Why MBA from GIM Goa?

I am about to complete my MBA in 2 months, so I guess I qualify enough to give you my viewpoint. MBA is a holistic course that helps you to bridge the gap between what the industry wants and equips you with the relevant skills required to be industry ready. I did MBA in a Data Analytics focused primarily because data is the new oil and the market is pivoting to professionals who are proficient enough to data driven decisions and GIM’s BDA program ranks in the top 10 Data Science programs being offered in the country which makes it a top choice for aspirants interested to make a career in Data Analytics.

USP of GIM Goa?

GIM was in my top choice as I was eligible for only tier 2 colleges in India and GIM had a rich legacy owing to making industry leaders for the past 30 years made me pick GIM as the top choice because I had interacted with a lot of alumni of GIM and I saw the career growth they had after they graduated from GIM which made it easy for me to pick GIM. And being a person who is involved in sports from the beginning, GIM has every sporting facility available to its students which are open 24x7. 

Strong focus of bringing candidates from diversified backgrounds as well as seamless integration between business and technology. Nested in the hills of Sanquelim, Goa with over 50-acre campus makes it an ideal destination. Consistent track record of placements with 4 programs being offered. My program Big Data Analytics had a consistent growth in placement figures and was the best performing not only in placement statistics but also widely recognized in the industry.

GIM Hostels

There are 9 hostels on campus, out of which 2 are coed, 3 are exclusively for girls and 4 are exclusively boys hostel. so you know the winner hostels are the co-ed ones. Girls are allowed to come into the boy’s hostel 24x7 and there are common rooms in every hostel which students use for group assignments/committee meetings/ or for screening important matches. The mess food is decent as we stay in an area where going out frequently is not possible but the taste tends to dwell up on you in due course of time. There is only 1 hostel A/C hostel which is more expensive than the others and the rest are non-A/C. For 1st year students, you have double sharing and for 2nd year you have single sharing hostels. This is great in a way because you tend to socialize with people from different courses as well as it makes you teach a lot about your own self in the whole process of sharing and adjusting your room with someone else. You tend to spend less time in your hostels owing to the continuous classes/assignments you have in a day, mostly you come to the hostel only for sleeping or studying. GIM runs literally 24 hours with something happening 24×7. Be it assignments, preparation of presentations or some random chit chats in the common room at every hostel. Students get to experience the proper hostel life and staying in hostels help you build a bond for a lifetime because you not only share your space but everything be it parties, assignments, study groups, gossip sessions, game nights in those 4 walls.

Placements at GIM Goa?

The placement season is in full swing and every other course is planning to get the whole batch to get placed by January. Despite a slow economy, a lot of big brands came to campus and the number of hires were less but it showed that the industry believes in the talent that is created by GIM every year. All the placement related activities are handled by the students during a rigorous selection process and there is absolutely no involvement by the college administration towards the same which gives some students a lot of power in hand. Also, pressuring for the placecom to not only get them placed but also the batch managing other aspects of college all together. Mindset during placements is very stressful, I still remember that I couldn’t have food on the days I had placement process with companies. It teaches you a lot about your own personality as well as your strengths and weaknesses. I got placed with HSBC as a Strategic Intern for my SIP, I was pretty happy with HSBC overall functioning but felt the responsibilities could have been better but the connections I made were for lifetime so can’t complain. In my finals I am placed in a Product role with a company and absolutely can’t complain with the role as very few product roles come to campus. After I got placed early on, I was super relieved but couldn’t celebrate or be happy mentally owing to my friends who were yet to be placed and I redirected my focus towards participating in Case Study Competitions to focus on utilizing my last few months on campus to the best of my abilities. Some of the top recruiters of our course have been Flipkart, Amazon, HSBC, Adani, HDFC bank, Kantar, Tata capital, Harman who offer not only highly competitive salaries but also cream Data Scientist profiles. Students with Engineering profiles are usually offered Data Scientist profiles owing to the professional competence and command over the technical skills they possess. The placement process is on-going right now, but in no time the whole batch is going to get placed and placecom is striving hard for the same. Before the recruitment season starts, there are various CV building, Group Discussions as well as Personal Interview sessions which help you get clarity and feedback from industry professionals. Companies give shortlists to the candidates for the roles they have applied in a company and the interview process is undertaken accordingly, so candidates are open to apply for the roles they want to get in wrt to different profiles being offered by the company.

Overall- Life in the college

GIM has a good brand name, I wasn’t very sure about the same but my perspective totally changed once I met a lot of GIM alumni in HSBC and saw how they progressed in their careers after graduating from GIM. The best part of GIM is the mornings when you can see from your window and the sky changing a lot of colors in the evening, the view is definitely the best part of your stay in GIM. You are assigned a college faculty as your buddy for 2 years and you are free to talk to him/her about your problems and understand how you should take things forward. You have a counsellor which is available online and offline if you want to talk about things when you are not feeling good mentally or emotionally at your disposal. In MBA you change a lot of friends, owing to change of interests and due to conflicting viewpoints and every student in MBA goes through this phase. You have a core group throughout 2 years and a lot of temporary people you meet in these 2 years. 2 primary lessons I learnt in MBA, don’t trust people on their face value and relationships have become more fragile than ever it could be. In 2nd year classes function at odd hours and some days you have 1 class and some days you have classes till 10 as well. My typical day starts with getting up at 8;25am for a 9am lecture and getting my breakfast in a 15 minute gap after my 1st lecture. One thing for sure that you could never die of hunger in GIM because they keep feeding you in every 2 hours intervals. After classes, I sleep for some time and go play Table Tennis/ go for Swimming depending on my mood and come back to my hostel after having dinner followed by some assignment completion or random chilling with friends in the hostel. You have 2 cafeterias having 2 menus-1 being regular food and 1 being continental food. Apart from this we have SK Junction Cafe which is open till 4am in the morning to satisfy your late-night munching needs. We also have a late-night café that runs from 10 to 4am in the morning which has a spread of different food options available at your disposal. GIM cannot function without our Jaggu bhaiya store who helps to solve most of our munching and hygiene products and trust me his store has every possible flavour of chips available. At GIM we have specialised labs catering to the practical aspect of MBA curriculum, which are available for students 24*7 and for Big Data Analytics students, we have labs where we could access every tool be it R, Python, Power Bi, Hadoop and the like for practice in class and even after classes. Being a student driven campus, everything functions smoothly at GIM because decisions are taken according to the requirements of the students and students are given top priority for ensuring that their stay at GIM for 2 years is as smooth and hassle free as possible. Everything stated GIM as a college is very competitive, every B-school is but this creates a lot of unhealthy competition which takes a toll on mental health.