The GLIM Life

The Admission process was fairly simple. There was one form on Great Lakes' website which was to be filled for both the campuses. The form had a detailed section for SOP. This SOP was important in terms of interviews. After filling out the form, the initial shortlist started coming out. If shortlisted, you get an interview call. There will be one WAT and PI session only, regardless, if you have applied to both Chennai and Gurgaon Campus.

The course curriculum is very vast for an 11 month program. The initial 3 terms are hectic especially as this course is designed for professionals who have had 2+ years of experience. The course is divided into 7 terms covering about 20 core subjects and 14 electives. Each term is of 1.5 months and as soon as the classes end, the exams take place in a couple of days. during the 1.5 duration, there are multiple quizzes, assignments and presentations to be submitted. Assignments and presentations are mostly done by groups, promoting peer-to-peer learning. Apart from this, there is 7 month-long live project to be done as part of the curriculum. A final presentation for the same is submitted toward the end of the 7th term. There is also a social enablement project called Karma Yoga which takes place in the 7th term. It's a flagship program by Great Lakes to help the communities and villages around the campus to improve and progress. The faculty throughout the entire program is very helpful.

PGPM doesn't require internships and is required to complete a live-project instead. The faculty helps students gain this opportunity and students can also find projects on their own if they prefer. The project requires students to work with organisations over a particular problem statement provided at the beginning of the live project. The students work in teams of 3 and help the corporate mentor (appointed by the company) with the problem. The Mentor rates the student's performance in a mid-project review and a final review. After the final review, the students are required to submit their final report to the faculty and are asked to present it towards the end of the 7the term. This is part of the curriculum and helps you fetch credits.

Companies start arriving for placements soon after term 3, in October. There is a 3rd party Service known as the Campus-Corporate Services that help prepare the students for placements. They are the ones who are responsible for inviting recruitment companies. About 80% of my batch was placed through campus placements and the other 20% included students who got offers from off-campus recruitment or were on sabbaticals. I scored an off-campus job with a B2B SAAS company as a marketer.

The fees structure is straightforward, in the year 2020-2021, the total fees were 16,65,000. This amount was divided into two major components; Program fees and Others. The others component includes food and accommodation, Student Welfare, Alumni Subscription, caution deposit etc. The fees can be paid by either self-financing or education loans from one of their tie-ups. The fees are quite high for a 1 year program. There were no paid jobs made available on-campus while studying. There was no hike during the 1 year but there were certain other courses available at extra cost.

My batch was enrolled at the start of the pandemic, due to which my experience of campus life is limited to 2 months in a bio-bubble. The initial 15 days were set aside for individual quarantines (Since the hostel has the capacity to host 2 students per room, the invites to the campus were in phases). There was no fest and Karma yoga was reduced to online activity. The library was available for study sessions from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. The classrooms were equipped with sufficient seating and had a PVC enclosure for professors who visiting the campus from their residences off campus. There were multiple clubs and committees on campus for students to participate in. The Instagram account @greatlakersofggn is run by the students of PGPM as an unofficial look into #TheGLIMLife

The rooms are allotted on a twin-sharing basis. The meal is supplied and taken care of by Sodexo and is of good quality. The program is an immersive, residential program so availing the campus accommodation is compulsory. There are a few food-delivery options available if you wish to skip the mess meal. The menu changes daily and they have a wide variety of options. The campus is located in Bilaspur which is a few hours drive from Delhi Airport. The wardens are quite strict and you need to adhere to the hostel rules.

There was a WAT and PI for the interview process. The WAT was 30 minute short essay test where there were two topics of general interest, you have to pick one. Once that is done, the Personal Interviews take palce. There will be one interviewer from Chennai and one from Gurgaon. The PI questions will be regarding your work experience, geography questions about the campus location and your hometown, they may also pick out sentences from your SOP and ask you to explain it. Pro tip: if you don't know an answer, accept it and move on, the interviewers value this as it saves bot of you time. Post the PI you will be asked to submit a set of documents to be verified by the institute. Make sure you carry enough copies and submit all the documents you've been asked for in the interview call email.