A little slice of South Asia

College management is overall good. The people are responsive, faculty members are helpful and till date no official problems have been faced by me. On the other side college is quite new and the building is temporary. Though we plan to move to the allocated location but the deadline is moving ahead all the time. SAARC as a whole is crumbling due to Indo Pak rivalry. It remains to be seen how this SAARC initiative stands the test of time.

I had given the SAU entrance test for MA in International Relations. The entrance test for my program as well as others like Sociology, Economics, Applied Mathematics etc. are conducted annually. Each program has specific entrance test, so if you want to pursue Sociology you have to specifically choose Sociology and give its entrance exam. Its not like BITSAT where streams are given according to marks. Also its a PG college so it does not have undergraduate programs as of yet. Apart from that generally there are 30 seats each in every PG course. 15 are reserved for Indians while other 15 are reserved for those coming from other SAARC nations such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal etc. I was selected in the merit list and took admission. My score was not revealed. I choose IR because I liked the subject and wanted to pursue it further

I will speak for the department of social sciences as I am a student there. After JNU, I would say there is no other place to pursue IR than SAU. The curriculum remains upto date and teachers for IR are all JNU PHDs or Foreign PHDs. They pay good salaries to teachers and hence retain the best. But after JNU ofcourse. In case of Sociology, again after JNU it is a good place to go for pursuing MA in Sociology. The faculty seems diverse with teachers from Sri Lanka and India. VF

One of the bane of this university is that there are no internships. You are very much on your own. But the teachers are very helpful and are ever ready to provide you with support in the form of recommendations etc. As far as job opportunities are concerned, it is also the case that you are on your own. But occasionally there are some magazine companies such as the Economist who regularly visit the campus for recruitment purpose. But that is generally rare. But you do have opportunities outside campus. That is something that you have to look for yourself.

As mentioned earlier there are no companies as such that visit the campus for placements. You have to either go to thinktanks or work for newspaper or magazines. It has been seen that majority of scholars of IR from SAU go abroad for PHD or stay in India for PHD. So apart from NET and IELTS there is only one more option available for you. Go work for a magazine, journal or newspaper.

The major college festival we have is Euphoria. Despite this there are many seminars, surprise visits by bigshots of IR and sociology like Nancy Fraser etc, SAARC food festival, festivals on Afghan independence day, Bhutan King's Birthday, Bengali New Year celebrations and the like. Just like I said it is a little slice of South Asia. But due to lack of proper campus, SAU festivities are not of scale and mainly includes insiders and only occasionally outsiders from DU etc.

Fee is subsidized by eight governments namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives. The fee is 2 lakh rupees for whole PG. For students outside of NCR free hostels are available. Books are subsidized and many research portals are accessible to students for free.

The loan or waiver is available for students who top the entrance exam. The waiver is applicable for one year. After that it depends on your performance the previous year. There are certain scholarships for non Indian students.

Gender ratio is skewed in International relations towards males while in sociology it is skewed in favor of females. That is with regards to 2017-19 batch. I can only speculate about other batches. Student/Dorm parties do occur, despite presence of Pakistanis and Afghans there are queer and LGBTQ events that also happen. Tolerance is there and let just say hijab wearing Afghans and Shorts wearing Sri Lankans live side by side together. The relations until now are amicable between all. There is a vigilant discipline enforcement committee and sexism and racism are generally not tolerated

The hostel is cheap and clean. The food is decent enough to keep you alive. The rent of hostel per month is rs 5000. It includes electricity, wifi, and other amenities. The rooms are shared by three people. One person gets one cot, one almirah, one desk, one wall almirah, one mirror, one desk one chair and one power plug for charging. The rooms are big enough and are well ventilated

The university's alumni network is spread across the world. In case of IR our seniors are working in Bhutanese and Nepalese governments. The Sri Lankan and Pakistani seniors are working in think tanks or are abroad. Indians are generally working for magazines such as The Economist, think tanks, some are preparing for civils and many are pursuing PHD.

I will speak on behalf of IR department. The evaluative component includes surprise quizzes, two tests and one assignment paper for each course. As far as two semesters of first-year are concerned the first semester has four main courses and one Academic Reading and Writing course. The second semester has four main courses, one optional course and another Academic Reading and Writing course. The third and fourth semester have four courses each and a thesis. You have to write a thesis or do research along with four courses each semester for the second year.

The forms for the annual entrance exam for each PG course are released online at February or March. You have to fill in the form online (After seeing the eligibility criteria for respective course) and pay the fees. You will get an admit card soon followed by an entrance test (the date of which will be notified to you when you get the admit card or as per the timeline given). Give the entrance test and get selected. Thats it

I will again speak for my Department of Social Sciences. The department is composed of two faculties: one that teaches sociology and another that teaches International Relations. Most of the teachers in IR are JNU PHDs or Foreign PhDs. The faculty is comparatively young as compared to JNU but they have fresher perspectives in mind than their older counterparts. They have worked for almost eight years on average so I might say they are pretty experienced but not too old. The faculty is well connected to the IR academia worldwide and do like what they do.