The Institute that was once IIM Udaipur.......
It is important to tell the story of the ‘new’ IIM Udaipur, particularly to uphold the transparency (one of it's core value btw), to define the accountability, and with the hope that it will be a little better for the juniors then it was for us. I'm writing this with the aspiration that students from other institutions will follow which will ultimately let the new joiners make the correct choice.
The condition and results of summer internships at IIM Udaipur has been nothing but drop down shameful for every one at college, I can firmly say, that the process was fundamentally flawed, poorly managed and failed in the execution. For a batch in which 80% of people came from work experience, I genuinely expected more. The core of the problem started when there was no formal training or oversight for everyone involved. After bullying allegations against the placement committee(PC) and their removal, the placement preparation committee(PPC) was dissolved haphazardly and converted to placement committee, this was further amplified with 25 new junior students inducted just as placement committee and no separate preparation committee. Result, Students were never trained on preparation part and were trained on the placement part by individuals who were never part of placement committee in their junior years. Imagine what would happen when you prepare students in terms of how to write an exam but not what to write in exam. Students were not prepared on even the basic HR questions. Mock GDs were taken(by 3rd party) but in the end students never got any feedback, and the mock interview/CV review that was taken let's say the external individuals were "uninterested" (the basic demerits when interviewer is being paid by per student basis).
Now it was time for placements, the pre placement week felt amazing with lots of companies visiting the campus, on other hand the actual placement week was a barren one, with only a handful companies visiting in September and October, moreover you could actually count the number of companies visiting campus on your fingers in November December and January combined. The reason given to students was simple that the focus is on final placement and the companies for internship would come from February onwards. By the time companies came in February, between 150-200 people (out of a batch of 360) were still left in the placement pool, the average stipend had dropped to 15k - 30k. After this a desperate attempt started to get students placed, A company came for mass placement taking 30-40 students for election work in Assam, Bengal and Kerala(not corporate but still a good experience), Another 30-40 students were placed by the college in heavy sales based companies like Taste of Mom, Outlook-Magzine, arizone, spyroot & skills up which came for whatever role but ultimately asked students to perform sales with every student completing the sales target from their own pocket (seriously wtf), and if anybody is wondering what happens if students refuse to purchase product themselves. A company by name of Finobility visited campus with a stipend of 10k, which ultimately gave students a target of 45K to sell online courses and when they were unable to fulfil the target their internship was stopped prematurely. 40-60 students opted out of placement to find their internship themselves. so ultimately in a batch of 360 students almost 150 were placed in shitty place.
The post doesn't end here, the politics inside the campus has nothing been short of a Hollywood thriller, with all this happening with the placement, the director thought that the most crucial improvement he can make as a director is to change the constitution and centralize the power, ofcourse there was a voting process but when it was noticed that students are not favouring the new constitution, he actually stopped the counting in middle and practically forced it down students throat with a mail to all students starting "no voting will be held until new constitution is adopted",(next time my parents tell the tale about ‘Emergency’, I’d have a story of my own), all committees have started fighting with the new council body with there being no representations from any of the administrating committee in the new students body, the new students body is trying to overpower every committee function like infrastructure and it’s room allocation, the mess committee seems to have stopped doing any work(which literally was just the menu making) the institute have started counting the number of rotis and quantity of sabzi you can pack and take to your rooms, and academic committee, well there's a whole level of things going on there with the new academic policy which we'll talk about if it doesn't get sorted (I’m hoping atleast it’ll get sorted because someone in the institute ought to have some humanity left).
Tbh you would just expect more from a management institute and that too of such excellence, but it's alright sometimes you just need someone to tell you things when you're stuck.
There should be no criticism if you can't suggest ways to improve the condition,
What can institute do feasibly..
1) Convert those 10 students that were unnecessarily forced out of the placement committee because you took 25 students prematurely as it was costing extra 12000 per month to keep them, to form placement preparation committee.
2) Have committees representation in student council (I’ll leave it to you to see how it’s managed)
3) Specific criteria that a company has to declare(along with the sales target) if they are going to give sales to students. Explore the scope of hiring external vendor to oversee placement process.
Hoping you’ll take this seriously and take some actions to make the institute better.
Signed
A student who was afraid to put this by his/her name, because I know what happens when the new PC or the PO do when you criticize them. And frankly grow up, calling students to office, taking their phone before entry and demeaning them is no way to run the office, especially when you have the audacity to let companies like outlook magazine enter the college year after year.