Graphic Era University MBA Review By Sarthak Panwar

'GEU' is the best name when it comes to the Universities of Dehradun. Yes, one can get admissions, but after that real life starts. Engineering and MBA are two courses for which the classes go on for 8-9 hours. We could bird watch students of other departments come and go. Never mind though, as we had the best classes, the best labs, and best exposure compared to other courses offered by the University. It was lovely to be among the ranked courses of the University as many juniors both from 'Graphic Era Hill' and 'Graphic Era University' came to us for advice. For placements assistance started by none other than the big show ''Kamal Ghansala'' who is the owner of the University. He took the mantle in his hands and trained us for placements. The number of students is far higher than a University should have and that brought a lot of competition.

We had to reach the University by 8:30 as 9:00 am sharp and the first professor would be in the class. 50 minutes each class and then a 10 minutes break was the way at GEU. Many professors also promoted their lectures up and the schedule going up and down here was common. More than 20 lectures a week and 8-10 practicals. We were taken on an industrial tour every month and also some students were sent for competitions to other Universities of the country. GEU students are taught so well that many of them have done much better than students of some of the top management Colleges of the country. Winning a title outside the College resulted in rewards as many students were provided scholarships based on that and fees waiver of 5-50% was announced for such students.

In adversity, they were the ones we looked up to. If we felt that a lot of mugging up is on, one request is all it took to ask them to give us a break. A lot of such breaks happened because studies of MBA would never get finished as the book size was such that one can complete two books out of 7 subjects books that we had in each semester. Most of the professors had a great bond with the students and alumni of the University, along with professors who took away some of the complexity that MBA courses in general have.

IT firms have been friends with GEU for a long time. So, sector-wise, we didn't have much to choose from because Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Adobe, and others which took the engineering students took students of MBA. The class size was quite high and thus saying that placements were 100% would be a sheer lie. One had to put in very hard yards to get placed and the University made us do so. Hence, 75% of the students of management studies were placed with packages ranging from 5 to 15 lakhs.

MBA classes were held in the main campus that has one boys and one girls hostel. There are many other hostels of the University close to the University where over 2000 students stay. The University is expanding as much new construction work is going on and the University might add a few more hostels in years to come. Locals were not allowed to grab a berth at the hostel and thus I was ineligible. For outsiders hostels are not the only option as the entire Sunshine enclave homes are converted into PGs and more than students staying in the hostel, stay at those PGs.

Campus was a little small, but as many buildings of the campus are single buildings close to the main campus. So, if I include them all, the campus is huge and facilities are upgraded almost every single year. If good looks were punished, the University would have been banned because more than anything it was attractive than almost all the Universities of the city. 'Uttaranchal University' was bigger than GEU, and DIT and all are bigger areas but are not as attractive as GEU. Only a few course classrooms had ACs and luckily MBA classes had that. So, even long hours in classes never felt tiring. Labs are all air-conditioned and even the central library was air-conditioned. The ground was quite small and that can be the only desert part of the campus Infrastructure.

Life at GEU is amazing for the students doing UG courses. PG students hardly have time to enjoy the activities as Universities have activities almost every other day. Outsiders who are interested in other areas like acting or singing, GEU offers them a plethora of opportunities. The annual fest ''GRAFEST'' was a compulsory option for all students to attend as the University spends a whole lot of budgets on that. Singers like AP Dhillon, Jubin Nautiyal, and Badshah have all performed at GRAFEST.