COVID-19 has affected the whole educational sector, right from primary education to higher education. For coping up with the current situation, schools and colleges have come upon online platforms. Online classes are being conducted on different portals like Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, etc with which sessions are being conducted. Though these portals have helped with academics for students who are at their homes, some things can't be done online.
MBA is something that we do only once. It's not only good grades that makes a person into a successful manager but the whole on-campus curriculum that shapes them. For understanding more about the impact of COVID, I approached my seniors at 'Goa Institute of Management' to know about their first-year experience at college and asked them a series of questions related to it.
1)How was your first day at college?
As a student who just got admitted to a great college, I was really excited to know about how the first day of college is like when you enter such a beautiful campus like GIM. Each and every senior whom I interviewed said that it was the most breathtaking campus they had seen and they were also excited about starting a new journey from here. After that, an icebreaking session was also conducted where students were divided into groups of five and a series of activities were done so that everyone got introductions of the members.
2)What are your thoughts on the online study system and how is it different from the campus system?
Time Management is something a student learns over a period of time when they enter a B-schools. They have to maintain a balance between their studies, competitions, managing club activities, and even their sleep when on campus. Time Management is a key to the success of any manager which is learned over a period of time while studying in B-School.
One more advantage is that, Since there are people from different backgrounds, people learn from each other a lot. There is always someone from an engineering background who will teach a commerce grad Operations Management and a commerce grad student who will teach balance sheet to an engineer. Studying becomes more fun when you study together with your classmates and friends.
3)What are changes that are done related to clubs and committees to cope up with this situation?
When a student goes for an MBA, the clubs and committees become an integral part of a student's life. Though the pandemic has affected the cultural clubs who organize events on the campus, there are some Clubs like Placement cell and Ribandar talks who have taken this as an opportunity to invite industry leaders for webinars and live sessions to guide the students in their future endeavors, who otherwise wouldn't have come on campus due to their work.
Another change that occurred was the way of doing a club meeting. The difference that has occurred is that before the pandemic, the members would be sitting together and brainstorm activities to be conducted, but now the work has been divided and each member has got their own individual task to perform.
4)How was your internship experience?
An internship is an integral part of the MBA curriculum so that students get acquainted with corporate culture, interact with business leaders, understand the dynamics of the company, and gain more practical knowledge related to the chosen specialization. But due to pandemic, the in-office internships were canceled and everyone worked from home, so as my seniors said, they were not able to get the experience that they wanted.
5) What are the things that you miss about campus?
GIM is one of the most beautiful campuses in Goa which is spread across 50 acres of lush green area. The college has its own swimming pool, sports ground as well as beaches nearby which students used to visit during their breaks when on campus. These are activities that everyone misses about the campus.
Lastly, I would like to say that the lockdown is just a temporary phase. The government is already taking steps to open colleges, so we just have to wait till everything moves back to normal.
In the end, I would like to thank Avnish Hirani, Muskan Taneja, Sai Jyothirmayee Voloju, Parth Joshi, Archita Sharma, and Ojaswini who were kind enough to give me the interview for writing this article.
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