Goemkarponn desk
SANKHALI: India’s Premier B-school Goa Institute of Management (GIM) has opened its doors to its students.
Physical classes coupled with online sessions are slated to commence shortly. Over the past year, due to the pandemic, students and faculty have interacted only through a virtual platform. However, students have now started returning to the splendid 50-acre campus in Sankhali. Over 300 students have already arrived, with more students are due to return in a phased manner in the coming weeks.
Dr Ajit Parulekar, Director, GIM, shared his views on having students back on campus, “In a management school, the core of learning happens within teams where the faculty and students exchange ideas, discuss and deliberate on it. We are delighted to have students back on campus.” He added, “From our end, we are ensuring all SOPs are being maintained strictly. Our massive campus allows us to socially distance ourselves responsibly while also engaging with each other”.
Additionally, he added that students and faculty who returned to campus have had to be fully vaccinated and submit a vaccination certificate, negative RT-PCR test report, and signed undertaking to follow quarantine norms and covid protocols before returning to campus.
On arrival, students have to mandatorily quarantine themselves for seven days before venturing into the outdoors. Even after the quarantine period, students are not allowed to leave the campus or have visitors from outside enter to meet.
Situated amidst the magnificent Sahyadri hills, the massive state of the art 50-acre campus will act as a bio-bubble for the 1000+ students who are part of the various management programmes.
GIM has set up a campus war-room with adequate nurses and healthcare practitioners equipped with oximeters, isolation rooms, pharmacy and ambulance services round the clock.
GIM offers four specialised programmes for full-time MBA aspirants. Post Graduate Diploma in Management -PGDM, PGDM – Healthcare Management, PGDM – Big Data Analytics and PGDM-BIFS.
Classes for the academic year 2021-2022 have commenced online in July, and the institute is aiming to schedule courses in a blended (in-person and virtual) mode soon.
GIM also offers a three-year Part-Time Post Graduate Diploma in Management for Executives; the programme is known as PGDM-PT (eMBA) and has classes scheduled over the weekend throughout the year at its strategically located Cujira campus in the suburbs of Panaji. This course is designed for working professionals, government officials and businessmen in Goa who attend weekend classes.
The students on campus are delighted to be back and have shared their enthusiasm by posting videos on a popular social media platform called Instagram. Heeral Rawal, a student of the PGDM, batch of 2020-2022, says “I am thrilled to be back on campus after returning from my home in Jharkhand. The experience of living and learning on campus is unparallel”. Another student, Osiya Gupta from the PGDM batch of 2020-2022, returned to the campus after being double vaccinated. She said, “I’ve just gotten vaccinated and have travelled from Indore to the GIM campus in Goa. I am ecstatic to see the beautiful campus and experience student life in GIM once again”. Nikhil Chandwani, a student from Goa in the PGDM, batch of 2020 – 2022 also showed his excitement by sharing a short reel on Instagram.
