The campus at night
The Indian School of Business (ISB) Mohali campus is not yet a branded address, at least not like its more identified counterpart in Hyderabad. The autowallahs have not heard of it and the taxiwallas assume it should be one of the numerous new educational institutions that have come up in and around Mohali in the recent months. But Mohali like Chandigarh is very ‘Sector-driven’ and if you know the Sector number, even the haath-gaadi walla will take you there.
Sector 81 it is, away from the not-very noisy town of Mohali. At a distance, the ISB construction looms large over lush green areas that seem to extend endlessly. It also looks like an oddly-structured edifice with a prominently flat roof and glass façade, a far cry from the ‘traditional’ look that the older and larger b-schools flaunt. A nearer and front look reveals one main glass building and many other structures springing from it, like tentacles.
It is time to discover the 70-acre campus.
Relaxing in the open on the campus
The campus in numbers
According to an official at ISB, the campus is being built in stages. What is accomplished in the first stage is the Administrative block, Academic block, library, faculty and staff offices, recreation centres and hostels for students and faculty. There is a ground and two floors, both in the Admin block as well as Academic block.
The campus has a total of ten class rooms, a 500-seater auditorium, one dining auditorium and two cafeterias. There are two hostel blocks for the students (one for those with families) and one for the faculty. All the apartments are fully-furnished and air-conditioned. For recreation, Mohali campus has a gym, bathing pool, squash enclosures, tennis, lawn tennis, basketball enclosures, volleyball court, a melodies room, cricket throw and a meditation centre.
The campus feeling
And for information that moves beyond statistics, here goes. The greeting (reception) area is massive, nearly resembling an art gallery with gigantic paintings and little furnishings. Just behind the greeting area, there is construction work in progress and the scent of fresh cement mixed with water give the feeling that the campus is still not prepared. The same feeling comes in quite a bit on the campus as there is construction on at a few places.
Thankfully, fundamental elements like class rooms and hostel blocks are finished. While class rooms have the ultra-modern gaze about them, the hostel rooms appear to be part of a 4-star hotel. Huge, airy and how a hotel brochure would advertise ‘with all modern amenities.’
Inside the hostel
Even the faculty block looks chic. Ironically, however, there is only faculty constituent residing in the whole block because Mohali campus as yet, has only one permanent lecturer. The cafeteria looks directly out of a Karan Johar movie, glitzy with red seating and a never-ending buffet table. Sadly when this scribe travelled to the campus, there were few students around and that made the campus look empty. But even with all students, one can hazard a guess that the campus will still give the feeling of space. Fair enough, there are plans to boost the batch dimensions to 217 from the current 197.
Mohali’s Royal Mile
There is a corridor in the campus which seems infinite in length. It connects one end of the campus to the other, though not really, but gives the feeling since it is unusually long. About 220 metres in length, you can barely see the middle of the passageway, leave alone the other end. Breadth-wise it can accommodate some five students in a line. One expects this rather exclusive architectural conception to be one of the standing points of the campus in time to arrive.
The Corridor
No, this corridor is not ornamental and gaudy in appearance, but the feeling of walking through is not only pleasant but different to have such a long passageway right in the centre of a campus.
Finer points
The campus has been conceived by New York based Perkins Eastman. Preeti says that the structures are fixed, energy-efficient mechanical and electrical fixtures, rainfall water harvesting, maximised day lighting and passive environmental controls. And believe it or not, as modern is the design, as time-honoured is the thinking behind it. The campus is organised by the “North-South and East -West axes of the customary Vastu, which organise the learned and the residential and communal functions.
Cafetaria talk
Dining Hall
PaGaLGuY met ISB’s dean Mr Ajit Rangnekar and deputy dean of Mohali campus Ms Savita Mahajan enjoying a meal in the students’ cafeteria and asked a few questions.
One major difference between the Hyderabad and Mohali campus?
Hyderabad is more impressive. We liked to make this more compact and cozy.
You consider the Mohali campus ever evolving as the first alternative for candidates?
Students did show an initial apprehension while registering for the PGP last year. Majority of the applicants were either campus neutral, or preferred only Hyderabad. But a change is already being witnessed this year as the location of the campus was not much of concern for the applicants. A big part of the credit for this goes to the founding class of students in the Mohali campus. This is also helped by the fact that we at ISB we are striving to achieve a ‘One school two campuses’ model. The Mohali campus and Hyderabad campus are not competitors but part of the same fabric and candidates are encouraged to be campus agnostic. All are systems and processes for admissions, programme delivery and placements are geared to be campus neutral. In due course, we believe that the students’ choice will be driven by their preference of location rather that anything intrinsically in the campus itself.
But were there apprehensions before this campus came up?
Yes, I was scared as well. But we had to do it. There was all support from the government here and it was a good decision to go for this campus. It will take time to come on its own.
Any change in electives or course structure at Mohali?
We will get the more popular electives here. Furthermore, we will have common classrooms between the two campuses with the help of technology. Our faculty will have to adapt to a new kind of educating.
Mohali has completed one year. How were its placements as compared to Hyderabad?
We asked recruiters and most said that visiting Mohali and Hyderabad means the same thing geographically. But we had joint placements in both the campuses so that students could be chosen as part of one big group,hence the location did not matter. While some companies geographically found Mohali simpler to reach, others found Hyderabad more accessible.
Any plans for ISB to get into a two-year MBA and come to terms with AICTE?
No, the figures for the two-year MBA are going down. We are not voluntarily staying out of a regulatory structure. I cannot conduct a course for more than 12 months. Except for a couple of top colleges conducting the two-year MBA, figures over all are falling across the board, so why even get into it.
And this is what students of the Mohali campus first batch have to say:
Amit Sethi, student of PGP Class of 2013 was indifferent to the campus alternative. From an Armed Forces background and working with a high-tech unit within the Indian army, Amit wanted to be in a location which had up-to-date amenities. But lately, he has also started to like the not-very-fast-pace of Mohali. “We have two lectures of two hours each, four days a week. In addition, we have projects. After sweating it out in the sports arena in the evenings, we work on the assignments and groundwork for the next day’s categories. However, weekends are less packed, and offer us opportunities to dine in the town and sometimes travel to close by places.”
Ashvini Jakhar, also a student of PGP Class of 2013 had selected Hyderabad but was given the Mohali campus. “I realised that was because there is a planned allocation process that assigns campus to the students keeping diversity – educational, expert, gender, know-how etc, in mind over the campuses,” he said.
The Atrium
Ashvini is also from the Armed forces and was a Surgeon Lieutenant Commander (Medical Officer) with Indian Navy before joining ISB. For this student, the coziest place in the campus is the Atrium where students sit and rest. Ashvini thinks that if the student body rises and more number of allied courses start, the campus will become more alive. “But the present number of 197 makes the assembly more cohesive as well,” he added.
While students spend most time on the campus, thanks to a range of activities, a few locations outside are also favorite haunts. Sectors 35 and 26 draw the most students. Sector 17 has a huge shopping arena and lots of places to just hang around. In addition, there is a Rock Garden, Rose Garden, plus quite a few shopping centres like DT mall, Town Centre, Elalnte, Paras Downtown and Centra Mall.
And after all the shopping is done, nothing like coming back home to some plush amenities, swanky infrastructure and scrumptious food! No wonder that ISB, runs one of the costliest MBA programmes in the country, that too of a one-year duration.