engineering and therefore decided to do IIT Bombay MBA as SJMSOM is an extended part of IIT-Bombay. There is just one drawback being in the IIT system is that it follows the schedule and pattern of IIT-Bombay. While most of the colleges have started following trimester, Shailesh J Mehta School of Management still has that 18 weeks long semesters and then before the 4th semester where a compulsory summer internship. The only problem was that SJMSOM IIT Bombay was in-between as they followed the internship patterns of B-Schools but had their thought process different when it comes to running the academic year. One good was that Shailesh Mehta School of Management only intake 110 students a year. Hence a small batch size means more opportunities even if not equal. One other thing was there was hardly any variation in terms of student’s backgrounds. All 110 did their graduation in the engineering stream. This is more because of the policy that SJMSOM has. They are happy taking engineers who didn’t like engineering and started making them turn their minds towards finance. Again 4 years compulsory after the 12th was the shittiest intake procedure I have ever heard. This way even a Mumbai University B.Com topper becomes ineligible for admissions in SJMSOM.

First of all, it’s a complete residential program and even though I was from Mumbai, I had to stay at the hostel. Nevertheless, this was because of the kind of project work we were given, if one wastes time in traveling or settling down then there’s no way one can complete their assignments. The pattern as I said was in-between but the opportunities we had during the academic year made SJMSOM my favourite. Along with summer, we were also provided a month-long winter internship in the industry we like. I was skeptical about finance so decided to try my luck in FMCG and there were top options like Marico, Colgate, and Nestle for me. Opportunities galore at SJMSOM and that’s what makes the academic department of the college incredible.

The core faculty was over 20 and the guest faculty count I haven’t kept because they chopped and changed quite frequently. In MBA it’s a case study pedagogy and that’s what most of the faculty gave us. Most of them had a great background and therefore got us some of the best case studies which ultimately they solved for us. They let our desire of learning high always and this is why the faculty of SJMSOM was perhaps better than many.

MBA is done for the placements and IIT Bombay MBA Placements are 100%. All 110 got the placements in the industry they wanted. I was confused and after having done summer and winter internships in 2 different industries, I was sure I would go for an operation and procurement company and we had 2 options in PwC and GeP. The latter was happy with my performance and gave me a decent package as well. Now all the industries were there and all the big names from the core industries like Cummins, Asian Paints, Nestle, Maruti, and ICICI Bank. These were some of the front runners who offered a CTC between 12-15 LPA and I was definitely happy as others still had complaints because they denied a 10LPA offer in their graduation. The worst part was that IT companies took the maximum as they found MBA more capable of helping them with coding or other stuff and Accenture. INB, Capgemini took half the students.

The first time in my life saw a girls and boys hostel combined. It was then I came to knew that even IIM-K has a co-ed hostel. H15/H16 blocks are common for PG students doing M.Tech or MBA during the 1st year and H12/13/14 for the 2nd year as they had single seater rooms. The hostel was good as it was commonly shared by IIT students and SJMSOM students. The dining hall was some 400m away and sometimes I had to get my system going with whatever tucks I had with me in my room. The food provided was good enough can’t be compared to the home food which many felt as the food is as good as homemade food.

SJMSOM building is one of the worst buildings on the entire IIT campus. Looked the oldest and classes without air-conditioning. The construction is finally on for a new academic building of SJMSOM and I hope next time, I see the college I see a new building. Being a part of the IIT campus, SJMSOM students had access to all the facilities that were there for the IIT students be it the playgrounds, gym, or the library. We had a separate library but we could still use the IIT library. There are 3 canteens in all and Tansa canteen was the one which was located at the student’s residential zone and that was the one I would recommend for snacks. The hostel 11 canteen was the dining area for the hostellers.

Since there were only engineers you won’t get any diversity and all the students thought process was the same. Those who were not happy with engineering chose MBA and those who were happy chose M.Tech. Interacting with peers was fun but I mostly stayed in my room. The IIT fest was again not meant for us and we just had 1 event the entire year in which IIT students didn’t even come as they felt we were not worth it. Life at the campus was learning how to live in isolation.