SIDTM: BLEND OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

The admission process for me happened inside the SIDTM campus as during that time the pandemic did not arrive, so I was lucky to be inside the campus. The eligibility for getting admission in SIDTM is 50% in graduation from any stream and having a valid SNAP score. SNAP or commonly known as the Symbiosis National Aptitude Test is a pan-India Management exam that tests you on your English Language, Quantitative Aptitude and Logical Reasoning. This is a 60 minutes MCQ exam. This exam can be given at most 2 times and the best out of the two scores can be sent to the college of your choice. The application form for this exam will be available on the official SNAP website and the application fee for the exam is Rs. 1950/-. After getting a valid SNAP score of around 80 percentile one is shortlisted at SIDTM for the GEPIWAT round that is Group Exercise, Personal Interview and Written Ability Test.

I am a civil engineer by profession but I know that Digital technology and telecom is the booming industry in the world especially in India and SIDTM offers me this opportunity to learn from scratch about telecom management and how to be an effective techno manager providing long term solutions to long term problems. The faculty is top notch as every faculty comes from various backgrounds mostly engineers, chartered accountants, entrepreneurs, scientists, etc. They have great qualifications as mostly each faculty is having a PHD and some are also NET qualified professors. Teachers use PowerPoint presentations, they give a lot of subject related handouts and online material for revision and studying. The term exams are fairly easy provided one regularly finishes all assignments, revises the study material and keeps writing good and long answers.

Summer internship begins as soon as First Semester begins and the companies that come for the internship drive are EY, VOIS, TCS, Phoenix, Jio, Adani, etc. The profiles that are offered are Business Development Intern, Strategy Intern, IT Consultant intern, Risk Analyst, Marketing Researcher, etc. Most of the projects are related to conducting surveys and gathering information, writing a review and research reports or conducting financial and marketing analysis. Some projects are also technical related and they provide an opportunity to write codes or learn new programming languages or algorithms. The highest stipend offered was Rs. 1,40,000 and the average was Rs. 55,000.

2nd year students who are in the final year are eligible for placements. SIDTM has a record placement of 100% with more than 10 PPO (pre-placement offers) to students who had done their internship from the company during the first year. The companies that normally come during the placement season are TATA, EY, Accenture, Salesforce, Amazon, Reliance, etc. The profiles are also varied and mostly the company provides Consulting, Marketing and Strategy positions. Some companies that are techno centric provide IT system management roles and cyber-security roles too. The highest package offered during my time was Rs. 19LPA, the average package was Rs. 12LPA, and the top 100 received Rs. 9LPA.

Fees are charged on the basis of Academic Fees, Institutional fees, Hostel fees (room-wise specifications) and Mess Fees. The fee for MBA in Telecom Management at SIDTM is approximately 6.7 lakhs per year and it should be paid on a 4 instalment basis. Financial assistance will be provided to those who come from lower income groups and have the required documents to show that they are indeed eligible for financial assistance. A merit scholarship is provided as 50% of your academic fees if you are the Semester topper of the course with a minimum CGPA of 7.5 or 8.0 out of 10. Campus placements are handled by the Placement committee with the highest package offered Rs. 29LPA and the average package offered is 15.7LPA. Summer internship stipend is also offered to range from Rs. 58,000 to Rs. 1,60,000.

The campus is big and spacious, and I had joined the Sports Committee and had made great friends. There are various committees such as Fest Committee, Branding Committee, Sports Committee which I was part of, Academics Committee, Telecom Club, etc. There is a various celebration of festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Janmashtami, Durga Puja and Diwali, etc. Sports Committee also organizes sports competitions, inter-college and intra college competition and also has various free classes and sessions on fitness and yoga. The classroom has smart boards, projectors which makes class discussions fun and exciting. There is also a Central Library having more than 200 subjects books. There are WhatsApp groups, Instagram account and Facebook account handled by students of SIDTM to give regular updates and information.

The hostel Facility is great and it is a residential campus, there is LAN wifi in every room, registration during my time was done before coming to the campus and I did have a choice to get the room whether single, double or triple occupied. Hostel Fees is Rs. 1,00,000 per year. The mess food is satisfactory, and there is a wide variety of choice of meal for every student. There are also student representatives for Mess and if anyone has any concerns or any special dietary requirements can inform the student representatives.

Yes, I had to go to the campus for Group Exercise, Written Ability Test and Personal Interview as I got shortlisted by SIDTM. The first round was the Written Ability Test where I had 1 hour to write an essay on a topic given by the institute. To score well here one needs to have a good hold of grammar and language, needs to have an enriching vocabulary, be updated with current affairs and keep practising writing. The next round was Group Exercise where I was allotted a group of 8 members and we were given a topic to discuss and each individual was given 2 to 3 minutes to give their ideas and opinions. To prepare for this round I had to read a lot of current affairs magazines, a lot of General Knowledge books to brush up on my static GK basics and also practice speaking in a lesser amount of time. The final round was the Interview where there was a panel of 4 SIDTM faculty teachers and I was asked about my academics, work experience and overall individual personality.