IIM Shillong - Why Did I Choose?

Last year when I was making my choice of college for MBA program, I chose IIM Shillong because of its uniqueness and differentiating factors. The first of them being its location. Situated among the foothills, in what is correctly termed as the Scotland of the East, the campus provides an environment close to nature. It is often referred to as Campus in Clouds, which is evident and proven from the year-long stay that I have thoroughly enjoyed here.

Since I am interested in social entrepreneurship and have worked for the same previously as well, Shillong provided me with the opportunity to take it further. I have been interested in i-Cube, the entrepreneurship cell of IIM Shillong, and its initiatives, so when I joined IIM Shillong, I was lucky to be chosen as part of the i-Cube core team. During the last year, our team has taken up initiatives for social entrepreneurship in the region and plan on making it more prominent for the coming years.

Another factor which helped me chose Shillong was the batch strength of 180. I did my graduation from IIT Ropar, where we had a batch of 120 – 40 students in each Computer Science, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. Having such a small bunch helped the students develop a mutual understanding and coordination with each and everyone in the batch. Such development of friendship and cohesiveness between the students has been real for Shillong as well, where I see students helping their fellows in all aspects.

To give some examples, out of many, I see students helping one another to prepare for interviews, taking out time for studying together and for group discussions to prepare for end terms. Such dependability is amplified more for study groups who are supposed to make most of the project submissions as a group. I have been fortunate in this regard, because the people in my study group had different skill sets – ranging from marketing, to HR, to finance experts – helping us all learn from each other and develop overall as a group.

Since it is an Institute of national reputation, I had no doubts about the quality of faculty, but upon joining, I was still amazed. The Institute offers courses from faculty who are experts in their fields, have published many research papers, have had real time experience in the industry, not to mention some with double PhDs. I was utterly blown away by the kinds of real-world examples that our Professor for Human Resource Management or Business Law has shared from their experience.

Overall, IIM Shillong has exceeded my expectations in all regards. With the new and permanent campus bring functional from next year, I know that the experience is going to be further memorable and enriching for the coming students.

 

Which ABG Company?

Though ABG provides varied roles and opportunities with its vast array of Group Companies, I would be interested in working for Aditya Birla Retail Limited, which is the retail arm of ABG. My reason for this choice is that it will give exposure to managing the company supply chain in the competitive retail space. With the penetration of More Supermarkets and More Hypermarkets in the non-urban areas of the country, the variety of challenges that it can offer will be a great learning experience and help in my career growth.

Deepak Sachdeva PGP 2nd Year IIM Shillong