TISS is one of the best institutes in India for pursuing a Masters in Human Resource Management.However, it not being a regular B-School, creates confusion in the minds of some aspirants, who are doubtful about what to expect once they enter it. This testimonial, written by Prateek, a student of HRM&LR,2013-15 batch, aims at sharing some of his personal experiences during his first year at TISS.
Life at TISS:
Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai is an institution which is unique in a lot of ways. As a student of the Human Resources Management and Labour Relations program, there is something new about TISS that I discover day in, day out. Admissions to this program happen through TISSNET followed by an Essay and a Personal Interview for 60 Seats.
The life at TISS is different from a typical b-school. While pressures of assignments, case studies and lectures is there, I think what becomes an integral part of a TISSian’s life is the interaction with other courses. Right from debates between left wing and right wing ideologies, to discussion of trends in modern cinema, everyone has an interesting viewpoint, shared over lemon tea in the canteen (yes, we do not call it the cafeteria!!). TISS has an advantage of being situated in Mumbai, India’s Business Hub and we’ve had Luminaries like Mr. Rajeev Dubey from Mahindra & Mahindra, Mr. BP Bidappa from Hindustan Unilever and Dr. Santrupt Misra from Aditya Birla Group coming and addressing us in guest lectures across the year. A mention of life here would be incomplete without mentioning the various events like ITC Interrobang, Tata Business Leadership Awards which bring add a unique flavor of healthy competition here. Our Assignments are live cases and we have faculty from organizations Asian Paints, Citibank teaching us subjects like OB, Compensation and Labour Laws. We have our own fests and alumni get-togethers, which bring the batches together as a whole in creating some really fond memories!
What I love about TISS is the concept of Field Work. Apart from the Summer Internship, we have not one, but 4 internships across the semester with organizations like HUL, Citibank, Nestle, Accenture, GSK, Tata Motors where we pursue live Projects across the HR spectrum. We’ve even had people go to trade unions like AITUC for field work! I spent my first semester working with Airtel on Employee Engagement Projects, while my second field work at Tata Sons was about evaluating Capability frameworks. These fieldworks taught me more about HR than the lectures and were my own sandbox in trying out different HR concepts in practice.
To sum it up, TISS has taught just more than HR. Right from my duties as a responsible citizen, to being a socially sensitive manager, these are learnings that I’ll be taking away from TISS. An institution which is conspicuous by the lack of publicity surrounding it, TISS is an institution scaling great heights while being grounded in India’s Socialist Roots.