SOIL Institute of Management Review By Yash Kumar

With the one-year PGP program, SOIL Gurgaon has knocked over the tables with some excellent placements and great learning experiences. The Institute has used all its connections and all well. It was a chance that I took at SOIL Institute of Management because the fees are too high and there are Colleges and Universities in Gurgaon that promise very high and when it comes to delivery, deliver very little. The Institute is lethal and fatal for students because the program in one year ended like a whisker as I forgot about the happenings that happened around me. The program is fast as it comes fast and goes even faster. We used to travel a lot during the program because Manesar where the other Institute of the group is located, we had many combined classes there because the Manesar campus is comparatively bigger and given the industries over there which have tie-ups with College, we also used to have many workshops and seminars there.

I don't exactly remember how the College went about the business academically. Classes were more of interactive sessions with examples shared and case studies discussed on how the empires were built. How did Google happen, how did Spotify happen, and likewise there are many more things which will happen in the future. The College has fully justified the famous saying of 'Abraham Lincoln' that "it's better to build a future than to predict it". Many students didn't like the rearing pace of academics because I agree even; I forgot what was taught in the previous class as slides turned quicker than they should have. So, after spending nearly 8 hours in College, at least half of those hours, we had to spend doing self-study. The doubt-solving sessions used to happen every Friday, as Friday was sort of a revision class of what was taught from Monday to Thursday.

The famous Chris Brown and Pitbull song, International Love, was reminded by our faculties, as they would always give examples, of New York City. NCR is nowhere close to NYC, but our professors had a vision that one day NCR would be as good as NYC. So, a lot of global case studies and business scenarios were discussed and taught by them in the classes. Once they reduce the pace a bit, they will be some faculties. The faculty team was packed to the rafters as all of them have been alumni of some of the prestigious Colleges of India and abroad. Faculties of SOIL have put up a new order of teaching management studies is all that I can say.

FMCG is always a safe bet, but after overcoming so many challenges one thing that struck me was banks where the workload is always high and the employees there have no option but to deliver. I like the hanging sword because whether its studies or a job, one can't perform until he/she is under the pump. For students who wished to work in banking sectors, the College has managed to get banks like HDFC and Indusind Bank on their shores and they were quite happy to sign a bond with students upfront. SOIL Institute of Management Average Package were as good as FMS or MDI because placements here were close to 100% and nobody took home a pay cheque of less than 7 lakhs.

SOIL Gurugram campus has no hostels and that was one of the drawbacks. There are many buildings near HUDA city center and students who came from outside NCR had to arrange everything on their own. The Manesar campus has a hostel but the PGP program is only available at the Gurugram campus.

There's no fragility with the Infrastructure because one can debate that the campus was small; but if we look at the strength and then see the facilities, they were adept. For those who want to debate if there's no sports ground, then my answer is that no sports person or sports enthusiast was a part of my batch. I wonder if anybody would leave that centrally air-conditioned building and go out and play. There was a room full of recreational activities and around 40 students could play different sports there at a time. The student lounge could have at least half of our class at a time, so that too was sufficient. Even the auditorium was good enough to accommodate 250 students and that was a little more than our class strength.

One could say that campus life was completely off because we didn't even have time to sit with our friends and discuss the day. At 5 pm, we were all so exhausted that rushing back to our respective places was the best that we could do, to give our bodies and minds some rest. The campus life was more or less one-dimensional at SOIL as studies and activities related to studies ruled our campus life.