Amity - the real story. Review on Amity Business School, Delhi

I am a journalist and this is my article which was printed in a leading business magazine of India:

How do you improve on being ranked the best private Business School in the Country three years in a row? By going out and being ranked the best Business School in south Asia by Asia Inc. This is exactly what Amity Business School has achieved.

I walk onto the sprawling Amity campus wondering what the best private Business School in south Asia will look like. Young, smart people sitting in formals on a bench working on their laptops is maybe just what I had in mind.

‘Amity was the first wireless campus in India and we all got Hewlett Packard top of the line wireless laptops the moment we joined’ exclaims Varun Sarin, a first year student. ‘Interacting with each other and the faculty using the intranet is now a way of life. Most companies that come for placements are not as hi-tech as we are at Amity!’

A few chats with students later and it is clear that they are really proud of studying here. ‘I have friends studying in some of the best B-schools in the country and they are all jealous of the amount of industry interaction we have. Which other School has helped the corporate world interact with gurus like Tom Peters, Steven Covey, Philip Kotler, Robert Kaplan and Kenichi Ohmae?’ asks Anushka Rathore while eating her Thai veg curry in the rooftop restaurant.

Thai veg curry? An air-conditioned cafeteria more befitting a five star hotel? What has happened to institutions since I went to college? Maybe this is why Amity is ranked number one…

‘We transform people’ explains Dr. Sanjay Srivastava, an authority on Organisational Behaviour and the head of the MBA program. Apart from the normal classes in management, it seems Amity teaches unique things like art appreciation and even golf. Every student has to have proficient knowledge in a foreign language to graduate. With Japanese, French, German, and Spanish being offered I wonder what else can be left. ‘Military Training is the most fun though’ I am informed by Chandana Mathur, a second year student. ‘We all roughed it for one week on Amity’s 150 acre campus in Gurgaon in our army fatigues. Parasailing and rifle shooting were just some of the things we did. But the most important thing we got out from this was the immense patriotic feeling. We all wanted to join the army!’

With over 92 electives in the general MBA, allowing students to design their own degree, Amity also offers specialized programmes in the areas of International Business, HR, CRM and Entrepreneurship. ‘Our programs are updated every six months with the help of our Industry Advisory Board’ claims Dr. Shukla, the head of the Amity Corporate Resource Centre (CRC). The list reads like the whose who of the corporate world and I am surprised they find the time for all this. ‘Every student has an industry mentor’ adds Mr. BK Srivastav, the former Vice-President, Whirlpool and now a part of the CRC.

Amity has instituted a CEO Dinner Series where a group of students are sent with a CEO to a restaurant to have dinner. Not only do they learn how to interact closely with a leading personality, but establish a mentor for life. With such unique initiatives and the fact that over 500 CEOs have come and spoken to Amity students, it is no surprise that students are getting the pick of the jobs they want.

With companies like Tata Consultancy Services coming on campus and many students walking off with packages of 10 lakhs and more, there is a euphoric atmosphere on campus. Five students suddenly run up and start touching the feet of all the teachers standing around. It seems that India Bulls has had a bull run at Amity. The institute’s slogan of modernity blending with tradition suddenly makes much more sense to me. Where else do you see so many 24 year old touching feet these days?

‘Our real inspiration is our Founder President Dr. Ashok K. Chauhan’ says Dr. Raj Singh, the head of the Business School. ‘He went to Germany over 4 decades ago with only three pound sterlings in his pocket on a government scholarship, and in true rags-to-riches style built up a 1.6 billion Dollar business empire. When Dr. Chauhan talks to the students about his experiences, it is amazing. No textbook can ever teach what he does’

Dr. Ashok Chauhan’s vision is that India will become a World Superpower by 2030. This is why maybe he left the comfort of being one of the largest NRIs in Europe to establish Amity in India. With over 35,000 students across 22 campuses in virtually every professional field, Amity seems to be spearheading the education revolution in India…not bad for only ten years of existence.