Symbiosis Centre for Media & Communication BJMC Review By Rohit Londhe

Well, being an Arts student there wasn’t much left on the table as almost all the niche courses are for commerce and science students. BA in Mass Communication is a niche course and SCMC Pune for sure is the niche college for it. Coming from Nagpur SCMC was the only choice for me because Mumbai has their advantages but then some disadvantages too. BMM course of Mumbai University is vast in many senses but Symbiosis is something else. For media studies, one will find no better place than SCMC. As a part of our three-year course, we underwent a lot of NGO work and internships too were compulsory which otherwise in BA is not. SCMC was like more work and play kind of institute as we had a lot of fun during the course. Some of the most active clubs of colleges is what you will see at SCMC as the clubs here ranged from music, writing, sports, dance, and photography to name some of them. All in all, SCMC is the best place to make connections, learn communication and finally converge on the things that we learn in three years.

Our course covered a wide range of subjects like PR, Marketing Management, cultural studies, advertisement, consumer behavior, and film criticism to name a few. At SCMC we were provided the best of both the worlds and they are media industry and corporate exposure. Our academics indulged a system where we had to do a lot of live projects as I felt that was the best way to learn and text learning can’t even compete with it. Some of the live projects where SCMC students were provided opportunities include Leo Burnett Advertising, annual communication conclave called Communication Quotient, and Bangalore Literature Festival to name a few.

Around 80% of our faculty members were those who belonged to media industry and brought some of their real-life experience in the classrooms. Our classes were more of practical situation where many hypothetical situations were provided to us and we had to find answers for them. Apart from core faculty, we had the opportunity to learn from them, network with some of the giant media houses and gain as much insights as we could. The faculty of SCMC are both, equipped as well as qualified with years of teaching and industry experience.

From DNA India, Viacom 18, to Yash Raj Studios, they all have partnered with the college for placements. Our skill set and astuteness are passed on by T&P cell to the visiting companies and they take it further from there. I lagged in communication and that is where I guess I lost my chance to be placed from campus. I knew a lot of work was pending because Media Studies indulge communication as one of the strongest footholds and will not blame the college for it. Nearly 80% of the students were placed with some of the top media houses and some of them with film making companies too.

Viman Nagar campus doesn’t have hostel in its premises but the hostels are close to the campus as we were provided bus services by the college for pick up and drop. There were two wings for men’s hostel and students of various colleges at Viman Nagar campus used to stay in those hostels. There are many kinds of room options as there are around 50 single seater rooms too. The demand is always high and rooms are lesser so the hostels are awarded on the first cum first serve basis. After every semester, we had to re-apply for the hostels and this was a pathetic rule as I failed to do so after the third semester and had to find an accommodation. However, Viman Nagar is close to some of the top areas of Pune like Koregaon Park, Kalyani Nagar, and Tingre Nagar were close to the college where finding flats was quite easy.

SCMC building had six floors as the top two floors are for SCMC and the 3rd and 4th for SID students. On ground floor there was an admin department, 1st floor we had many labs from audio labs to language labs, and second floor we had library and canteen. The campus is beautiful and has multiple canteens along with an outlet of CCD. The sporting facilities were a little sparse though because only the ones with a proper skill set were allowed to play the matches and others can use it only when it is not occupied. Well that never happened and therefore I never got an opportunity to play sports at the campus.

Every college of Viman Nagar used to have their own fest and our department fest was called DZMA. The annual fest that included all the colleges was called Sympulse which had back-to-back events for almost five days and we were the ones who were given the responsibility to organize those events.