MICA - The School of Ideas PGDM Review By Pradumansinh Vaghela

MICA has different PGDM courses and has specialization for some streams for which they award students PGDM degrees. Media and Entertainment management was the popular program or should I say is the most popular program. Mine was advertising and brand management. SCMHRD was also an option considered which for sure is a far better institute than MICA but admissions in SCMHRD is as tough as anything. Industry exposure was great at MICA as Ahmedabad being the second largest cities of the west had many job profiles for which MICA is considered the best college. There are some student bodies made at the institute like MICANVAS, MLS, and MICAMINDS. The program is a residential one as it is in almost all the colleges that provides MBA or PGDM degrees. I still feel it is not required but because the flow is such that if a college doesn’t do that, it affects directly to their rankings.

For advertising and brand management our course had subjects and topics like we had to go out and seek consumer thoughts about that brand. This was a practical subject and if you are from Ahmedabad, you must have seen MICANS at many D-Mart and Reliance Fresh stores taking insights from the customers about the products. We were taught how to formulate marketing strategies that can take the brand far. Our subject covered areas like how to properly manage distribution channels for both rural and urban areas. Last came the advertising part as it is the most expensive part. Our studies were done through presentations as we were working for the brands right from the first year. Thus, studies were more of a corporate training and MICA has designed all its courses keeping the working style of corporate in mind.

Faculty were prodigious because each specialization has an expert of the same field as the professors. Our professors have worked for an ad agency and formulating ideas in minutes was their forte. Catch maximum from them was always on my mind and thereby I used to spend maximum time with some of my professors. Would take their thought on each of my presentations and used to show to some of the professors before going for presentations. Faculties were quite watchful and mindful of what students are doing at the campus.

For brand management start-ups have come and from established names Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, and some cola companies. We already did some of the projects for the companies that visited and our research for their brand was presented during the interviews. We did projects in groups and some of the companies were so impressed that they hired the entire group. Placements again can’t be compared with placements of similar ranked college like NM, SCMHRD, but were similar to one of the colleges that I had offered letter from, TAPMI. Average CTC was around 8 LPA and placements though were not guaranteed at MICA but a significant chunk of students had the campus placements.

There are different hostel facilities for 1st and 2nd year students. For first year, you can’t have single room but from second year, you are shifted to single room. In all there were 10-12 hostel buildings, including a co-ed hostel that had ground and 1st floor reserved for girls and the 2nd floor for boys. Food at the hostel was like home made food for me because they used to serve a lot of Gujarati food items and even the students of other states never complained about the food. In breakfast, you do get Dhokla’s often and it was a complete Gujarati food affair at the hostel menu.

Institute offers course that need some craft and to make sure student always have something on their mind, most of the walls are being painted with graffiti on them. They keep changing every year and you get a lot of fresh vibes at the college. The college can be accused of having affair with maximum people as whoever comes to the campus falls in love with out because of the atmosphere that one finds at the campus. If there’s a green campus award, I am sure MICA will bag it as it has trees one after the other. Indoor and outdoor sports facilities at the campus made sure that we have something to do for unwinding at the campus.

Campus is lighted on every occasion and students here mingle as if they are a part of one family. There’s no distinguishing among boys and girls as both girls and boys were allowed to roam at the campus as long as they want. Hostel common rooms always had students shouting after every victory of India. At the farewell there were many heartaches because as a student we were not prepared to leave the campus so soon.