Doon Business School PGDM Review By Gaurav Kumar

Having done PGDM from here in 2019, I can proudly recommend DBS to anyone. It is not in top 30 B-Schools but is in top-50. There are over 200k MBA aspirants every year and getting into top 10 or top 30 colleges is not possible for all. However, becoming successful is not impossible for all. If you were to take my word apply for DBS and clear the interview and your story of becoming a successful manager will be start written from that day itself. The management and non-teaching staff were qualified enough to guide us about the admissions. I had my shares of up and down during the college life but PGDM is not an easy course and one has to give all that they have to absorb the high-octane pressure that higher studies in general give. However, having a ball while studying was also not impossible as each evening, we used to chill at the campus and have meaningful conversations with some of the smartest people around.

I was in constant touch with one of my friends who made it to IIM-B. Being a little critical person, I used to share what and how we are taught with my friend every week and also used to learn what and how they are taught. Many may have reservations in what I say but the similarity was around 75%. I don’t think I need to say anymore as academics follow the footprints of some of the top B-Schools of the country.

Academics are 75% similar to IIMs and the reason for that is almost all the professors of the college were IIM graduates. They have brought in the same energy, same stuffs that are being done there. Their experience was enough to give us the feel of IIMs as all the activities that we had were no less than what students of those colleges do. Brand building was my subject and doing assignments on that, my professor corrected me at every step and even though I can call them Socrates for asking too many questions but Socrates was a legend and so are the faculties of DBS.

Since my expertise or my subject was brand building, I opted for choosing some of the start-ups as there were many established firms that came for placements. ICICI bank was the major force as they wanted to expand their presence in Uttarakhand and for that; they took many students from our batch. Besides that, there were many start-up companies like mamaearth, Naukri.com, and Junglee Rummy. I chose one of these as I didn’t wanted to miss out on the journey of becoming a unicorn from a petty start-up. All these were established names by the time they came at the campus but sky is the limit for such brands and this is what we were taught at the college. Placements were not 100% but we were trained to crack the interviews and those who haven’t can take the blame on themselves not the college.

There are 2 splendid boys hostel inside the campus. Most of the B-School have residential program but at DBS it wasn’t compulsory and so I had the option of staying at the hostel but my room seemed more comfortable and so I avoided the hostels. Outsiders can go and study with their friends till 8 pm as beyond that outsider had to leave. I also had my dinner at the hostel mess and the food tasted as good as home cooked food. Most students were outsiders and staying in the hostel was both comfortable and enjoyable.

Infrastructure was mediocre as there are many universities in Dehradun that are spread in vast lands while DBS was built inside a 3 acre of land. There are two buildings as the old building is for management students and the new building is for UG courses. There was a nice little auditorium and an open-air space also can be called an amphitheatre which was used for seminars. Not much of sporting facilities apart from a beautiful basketball court which was never empty.

Management course is such that having time for fun is limited. However, as soon as the classes ended, we used to rush to the canteen to have our dose of poison (tea or coffee). Discussing the entire episode of what we were taught today and brining funny incidents out of each was the best part. LOL was the theme of our evening parties that used to go on till my parents didn’t called and ask me when I am reaching home. A lot of cultural activities happened all around the year. The juniors were co-operative and shared a nice camaraderie with seniors. The campus life at DBS was no short of fun for sure.