Ramnarain Ruia College B.A Review By Sangita Patel

Ramnarain Ruia College back in the days was one of the top colleges in Mumbai and still today remains the same. For BA there are many colleges like Mithibai College, H.R., and KC College but Ruia College looked promising more than the other. I really don’t know what I saw but because mine was Arts stream and others being biased towards commerce, I chose this college. After joining I realized that Ruia too is biased towards science students and Arts students are being ignored. No placements for Arts students and arts students were more of a decorative piece because they were kept on front whenever there was some college meeting or event. Job though wasn’t my criteria but economics being my favorite subject and Mumbai University’s syllabus being one of the best studying here was totally satisfactory.

Ruia is affiliated to the University of Mumbai and Arts of Mumbai University is renowned all over. I wish that Arts as a subject was taken seriously because if I say someone, I did Arts and people are like as if I haven’t studied at all. Even in Mumbai arts students were seen as if because we didn’t have the required percentage, we took arts. Some people even take Arts subject because of that but my criteria was simply not that. I went to college for studies and Arts too requires as seriousness as other subjects. Not much practical like science but studies itself were tough. Getting first class at the university level wouldn’t have been possible if Ruia college didn’t arrange the best teachers to teach us.

Faculty was damn good as all of them held PhD degrees and were masters in real sense. Most of the professors were from Delhi and they also used to bring DU books along as they felt Mumbai University syllabus is not that wide. Attendance was never required and because we were just 10 out 120 in class who used to come to classes daily, our professors backed these ten wholeheartedly. Faculty’s core group was undoubtedly one of the best.

For BA there were no placements and no means not a single company or the college’s placement wing even asked us about placements. B.Sc students had a nice placement session but college couldn’t find a single company that could show interest in B.A. students. Job was not on list but at least we should have been given a chance. I hope a turnaround should have happened because these days craft is being appreciated more and there are many companies that do needs such crafty people.

Hostels and Mumbai colleges never go hand in hand because 80% of the colleges in Mumbai don’t have this facility. First, because all the colleges are mostly small and they don’t have the luxury of having a hostel inside the campus. Secondly, there are many private hostels in the city that students mostly choose such hostels rather than staying at the college facilities which have many boundaries attached. Ruia college also felt the same and provided no hostel to its students who had many students from other states of India and mostly Gujarat from where I also belonged.

Ruia college is a campus that has 2 buildings, one each for Arts and Science stream. There were more classrooms than required and these classrooms were turned into green rooms during events or any practice sessions. The college has many labs but all for science students and BA students had to use the space in between the building for their events or mass projects submission. The parking area was small and there are many restaurants nearby the college where students can park their vehicles. College’s library is small too but to be fair with the college, Arts students have hardly used that. The college has a small garden that should be handed to the forest department because it has turned into one. College infrastructure of Ruia was same as most of the colleges of Mumbai as this is how colleges in Mumbai generally looks like.

Ruia was one of the most happening colleges in Mumbai. Moreso because of the location as the college was in Dadar which is close to town. Worli was nearby and going to Worli Sea face or Haji Ali were our best time pass during then. Arts students fest was called Aarohan and Science students fest was called Utsav and Ruia was one of those colleges that had cultural fests twice a year. It was a healthy competition between both the streams and both tried their best to nail it.