Great Lakes Institute of Management PGDM Review By Prashant Shrivastava

Everything is good about Great Lakes Institute of Management but just the fact that they have made the course to accommodate engineers more. A percentile of 85-86 is required to go for the next rounds at Gurgaon campus and over 90 for the Chennai campus. The most annoying thing was that for GD and PI rounds enrolment we had to pay a fee. Out of around 7-8k students just 400-500 were selected and I have no idea how the selection was done because my 4 mins interview went wrong but still, I got a call that I have been selected. If you are student of IT background then GLIM is better than any other B-School for you. IT and E-Commerce companies dominated the show at placements and the placement flow was in the favour of the students because around 90% of the students were placed. The course is tough as the founder of this institute himself was a decorated professor at Kellog School of Business. In B-Schools, the mother thing is often considered as the campus but the campus even though high-tech was quite small because just a couple of buildings and one hostel block is all that we had in the name of a campus.

Academics started with a flourish and ended with a flourish too as we just sprinted through the studies. I was absolutely delighted with the academics here as the schedule was magnificently designed because along with classes a lot more things were included in our schedule. A weekly work-shop, a bi-weekly seminar, and a monthly industrial visit. End of the first year meant a mandatory internship provided by the college itself. For students who have entrepreneurial drive GLIM can serve as the best colleges because the incubation centre of the college has funded around 50 projects from my batch.

Faculties here were hired more on their experience than on their teaching acumen. The faculties no doubt were excellent and most of them were from Chennai but a North Indian or students from central India do find it difficult to understand the accent they follow. Without any doubt, GLIM hosts some of the best faculties as all were IIM passed out and in Finance the faculties were without a doubt one of the best. One of our faculties also had the erstwhile experience of teaching at IIFT, Delhi and FORE Delhi. It may sound a little exaggerated but some of GLIM Gurgaon faculties are also there in the most wanted list of the professionals.

IT companies like Infosys, BYJU’s, and E-Commerce partners like Flipkart, Nyka and Amazon were the top recruiters here who were happy to give good packages to the students who had prior IT background but not so good to the ones who did BBA or other commerce courses. An average CTC of 9 lakhs was offered and highest around 13 Lakhs. Well CTC of 9 doesn’t mean a 9 lakhs yearly package, in hand it is around 40k a month. So, the placements were average but luckily all the placements were for Delhi-NCR region, so that was certainly a plus as the job opportunities here are immense and all one needs is a head start.

Since most B-Schools have made it mandatory to stay at the residential facilities provided by the campus, it was mandatory at GLIM Gurgaon as well. The seven-floor hostel building was divided in two floors as the first two floors were for girls and the rest all for boys. The hostels were great as we could use the volleyball facilities, and the tennis courts for as long as we wanted. Even the library used to stay open all night and we could use it at any point in time. The food provided was a buffet of at least 10 dishes in both lunch and dinner, so one gets ample choices in terms of food to consume from.

The campus was not like Delhi colleges where there is just a building in the name of the campus as the buildings here were laced with cutting edge technology. The two buildings were divided as per departments and our finance department was in the B-Block which had canteen and the main library of the campus. The two tennis courts were the most occupied areas of the campus at night as more than playing tennis they became our gathering points. The garden of the campus is superb as it used to lighten up like it was a fest every evening at the campus. So, the campus was not more than 4-5 acres but was still one of the most beautiful campuses.

Well since it was a residential program, we all used to stay at the campus and have fun together. There was a bit of senior junior banter going on but some of the seniors were quite friendly and helped us out as soon as we reached out to them. The annual management fest of the college called Crest was organized in the presence of over 700 students that came from top B-Schools of the country.