Horrible! Just one word – horrible!
I am a first-year student (soon to be second year). And all my batch-mates would agree with me on one thing, that admin has made life at XLRI unbearable. Archaic restrictions have been put in place by an admin which is more regressive than the Bajrang Dal. They are polluting the entire culture and bonding that XL batches had, even till last year (to some extent).
One such decision, is what has come to be known as the infamous ‘Segregation’.
If anyone has read anything about B-Schools, they would be knowing about unrestricted access of both genders into hostels. This is a common norm across all the top B-Schools of India. There are two major reasons behind it:
1. In a B-School, a student will have group projects and assignments almost everyday and people end up working with their groups till 3-4 am in the morning. And the groups comprise of people from both the genders (many times compulsorily). And hence you need a comfortable place where you can sit with your group mates and work on your assignments.
2. A B-School is supposed to treat people like mature adults, and hence the policy of non-interference in their lives. This point has been reiterated time and again by the spokespersons of both IIM A and IIM B.
XLRI also had similar rules in hostels. But suddenly this year the admin decided to finally implement the regressive policies that they had been trying to implement for years. For the starter, they completely restricted the entry of students into the hostels of the opposite gender. Thus, when we entered the college last year, we had virtually no place to sit and do our assignments. People had to sit and do projects in the lawn (and there are snakes that have been occasionally seen there) at 4 in the night.
After a lot of bargaining and protests, the admin gave us a room subdivided into 10 by glass walls called “discussion rooms” and one common mess. The common mess is so small that on days when people have a lot of assignments, people won’t find a place to eat. The major problem with discussion rooms or sitting in the classrooms for projects is the amount of interference. If one group starts discussing all the other groups get disturbed and vice-versa. This is the worst solution ever. And even then, there are only 10 discussion rooms (each can fit 5 students) for a batch of 360. This has resulted in fighting and quarrels among the people of the batch. And above all this is having a very negative effect on our learning and the overall culture of the college.
Some might think that this is not a huge problem. But that’s only because you are not in a B-school yet. Trust me when you start getting back pains at the age off 23-24 because you have to sit all day on uncomfortable chairs and tables because of lack of comfortable spaces (a majority of people in my batch have started getting back pains because of this including me), when you have to sit outside in the Jamshedpur winter (read as 6-7 degree Celsius), when you won’t have a place to sit and chat with your group because there is a girl in your group you are going to regret your decision of coming here every single day.
Along with this there exists an environment of threat and intimidation, where the admin threatens any form of dissent and protest with expulsion and hefty fines. Also, the admin now drunk on power and need for control has introduced abrupt changes in the incentive structure of faculty. This has caused severe discontent making some of them leave and some refusing to take elective courses. And these are the good ones! And who are the biggest sufferers again? Students!
Anybody who is serious about their career would realize that XLRI is on the path of decline, simply due to the incompetent and regressive admin that is so drunk on power that it refuses to listen to their biggest stakeholder- the students (who pay 22+ lacs). If the current admin and their decisions stay, we would soon be seeing a decline in the stature that XLRI holds, because it fails to provide an apt academic environment to its students.
If you have any other option, don’t join XL. You would regret it for the rest of your life.