St Hopkins College of Management was founded by Yunus Ahmed in 2009 and presently has around 250 students. The college prides itself in offering an MBA based on practical knowledge, international exposure and affordability. Its young faculty is an added advantage.
International exposure
The students experience international exposure in their first semester itself. The college takes them to Thailand for an orientation programme, where they observe corporate work. The college believes that the process of boarding an international flight and clearing the immigration process is itself an experience for students. They spend their entire second year doing two international internships abroad.
“We have recently tied up with AIESEC as a part of the Travel Hack Program, where students get a six-week internship opportunity abroad. The college pays for the flight ticket and the accommodation of the student,” says Director Yunus Ahmed.
While working abroad, students attend classes on weekends. Students who do not opt for the international internships can go to Singapore or Malaysia in their third semester. There, they attend lectures in universities and also receive training in manufacturing industries. This alternative will be implemented from July onwards.
Courses offered
Apart from MBA, St Hopkins offers BCom, BCA, BA and BBM. The UG courses have international students from over eight countries such as the Middle East, Mongolia and Indonesia apart from African countries. The students should have scored at least 50 per cent in their graduation to be eligible for MBA. The college also takes into account scores of competitive exams like MAT and CAT. This year, they have their own online entrance test.
For UG courses, the students should have cleared Class XII. The fees for MBA is `4,85,000, which includes the international internships. The fee for BCA and BBM is `30,000 per annum and `25,000 for BCom and BA. The UG fee for international students is $1,000 a year.
Practical training
Under MBA, the college offers courses in Sales, HR, Finance, Learning Business and Social Media Training. Even the assignments in these courses are practical. For instance, under Sales, the students have to come up with a product and sell it at traffic signals. Under Learning Business, they take over a vegetable shop in Madiwala area here in the city for a period of four weeks and manage sales, offers and negotiation with customers. In HR training, they learn sourcing of CVs and negotiation of salary. Under Finance, they set up a DMAT account, experiment with stock market trading and mock investing. They also undergo leadership training for a week at an outbound camp.
Ahmed believes that an MBA is important because the student learns skills like presentation, communication, networking and career mapping.
Infrastructure
The college being new has a small campus. They plan to expand it, as they are expecting an increase in the number of UG students. The current campus has a library, computer lab, and hostels for boys and girls, apart from classrooms.
The college uses a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike ground for students to play sports. The Boys Football team won the Karnataka State Football Tournament.
Placements
The college students have gotten placed at companies like Yahoo and naukri.com, with their highest pay package at Rs 5 lakh per annum. “We want to ensure that students can afford education, especially, students from rural areas. Even if a student takes a loan, they can easily repay it once they are placed. We also ensure that students from rural areas work on their communication skills. They spend half an hour every day going through a finance newspaper and present it to the class,” says Ahmed.
RK Kanicka Prabhu, who teaches Business Law, says, “We combine the BBM and MBA classes for market survey assignments. Here, students can advise business owners. We also take the MBA students for industrial visits to Reserve Bank of India and other companies, to observe how they work. We indulge in simulation exercises like mock parliament and mock banking transactions.” Alumna of the college Neeta Mudhukrishna says her experience at St Hopkins was good mainly because of the practical knowledge she gained. “Most colleges just focus on books. Here we gained practical exposure. We underwent team building activities, leadership training and attended media seminars,” she says. She did two internships in the HR sector and got placed at Yahoo.
The college has a unique way of marketing itself. They do not rely on print ads. They use only social media and word of mouth to make themselves known. When asked about how the college manages its expenses while making education affordable, Ahmed says, “We plan the travel early, so fares are cheap. Also, our tie-up with AIESEC ensures that students find internships where employers give accommodation.”
— ranjani.madhavan5@gmail.com