Studying at SPJIMR has been a roller coaster ride: Ashrith Ananthashayana
Ashrith Ananthashayana
The last 1.5 years at S P Jain Institute Management and Research (SPJIMR) has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. The learnings I have had at SPJIMR have been great. The best thing about SPJIMR is that each participant who joins the college is by merit as there is not reservation policy. The advantage is indeed on the peer learning. Each and every participant is good in one field or the other. You find extraordinary singers, instrumentalists, dancers, actors, sportsperson and so many distinct personalities. I actually got to learn a lot from others than what I could contribute to their learning.
MBA is a course that is known for its rigor and it is even more so at SPJIMR. A lot of importance is given to academics and participants literally slog it out to get into the coveted Dean Top 30. In MBA, we are overwhelmed by the number of subjects we study about various facets of management such as Finance, Operations, Marketing and IT. In addition, we also study certain subjects on Strategy and International Business and Design Thinking.
SPJIMR is known for its unique pedagogy and we get to learn more than the usual academic subjects with its three most important non classroom learning initiatives namely ADMAP, Abhyudaya and DOCC.
In ADMAP, each participant is assigned a committee and have to work for the committee throughout the year. Some of the committees are Admissions Committee, Technology Committee, Placom1 Committee, Academic Committee and so on. The main idea behind this initiative was conceptualized by our former dean Late Dr. Shrikant M L. He wanted every participant to learn to get work done without power which is one of the major requirements in the industry nowadays.
In Abhyudaya, we mentor an underprivileged child from the nearby slums to help him/her in overall development. We visit his/her house once a week every month and teach subjects like English, Mathematics and Science. The ethnography project helps us understand the problems faced by the lower strata of the society and the opportunities that exist at the bottom of the pyramid.
While the other top IIM’s have summer internship, we at SPJIMR have autumns internship. Soon after the end of the 1st year, we have a 5-week rural internship stint where we work with NGO and help them solve their problems. Essentially we undergo 2 internships, one during autumn where we intern with an organization and the other during summer where we intern with an NGO.
In the second year, after completion of the core subjects, we participants go for a 3-week immersion program at a reputed B-school in the US. We went to Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business where we had courses on Marketing Strategy, Design Thinking and Analytics.
In addition to this, a lot of guest lectures by industry experts and talks by achievers such as Arunachalam Muruganantham have been inspirational to me.
The fests play a major part in learning too. We have Ojas which is the annual business fest and Sprint which is the annual sports fest. I was a part of the events team at Ojas and I lead 2 flagship events right from its conceptualization till completion. It was a great success with participation from top B-schools in the country like IIM Ahmedbad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, XLRI, Jamshedpur, FMS etc.
It has been a great journey so far and I cherish each and every moment I spent here. SPJIMR has definitely changed my perspective on life and has imbibed in me the values that I would cherish all my life.
About the Author:
I am Ashrith Ananthashayana. I graduated in Telecommunication Engineering from B N M Institute of Technology, Bangalore in the year 2012 and am currently a student of S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, Class of 2018. I have worked for Sankalp Semiconductors Pvt Ltd as a Design Engineer. I have also worked as an Architecture Validation Engineer at the client location (Broadcom Corp.).
