Management Development Institute PGDM Review By Arshad Ansari

MDI may not be the dream I chased for as I had ICFAI Business School Hyderabad and IIMs in my sight. Missing IIM by the slightest margin allowed me to be a part of an institute which is as good as IIMs. The Infrastructure is better than many IIMs. Academics I believe both the colleges may have taught the same things. Placements wise, we would have made a few lesser lakhs, but it hardly matters as growth is based on your job profile rather than your degree. MDI made sure that students had to work in a group on most assignments given in class. I was a laid back type, and therefore other students in my group used to do the assignments, and for their hard work, I earned the grades. In short, MDI was a novel that will reap a lot of rewards if you read it entirely.

As I was in the marketing committee society, I would attend those meetings before the lectures started. The classes were supposed to start at 9 am IST. I said IST as the timings were never followed, even at MDI. Once the classes started, we couldn’t move as there was just a 5 minutes break in which we could grab a cup of coffee or tea and be back before the next professor entered. On most days, we were free by 4 pm but if the professors had plans of taking the classes deep, it might go on to 6-7 pm. After that, I used to come into my room and sleep, as I have said earlier that other group members did our group assignments.

Apart from Good Morning, the faculty never said anything to students in general. They would come to take the class and repeat at least 10-15 times, ‘guys if you have any doubts, you can ask’. Then, nobody replied but let the semester approach, and we would rush to their quarters to take classes or have a detailed discussion on some topics. If I were in their shoes, I would have never helped such students but not the faculty of MDI. They had no problems teaching us, even in their quarters. Most of them were aged but still had friendly relations with most students as we could crack any slapstick joke in front of them, and even they would laugh out loud at that.

MDI will ensure that you go to an organization that is ready to pay you a fat salary. Marketing students were in more demand than the students of other branches. Placements are not a college entity as students have to put their best efforts during the interview. One best thing about MDI is that they have always remained transparent. In our batch of 2017-19, they did inflate up the average package as around 30 students had international payment and the college converted USD into INR. So, the average package looked like 16-17 LPA. The domestic average package was also no less than 10 LPA. Those who grabbed a job below can blame themselves as we were helped for placements by many corporate talks, placement programs, and live projects. Those who did well there had a dream job beckoning before leaving college.

There were three boys and two girls' hostels. All the hostels were inside the campus, and students had access to the entire campus for as long as they wanted. I am a bit of an introvert so I decided to have an independent room. The Kshitij boy's hostel on the campus had single rooms. There was a poker club in the basement of our hostel, and all the students used to be there till they were half asleep.

An automated library close to the Gurukula was our second home. First obviously the hostel and second the library. It remained open for us all day and night. The campus was like a garden with some monuments in it. Every building on the campus was a monument. Inside, one can see all the modern technology, and from the outside, one can see the crafts of the artisans who have built these buildings. I loved every corner of the campus whether it was the library, sporting facilities, or the fantastic canteens of the campus.

For me classes and hostel because I was not so social and just joined the marketing committee. Our meetings were mostly done in the morning, and therefore I was free after the evening. The hostel rooms were so comfortable that I used to call my friends in the room and watch matches or play the guitar inside the room. Life can be a little tough for antisocial people because it is hard to remain anti-social at the MDI campus.