Indus Business Academy PGDM Review By Kartikhey Nishad

Since B-Schools are ranked as tier-1, tier-2, and tier-3, IBA falls under the category of tier-2 B-Schools. After realizing the potential of engineering, MBA was the only thing left for me to do and what better place than Bangalore to come for studies. Bangalore is second home of students from Tamil Nadu as maximum students from TN come to Bangalore for PG courses. I appeared for all the entrances and IBA was accepting them all. My score was good enough for getting a call for the further rounds. After the last round of counseling, I finally got admissions at IBA which is one of the best B-Schools in the city. Bangalore has an IIM, and private institutes like Christ University, Kristu Jayanti College, and St. Joseph's College of Commerce but I found IBA next to IIM-B. IBA gave all the students a platform but as a student we had to prove our worth because competition in retail management is very high.

The college is great for management studies. As an engineering student, it was difficult to understand demand and supply as the whole course revolved around that. There were few things in which we engineers were good while in some the commerce students had an upper hand. So, it was a symbiotic relationship between engineering students and commerce students as both needed each other’s help. So just by lending helping hands, we moved together and completed the course with flying colors and with a job offer in our hands before the final semester even completed.

Faculty gave us the knowledge of the subjects and business structure that we had to build for our future employer. They always believed in quality and therefore we were given some of the toughest projects. Our projects were sent to many corporate houses and inputs and feedback came directly from those corporate houses. Faculty’s help throughout was immense because they were the biggest guiding force. Faculties didn’t just sticked with the curriculum because MBA has no defined curriculum.

India is not a manufacturing hub but definitely one of the biggest retail markets of the world. Many top conglomerates have seen this as a potential business and Tata’s West Side, Aditya Birla’s More, and Reliance Group’s Reliance Retail were the top recruiters of retail management students. Mumbai was a dream city for me and because I was hired by RIL’s arm Reliance Retail, I am settled in Mumbai today. Reliance Retail has been the biggest recruiter of IBA since last many batches and they have continued their hiring program at the college. Average salary offered was 6.5 LPA. The day is not far when world’s biggest retail chain, Walmart starts searching for students at IBA.

This was the first time that I was staying at the hostels because for many students they have come after staying at the hostels during their UG program. Hostels of IBA are clean, spacious and full of facilities. The first floor was single occupancy rooms while the other floors had common rooms and common wash rooms. Since the total number of students were few, it was not daunting to use common facilities as everything was cleaned once the students left for their lectures. Just like boys, there was a girls hostel too and the building was small but even the ratio of girls was less. Food served was authentic and vegetarian south Indian food.

The campus was small but was architecturally sound. Since the college is relatively new, Indus has hired some top IT company for providing the best solutions. I-card becomes mandatory as without them you can’t enter the classes nor you can leave the campus. The computer labs were also automated as we had to login and all our web history was checked. Coming from technology to sporting part, the college had a mini stadium sort of built. It had badminton courts, table tennis courts, and a couple of pool tables. It was a relaxation zone in a way as after hours of college were spent there. IBA infrastructure was no short of calling it wonder.

Life at B-Schools is much different than that of engineering colleges. IBA had many fun elements but at the same time assignments and projects took their dues. College timings were such that we had many breaks but the end time was hardly defined. Sometimes our last lecture would end at 4 pm while on some days, it ended at 7 pm. On the days of guest lectures our entire schedule went upside down. The college location is not far from malls and cinema houses. Even though Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are rival states, there was no booing from our Kannada friends as all the outsiders for that matter were welcomed with warm hearts and open hands.