Virtual five-week experience at IFMR

Satyam Mishra | 17-09-2020

Contents

− Introduction

− Three-weeks before commencement

− Academics

− Summary

− Feedback

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Introduction

 Purpose- this report is written to express my virtual five weeks experience at IFMR. It also provides
suggestions to improve the experience.

IFMR GSB KREA University

I got to know about IFMR through my coaching center and some YouTube videos. Then I researched about the
institute and following things convinced me to apply in it.

Website- IFMR’s website is neatly designed and it stood out from other b-schools that I searched for.
Information is easy to access and every detail is provided to avoid any confusions.

Campus- the location and infrastructure of the campus allured me. Residential facilities and the amenities
provided by institution were one of the key factors that influenced my choice.

Genesis- IFMR has an admission committee named genesis, team genesis was quite active and approachable on
every social media platform. Genesis provided every detail about the campus promptly and enhanced my
perception about the college.

These were the reasons that provided extra edge to IFMR in making my decision after judging institutes on the
core functions like placements, faculty, history etc.

Three-weeks before the commencement

After getting admission in the institute, during a 3-week period before the commencement of the academic year
there were lot of activities organized by team genesis that made my experience better.

Virtual cities meet- before officially joining the institute team genesis organized virtual city meets where people
from the same state interacted through video calls.

Tasks- genesis organized various group tasks so that we can interact with each other and learn how to work in a
team.

QnA and FnH interactions- genesis arranged interactions and QnA session with food and hostel committee so
that every doubt regarding the most controversial part of a college experience- hostel food can be discussed.

Prarambh- the 5-day induction program helped us to get a gist of MBA life, how our schedule is going to be. It
has many valuable guest lectures by industry leaders and has some interesting activities. Overall, it showed us
how an online event should be organized.

Academics
One of the most important aspect of b-schools, being a university KREA can design its curriculum and which is
why I find the curriculum very relevant.

Preparatory courses- one of the things that made me choose IFMR was diversity, it has students from 23 states
of India and with different academic background, it is a challenge to bring them all on the same page. To
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 solve this issue 15 days preparatory courses were taught to us, being a commerce graduate it helped me to
brush up my basics.

Projects and assignments- daily assignments, projects and quizzes helps in retaining the learnings. I find the
assignments and projects very intuitive and creative. It made me work in teams and think out of the box.
Breakout rooms- Online classes are done through Zoom, one of the challenges in online education is peer to
peer learning and interactions with classmates and our faculties are quite aware of it. So, they provided a solution
as breakout rooms -where we can interact with classmates we have not interacted yet.

Class schedule- the classes are divided in the two categories- hall and seminar. It is very impressive as we can
interact with the faculties in our seminar sessions and get different perspective in hall sessions.

Summary
Online learning comes with some stigmas attached to it, I had mine before joining IFMR. For the degree like
MBA which involves heavy interaction and practical knowledge, online learning can be a disaster but as far as my
experience is concerned with initial virtual 5 weeks I had gained learnings which I could not have gained if I was
in the campus. Initial 5 weeks at IFMR had many perks to offer but there are some improvements that I would
like to suggest.

Feedback
Heavy screen time- taking lectures online and after that readings e-books is very straining to eyes.

Suggestion- with courier services opening all over India, it is better to parcel hard copies of books to reduces screen
time.

Internet connectivity issues- IFMR has a diverse student base and not every student has stable internet
available at their residence. This affects their class participation as well as understandings.

Suggestion- do not include class participation marks in online classes.

Keeping videos off- during class sessions students keep their videos off which reduces the interest of faculties
as well as other students.

Suggestion- making it mandatory to keep videos on, it will increase the interest of faculties and keep students
focused.

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