VES BUSINESS SCHOOL- A TRADITIONAL OR MODERN PLACE TO LEARN?

While taking admissions, we have the habit of going to the college, giving an interview and then waiting for a list to come for god knows how many days. With the similar mindset, after our graduation, looking forward to do a PGDM in Mumbai, our hunt for top PGDM colleges began, looking forward to go to the college and going on with the procedures, little did we know that everything is going to be digital. Exactly a year ago, WHO declared the spread of coronavirus a worldwide pandemic. As a result of the outbreak, MBA colleges in Mumbai at all levels were forced to be closed. Virtual learning in PGDM colleges was adopted by institutions all over the world, with teachers, students, and local leaders rapidly adjusting to a completely new way of life.

With the admissions flawlessly conducted, our college started on 3rd of August. Being skeptical about how colleges will function, or will digital learning benefit us? With all these questions in mind we started our journey in Vivekanand Business School (VBS Mumbai). Generally, we have a notion that classroom teaching is the best way to learn and achieve something, but during this pandemic it has shown that if we have to survive, we need to learn, we need to adapt to change and that is what our faculty did, their age didn’t matter, they learnt the technology even when they weren’t tech-savvy, they did everything they could to give us a better learning and space to grow.

VBS PGDM program embraced digital tools, proving that modern teaching methods can be as impactful as traditional ones. Digitalization of education was something we never really thought will happen, but the pandemic has taught us a lot of things, we thought through digitalization we won’t really get the growth in ourselves and we’ll definitely be a couch potato, but on the contrary, the VBS Mumbai campus conducted leadership series, various workshops and seminars, also gave us a hands-on experience on designing through a competition called M.A.D – Mad about Design, a facility layout competition. Conducting competitions such as Sarvoday, giving us an insight on Social Entrepreneurship.

The Vivekanand PGDM program encouraged us to also participate in various intra-college competitions. I personally have participated in various blog writing competitions where 2 of my blogs have been published. I along with my classmate won Markswiz – a marketing case study, this competition made us learn that where individual participation is important but also team participation is something that taught us to work in a team, handle team conflicts and achieve success.

By heading the Alumni Cell, and successfully conducting its first event of our academic year by inviting the alumnus gave us a platform to interact with industry leaders, know about their journey and their thoughts on the ongoing pandemic and its effect on various industries helped us to widen our horizon and think with a very open mind. I am thankful to the VBS faculties for being very supportive and being helpful in every phase of our journey till now.

It is not necessary that we can reach our potential through the traditional method of teaching and the typical way of sitting in a classroom and expecting us to grow, this pandemic has been a lesson to us that even when there are barriers to your growth, there is always some or the other way to grow, and to reach our potential. Digital learning at VBS Mumbai is not bad provided we have the resources we need and most importantly the intent you have in your mind to prosper and spread your wings.

Yashna Bhagchandani
PGDM A (2020-2022)
Vivekanand Business School