''Oh Sh@#, get up, get up... we're gonna be late..AGAIN!!'' And thus begins another day at one of the craziest, coolest, most frustrating and rewarding places to learn-unlearn, break apart-rebuild and just plain age 20 years in 2...
Confused?? Don't worry..all will be revealed. Read on pilgrim and don't touch that remote.. ;-))
What is SCMHRD (SCM)??
Well, this is one of the new kids on the block. Its a b-school established in 1993 in the Oxford of the East (Pune), and in its short (but illustrious) life has climbed rapidly up the ranking charts. Last year, SCM was ranked among the top 10 b-schools in the country (the reasons will follow shortly). The director is Prof. Pillai (an ex-Air Force man and HR consultant) and he leads with an iron hand...sigh!! This year it has come in the top 9 as per Eco Times rankings. It is an autonomous institute, and the entrance exams are held on the first sunday of December. This year there were 19000 applicants for 200 seats..Wow!!
Why talk about it??
Well..why not..its a topic here.. heh heh, no seriously, scm has a number of firsts to its credit and it has pioneered the concept of learning through experience and tries to be a leadership gurukulam rather than just a b-school. Impressed(u should be), disbelieving..(tsk tsk..read on). Furthermore yours truly did his MBA (finance) from here and got a campus placement at HDFC Bank's treasury.. (So there...;-))
Acting on the suggestion from gem, lets talk about courses offered and subjects covered:
The main streams are Finance, Marketing, HR, Systems and Projects Management. These are 2 year, full time, Post Graduate Diplomas in Management (PGDM). There is also a 1year, full time PG in HRD (PGDHRD), which is for the post graduates. The first year is common for all, where we learnt about the Basics in Accounting, Corporate Finance, Marketing, Applied Research, Behavioural Sciences and many more. The second year involves specialised subjects which begins after the 2month (May & June) summer project in a corporate environment. The faculty for Finance and HR are really first class while the other streams are still working on getting good faculty. The school is extremely dependent on the Visiting Faculty (mostly alumni and luminaries from the industry) and there is really an excellent input from these groups.
How is it done??
Well, the one philosophy that stands apart at scm is that of experiential learning. Admissions, placements, development programmes, cultural festivals et all are done by the students themselves. This creates a tremendous amount of pressure, but ensures that the students are on their toes throughout the 2 years. Imagine carrying the question papers around the country, conducting the entrance exams and ensuring that the sealed papers reach back safely (other than paper setting and checking everything is solely in the hands of the students). Imagine co-ordinating placement visits, visualising and printing placement brochures, conducting the placements for 200 students involving 1000 cos plus. Imagine conducting Management Development Programmes at Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad in successive days after approaching 500 corporates. Imagine conducting the pan India cultural festival involving 30 colleges and 30-40 events....
Imagine..imagine...phew.. The mind boggles man.. But the trust the insti puts in us really makes us rise to the occasion...
Add to this 40 subjects in the 1st year and 25 in the second year and you will see why I said that the pressure is enormous. But the autonomous status means that the students set their own syllabi and subjects, which helps in studying contemporary stuff!!!
I mean after scm, anything else is peanuts.
The college makes no bones about the kind of pressure there will be. I mean, which other b-school will have a WARNING page in the prospectus (very clearly mentions the rules and kind of life expected, and if unable to take it, get out and stay out).
Another thing that really stands out is the discipline. Attendance is compulsory(95%) and god help those who are short.. One of my classmates could not write her exams, even though she was short by 0.01%..yoicks. Guess the directors military background shows..eh... Jeez!!!
The Stress Busters..
So we have spoken about the pressure cooker atmosphere... But scm does not stop there, it provides tools to tackle this pressure (most effective, I might add). First of all the day starts with Yoga & Workouts, at 6.30 am, I might add (that explains the first line..heh heh). This does get the day off to a bright start (how much ever we may complain abt it then..).
At the beginning of the first year we go for a 10 day Vipassana course, due to lack of space I will not mention the details (refer https://dhamma.org). Suffice to say, for the serious doer, this course does wonders. We practiced this for the first year. The start of the second year was with Art of Living ( http://www.artofliving.org). I don't need to say anything abt this, do I???
After this, the choice was left to the student to take whichever path best suited him/her. Worked wonders for me... :-). We also had many outbound learnings and fun picnics and talent displays. Good fun guys and a wonderful pressure releaser.
The final icing on the cake is the smashing new campus o/s Pune. Surrounded by open land and slam bang in the Infotech Park (with Infosys/Wipro/Cognizant Tech etc as neighbours), the campus boasts hostels, a huge library, a swimming pool and a big auditorium. But the all too familiar Symbiosis allergy to open spaces (inside the campus) resurfaces with no play ground (when will they learn).
Ooops!!!
After so much good, you might think that you are in the best b-school in the country. But scm has some way to go... The first problem is the lack of quality faculty. This is a common problem afflicting most of the best b-schools around the country. But over here, the problem is exacerbated by the new campus (15kms o/s Pune city). But concrete steps are being taken to address this and hopefully in a year or so this problem will be history.
Next being the sheer volume of extra-curricular activities... I know, I know, I have mentioned it as one of the usp's, but think about it!! With the kind of hazaar activities a student does, how can he/she be expected to study properly.. What this results in is lack of quality research papers, presentations and pure academic progress. These have been communicated to the director on numerous occasions and he is seriously contemplating introducing a Doctoral level course, which would address some of these problems. But the philosophy remains: Make the students work so hard that no corporate can stress them out.
In Conclusion
In spite (or because) of everything, I still feel if you wanna learn abt life, love (chck out the number of intra-batch marriages..;-)), business and the sheer ability to perform in adverse conditions, there is no other place in India like scmhrd. It is now slowly getting the due recognition it deserves and hopefully the future will see scm scaling new heights...
If you are gonna be applying to scm and want more detailed info (how much more can you take.. I can go on for hours), m2m me and I will be most glad to reply...
Hope this review helps and reaches those who need it the most.... :-))
Cheers (See comments)
