My Life At IIM Nagpur: Two Tradeoffs I Made

                       ‘The bird who dares to fall is the bird who learns to fly.’

Since the last year, I was trying to find some time out when I could take a deep breath and try to decide at least one learning for life from my 1st year of MBA at IIM Nagpur. MBA life is a nonstop race, and one has to collect as many pebbles he/she can from the vast seashore of knowledge in a limited time period of 2 years.
If someone asks me, what is that one thing I learned in the last year, without a doubt, I would say it’s that ‘There is a tradeoff in everything.’ Be it in your learnings about several functions of a business or your life and career decisions. I would like to discuss two tradeoffs I had to make in the last year. I hope this can help some, especially the MBA aspirants who are still thinking if IIM Nagpur is worth it.

It started from the day I got an offer in IIM Nagpur. I had to choose between IIM Nagpur and some of the older private institutes like IMT Ghaziabad, SCMHRD, SIBM Pune, XIMB, etc. It was a tradeoff between if I want to go for the IIM brand, which had the better pedagogy and better hostel facilities, or if I should go to that institute, which attracted the highest average CTC in the last placement season. I chose to join IIM Nagpur, and the institute with all its essence has never failed to amaze me.
At IIM Nagpur, you get to think like a manager from the very first day. Courses taught here at IIM Nagpur are designed in a case-based manner so that students learn to start thinking like real business managers, and utmost importance is given to class discussion and participation. All courses in each field are taught by some of the best faculties of India.
However, learnings are not only limited inside the four walls. Apart from the Summer Internship, IIM Nagpur has a unique Field Immersion Program where students work for a month in different small and medium-sized businesses of Maharashtra and try to assist them in their growth.
Not only the pedagogy, but also the guest sessions, competitions and events, participation in clubs and committees, single sharing hostel rooms, sports and gym facilities, cultural nights, movie screenings, availability of doctor and psychologist inside the campus, and a quality canteen facility ensures that one feels comfortable and stays fit physically and mentally.
However, if someone is still thinking about the placement figures, IIM Nagpur placement reports are audited, and it is giving some good competition to the unaudited placement figures of the older private institutes. It has already attracted some of the best brands in the last two years, and it will only get better every year from here on.

You will get to know about the Placement Committee on the very first day you land inside a B School or even before that. The placement committee gets the students placed in the industry and role preferred by each student. It is the face of any B School from the industry perspective, and hence it is expected that some of the smartest and most hardworking students of the batch are selected for the committee. It’s believed that a Placecommer has to invest the larger part of his/her MBA life towards Placecom, and hence their studies get compromised.
This time the tradeoff was between if I want to go for any academic club and invest most of the time in academic or co-curricular activities or if I want to stand for Placement Committee and choose to invest most of my time in dealing with the corporates and contribute in building the brand IIM Nagpur. Luckily I chose the latter option and eventually got selected after a rigorous process.
Being a part of the placement committee has provided me a bird's eye view of the corporate world. It’s like working in an office with team members who are some of the best minds of IIM Nagpur. Every day the team needs to make several tough decisions that can balance the expectations of all the stakeholders, i.e., the students, institute, and corporates. I have learned to value time, multitask, and patiently handle adverse situations. Moreover, the bright faces of your fellow batchmates and juniors/seniors after getting placed will give you much more pleasure than scoring the highest grade in a course.
Now, I am looking forward to an eventful 2nd innings at IIM Nagpur, which will involve moving to the new campus at MIHAN. For the MBA aspirants, I hope you all research and analyze all the factors that make a B School great before making your tradeoff.

About the Author

Arnab is a PGP1 student of IIM Nagpur and an Executive Member of the Corporate Relations and Placement Committee. He has 39 months of work experience in Database Management for an IT startup. In his leisure time, he loves to play and follow football. He is looking forward to graduating in 2021 with a dual specialization in Marketing and Finance.