Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research PGDM Review By Deepak Nair

The WeSchool as it is better known is among the best management colleges in Mumbai. The college has all the facilities and resources that are required in a top college. After doing BMS from Vivek College, it was difficult for me to travel daily to Matunga and thankfully the college had hostel facilities and even after the 1st semester when I applied for the hostel, the college gave me a berth in the hostel. The college has different rules for different courses like for MBA they have started accepting CAT score as well. Previously it was CMAT (Common Maharashtra Admission Test). There are various post graduate programs, but I chose PGDM which is a 2-year full time course. The course is offered by Welingkar college’s own university.

The WE school campus is small but perfect as it has all the facilities for academics. The best teachers, best classrooms, and the best learning tools as some of them surprised me. WeSchool has tied up with various foreign universities and the teaching method has been inspired by those universities. The college conducts industry round table conferences as a teaching method and that was so innovative that many industrial stalwarts who keep visiting the college have praised this effort by the college. One thing that needs a special mention is REDX innovation lab. There we were taught how we can innovate and create job opportunities by using the waste materials. Those sessions were seriously unheard of and likewise there were many such things that the institution provides that are never heard or thought about.

The faculty was common for most of the post graduate courses as the content of the syllabus was mostly the same. They show us live project to have a better understanding of the course. Lovely would be an understatement considering the value that the faculty has given to the institution. Faculty members always answer our questions and gave us a complete description on how exactly we will be working in the outside world. The efforts made by the faculty members were sincere and they deserve a special mention for the hard yards they took for the students.

Out of all the programs that We School offers, trust me PGDM offers the best placement. The average placement for other courses is around Rs. 6-7 lakhs while for PGDM its Rs. 9 lakhs. The highest package was offered by Nestle to one of our students. The package was worth Rs. 15 lakhs. Saint Gobain, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank are among the top recruiters since a decade. Ever since the college has turned autonomous various IT companies too have started approaching the WeSchool.

The college has 2 hostels, i.e. one boys and girls hostel and they are at a distance of more than a mile from the college. The hostel is reserved for outsiders but in special case they allowed me to join the hostel as I used to travel by Kandivali and it was by no means easy as the classes usually started from 8am. The hostel rooms are huge and are allotted on twin sharing basis. The capacity of boys hostel is 100 while that of girls hostel is 50. The hostels are allotted purely after screening as the one who deserves are given the first priority. The hostel also has a mess that serves various Marathi and North Indian dishes as well.

In the name of infrastructure, the college just has 2 buildings and 1 is reserved for WeSchool as one is the main building of the college. The building though is tall and huge and the total area that it covers is over 150k square feet. The college has huge classrooms that are air-conditioned. The classrooms are all digital as we don’t use pen and papers any more as all the studies are done on computers. The college has a big library that has books from all disciplines. For refreshment there are separate recreation rooms in the building. The IT lab of the college is one of the biggest and greatest. Besides IT Lab the college also has an Innovation and Leadership Lab. The best part of the campus is round table conference room. Last but not the least the college also has a canteen that kept us up and ready for the whole day classes.

The classes used to commence in the morning and used to have a break only after 4 and a half hours. 12.30 was the lunch break time and 2pm back to classes again. 5pm or sometimes 6pm was the time when we used to get free from the college. The whole day for 2 years of my life were spent at a special place called WeSchool. The ideas and the innovations that I learned there were amazing. The college nurtured us in a way that we are ready for the challenges that the outside world will be posting on us. Students from various backgrounds were present at the campus and sharing the same classroom with all was like a dream come true.