St. Xavier's College B.Com Review By Moyukh Mukherjee

As we all know, the St. Xavier's College, Kolkata is one of the oldest colleges in the eastern part of India. It is one of the best colleges for Commerce with an impressive NIRF ranking of 5th position in the college category. This college has an astonishing A++ grade in NAAC. It's located in the middle of the Park Street with very good connectivity through public transport including buses and metros. The college is very famous for its academic excellence in various fields; Commerce is one of the best fields. St. Xavier's College carries its own brand value which is amazing and helps us to prosper outside the college campus also. These are the main factors which drove me crazy to choose this college for my under-graduation degree. Till now, it gave me great exposure in the field of Business and Commerce because it provides us with seminars and webinars from industrial experts and business magnets from different fields. Some Shark Tank participants and investors such as Ashneer Grover came to our college for entrepreneurship development. I've came to know about a lot of new stuff after joining this college and all credits goes to the societies like XCS, XMS, Hult Prize and all. Every year some new society comes into existence The Marketing society and E-sport society came into existence this year only, which is great so far. This college has some of the best societies like XCS, Consulting society, Finance society which gives a lot of exposure, knowledge and connection of the corporate world. Xavier’s provides us with impressive internships from big brands like American Tourister, Zomato, ACC, Dalmia, and Dollar along with some startups also. It provides various courses in different domains with certificates that will help develop your CVs. It truly focuses with extracurricular activities. I would strongly recommend students to get into this college for their higher education because this college provides two different timings for B.Com (6 a.m. - 10 a.m. for the B.Com morning batch and 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. for the B.Com evening batch). The college timings are very flexible, so it eventually gives us more time to prepare for professional degrees (like CA, CS, CFA, CFP, ACCA, etc.) and competitive exams. The peers are so ambitious and smart, almost everyone is preparing for something great. The campus, infrastructure and facilities provided are great too. Everyone is very hardworking and toppers from their own regions, so the competition is top tier.

I opted for the Bachelor of Commerce because it'll widen my options in the field of Finance and Commerce. Students usually come from different parts of India to this college. Doing this course from this college is truly worth it because of its academic excellence. We have classes every weekday (excluding Saturday and Sunday) for 4 hours straight from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. This is a 3 year course with the choice of opting for either Marketing or Pure Finance in the last year. The entry requirements for this college is one must have Math, Statistics or Business in their +2 of school. The admission depends on the marks obtained in the class 12th board. The score must be above 94-95% in the board without reservation to get a seat in this prestigious college.

As I mentioned earlier that our college possesses an impressive grade in NAAC and NIRF ranking, so it includes an impressive and experienced faculty. Many of the faculty members are well qualified and have Ph.Ds in their respective fields. Some of our professors are CA, CS and CFA qualified so they know about the actual corporate world. The medium of teaching is English from the start to the end. They are extremely fluent in English. Their professional experiences help us a lot to understand the topic. They go in depth for explanation in every topic with real life case studies and experience. They also seem to be very approachable and student friendly, even outside the classroom too. They encourage us a lot about professional courses and what decision we should opt for in the future, for the best outcome possible. So far, most of the faculties are so good. But everybody has their own teaching style, like some of them focus on making notes inside the classrooms, while others focus to draw new case studies. They use PPTs and PDFs to describe the topics and send notes.

This is one of the most important factors which attract the attention of everyone who wants to get into this college. The placement process starts happening at the last year of the college. In this process some companies, industries and private sector banks like ICICI and Accenture come to the college for placements every year with a great package ranging from 6-10 LPA. The star company D.E. Shaw came to the college offering a lucrative package of 22 LPA. The placement process ends with startups providing a generic package of 5-11 LPA. They come for different roles like consultant, finance manager, associate and risk management. Some companies also come with a requirement of FRM and CFA along with B.Com. Overall, the college provides a great placement every year.

I've been a hostel student for the last 2 years in this college. So, I can answer the question very good. Our college has two hostels, one for girls and the other for boys which are known as Twin Hostels, because they look very similar. The boy’s and girl’s hostel has the capacity of 250 students. They charge Rs. 9,000 on an average per month for mess and lodging. Both of them have 7 floors (including the ground floor). The ground floor is kept for refectory. It has a library, game room and kitchen. The hostel has some key facilities which include a geyser, TV, cold water, lift, etc. Water and electricity are available 24/7 without any kind of discontinuity. The hostel is very clean, all thanks to the management because they clean the hostel at least 2 times a day. The rooms are very airy with furniture being well-furnished. They provide us with every kind of necessary furniture like a bed, table, chair, almirah and they don't charge extra for the Wi-Fi facilities also. The hostel has its own fest and program every year.

Our college has a very good infrastructure in comparison with other undergraduate colleges. The building is very big and looks so good with the white British look. The Commerce block is one of the biggest blocks in the college in comparison to other departments. The classrooms are very well maintained and so airy with air conditioners. Every classroom is a smart classroom having the facilities of smart boards. The peak point of the infrastructure is the library so far. The library is very big with smart facilities and a lot of availability of books with foreign journals and all. We can even choose books from the online site of the library.

Overall, the campus life is so good with great peers and facilities in the college. One thing I forgot to mention about the college is that it provides student exchange programs for one full semester in abroad. Our college also attracts foreign students from various countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, China, etc. Every student is so focused on their studies, so it's very hard to compete. Sometimes one can feel so tensed. The crowd gathering is very good inside the campus. Our college has many societies and new clubs every year, so it gives us a new view over a new topic. Some of the most famous societies are XCS, XMS, Hult, XCC, XFC, HLS and BLS. Among those XCS and Hult are the most active societies in this college. Our college fest in well known by Xavotsav, which attracts a lot of famous personalities including Shah Rukh Khan, Shirley Setia and Amitabh Bachchan. Apart from Xavotsav, every month many events take place. Other engagement activities are conducted by the NCC and NSS providing a great view for the students to grow.