Management Development Institute PGDM Review By Shailja Mishra

Being an alumnus, I don't have a choice but to give a five-star review as the College deserves it. I have a very limited idea or knowledge of any other B-Schools as we were sent to various campuses, but I never went as I was in love with MDI and never felt like leaving the campus, even if it's for a day. The first thing that goes well with the Institute is its location as the College is at a touching distance from all the hep places of Gurgaon like golf course road, sec 29, and cyber hub. One thing that I loved the most was the homogeneity of MDI. Only the students with 98 or more percentile got admissions here, and there was no reservation quota. I am not against it, but at least in top B-Schools, where quality matters, students should be chosen on merit, is what I feel. Illumina club was like a drop of water in a desert for marketing students.

The academics here were quite different as the College runs a student exchange program with many European Universities. Around 20 students from our batch went there, and the same number of students came here and shared classes with us. The College runs a special start-up program which is included in its academics. If I have to name the ones who have benefitted from that are the founders of Paperboat (Hector Beverages), Cashify, Instamojo, and MX Taka Tak, etc. For marketing students, the campus organizes a Diwali Mela, which was indeed a project by the marketing students as we had to organize that. Many companies visited during then and awarded us projects with a strict deadline. A group of 5, including me, were awarded a rural project in Pataudi, and MDI sponsored it for us. So, academics were project-based here because they can only teach us the idea while implementation is done through practicals here.

Many professors retired during our batch, but one person, Mr. Sanjay Bakshi, who has been teaching here for ages, was the poster man of illustrious professors that have served at MDI. He was our main faculty and provided an internship in his start-up, 'Value Quest'. His investments have made rounds in the investment circuit group, and many consider him as 'Buffet of Graham of Indian Investments'. Apart from that, our professors were all brilliant, and even the new ones who took over had enough teaching experience at top-notch Institutes. So, quality-wise, knowledge-wise, and experience-wise, the professors of MDI remain unquestionable.

Maruti, Century Textiles, Reliance Retail, and Tata were the top recruiters. Banking companies were more interested in hiring HR and Finance students, so few jobs from the banking sector were offered to us. We did a rural project at Pataudi for Maruti and they were more than happy to award us a job. They were the ones who took most marketing students from our batch. Average placements were around 14-15 lakhs which was lower than IIM-A, B, and C but better than Lucknow, Indore, and Kozhikode.

There was a disparity in terms of the hostel as boys had a hostel with single-seater rooms while both girls' hostels had double and triple sharing rooms. Never mind, though, as the Kaveri Hostel building was the best building on display on the campus. Each hostel had their mess, and I was quite happy that only vegetarian food was served because, in my previous hostel, non-veg was served alongside. The rooms were class, and the food was mediocre, because to make it healthy, we were served Chapatis without butter and in the name of nutrition, we were served mushrooms thrice in a week.

Addictive would be the right term as we found ourselves some new corners to discuss every day. Even our classes were held at different corners of the campus as it was quite big. Half of my previous University but still bigger than many B-Schools. The boundaries of the College were serene, but crossing them gave me more pleasure than staying on the campus, which most students did. Cyber Hub was within walking distance, and who mind having some fun at the cafés and pubs that are there. The College too, had some great canteens and cafés, and some of which were out of a common man's budget. Yes, they were that expensive and if we had to spend the same amount of money, why not hang out with friends outside then.

Marketing students had the most fun on campus. We had more workshops and venue projects than every other branch. We were sent to places, but girls had the option of going against it, and I went only to the places from where we could return the same day. I was amazed to see the CU fest, but when I saw the fest here, I was like, this is what and how a fest should be like.