My experience in CMR University

The college is overall average with an average management and faculty. The infrastructure of the classes needs to be improved drastically. Also, the college needs to train the faculty so that they're able to teach professional courses and subjects such as ACCA and CIMA. Also, the fee structure is very expensive and the students do not get a value for the money paid. The good thing about the college is that the students can have a lot of chilled time without much pressure and burden.

There was no entrance exam for commerce and management streams in CMR University. I was looking for colleges which offer CA and I found out about ACCA during my search. I started finding out colleges which offer ACCA and found out about this college. I opted for ACCA because compared to CA I found it better and little more advanced. Also, since CMR was offering B.Com Hons. along with ACCA, I thought it's a good option rather than pursuing ACCA alone. The college is located in Kalyan Nagar, Bangalore. It's very close to the place I live, which is also why I opted for this college.

The college requires all of its students to do an internship for a period of one month after the completion of 3rd semester and before the start of 4th semester. It is compulsory for all the students to undergo an internship and prepare a report based on that which fetches marks and credits for the semester end exams of 4th semester. The college does not provide any internship. The students are required to look for their own internships. The college boasts of helping students who do not find any internship but they don't help students in any way to get an internship.

The placements are not that good in this college. In order to be eligible for campus selections, the students are supposed to qualify an internal exam conducted by the college which tests students in 4 areas - writing skills, speaking skills, accounting, computer skills. Few reputed companies like E&Y, Morgan Stanley, Tech Mahindra and few other small companies come for campus selections. Very few students, approximately 3% get placed in companies like E&Y and Morgan Stanley. The packages range from 3-4.5 lakhs. Most of the students get placed in small companies, packages varying from 2.5-4 lakhs. Overall, the placement opportunities are not that good in the college.

Coming to cultural and extracurricular activities, I must say the college does not conduct much of them. Firstly, problem is that the campus is very small and there's no open space to conduct any good event. Secondly, even if the studies take up an initiative to conduct any event, they lack support from the management, which is a major drawback. Even with these problems, the college manages to conduct few small events every year. We have Onam celebration in the college where students come dressed up in Kerala style ethnic wear and we have a Pookolam (flower carpeting) competition, dance, singing and other activities are celebrated on that day. Prizes are also distributed for the winners of the above activities. The college also celebrates Ethnic day once a year, where students dress up in traditional and ethnic wear and it's a fun day without classes and stuff. The college also conducts a management fest every year in the main branch (Bagalur), where events like debate, best manager etc. take place and students from all branches of CMR are allowed to participate and prizes are distributed to the winners. In this year, May 2018, the college conducted a small fest in our small campus and had many events like singing, dancing (both solo and group), face painting, quiz, mad ads, photography etc. It's the first time that CMR University conducted a cultural fest and it went pretty well.

The fee structure is in a way expensive for regular B.Com when compared to other courses like B.Com Hons. ACCA, CIMA, CA. The fee structure for B.Com Hons. ACCA in 2016 (the year of my admission) was 93000 rupees which included tuition fee, exam fee and a blazer with CMR logo printed on it. The fee structure is almost similar for all courses. The fee is in a way reasonable for ACCA because out of the 93000 paid, 30000 goes to ISDC, it is an institute which provides us with all required study resources for ACCA subjects from ACCA approved content providers and also arranged training classes from ACCA approved teaching faculty every semester as per students' requirement. The study material for ACCA is itself very expensive; one study text can cost upto 3000 rupees. The students require at least a study text and an exam kit to pass the ACCA external exams. All these material, tuition fee, training are covered under the 93000 rupees. In a way it is also expensive. As students, we don't feel we're getting value for the amount being paid. The current fee structure for the year 2018 is 1.03 lakhs for almost every course which is very expensive in my opinion.

The college does not provide any loan facility. The college doesn't even take fee in parts. The whole amount needs to paid at a single time. The college offers a scholarship for merit students and students who are into sports and have any certificates and medals regarding the same. The scholarship can be availed by collecting and filling the scholarship form, submitting the required documents to the office. The concerned staff will look into the application and the documents and verify if the student is eligible for the scholarship. If eligible, the student is awarded scholarship.

The campus is very small, as mentioned earlier. The students don't have a good place to sit and chill out during breaks or after classes inside the campus. Although, the college does have sports facilities. The college has its own cricket, football, table tennis, badminton, throwball, volleyball and chess teams. Students can go to the main campus in Bagalur in order to practice with the college team. Inter and intra college sport competitions take place frequently in the main campus. The college has almost equal boys and girls. The college has more of students from Kerala, north east India and few students from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Korea etc. All the students are treated equally without any discrimination. The college doesn't conduct much of other extracurricular activities such as debates. Such activities are conducted at a maximum of once or twice in a year.

The college has a below average canteen in the campus. The canteen doesn't have enough space for even 25 people to sit. The food is of very bad quality and taste, but it is cheap though. The lady in the he canteen doesn't listen to the orders correctly. If we order for a noodles she gives us fried rice saying you ordered for a fried rice that's the reason I made it, now you have to take it. Many students don't prefer eating there. The college had a decent hostel at a walkable distance from the college. There are two separate buildings for both girls and boys hostels. Both are located on 2 different streets and at a distance of 300-400 metres from the college. Students can choose from a single room, 2 people sharing, 3 people sharing and 4 people sharing rooms. The prices for the accommodation increase in the order of single rooms to 4 people sharing rooms. The average amount to be paid per annum for the hostel ranges from 90000 to 2 lakhs. The food provided in the hostel is decent, although not great. The area in which the college is located has a large number of eateries and PGs which makes it easy for the students to find accommodation and food other than the college hostel and canteen. The average PG rental per month in the area is 6000-10000 rupees. The hostel accommodation has a huge demand.

The seniors of the college are very friendly and helpful. They help juniors in any way they can. The seniors help juniors in matters of studies by giving notes and they also are friendly in teaching the subjects. People in the college are all very friendly unless you have any personal differences. Ragging is strictly banned in the campus and none of the seniors ever try ragging their juniors.

The exam structure is not hectic, which is a great sigh of relief for the students. We have 3 internal assessment tests (IATs) every semester, out of which, best of two is considered. Hence, writing all three is not mandatory as only best of two are considered and their average is taken. These IATs are spaced out well, with at least one month gap between each IAT. Each IAT is for 20 marks, which is not that difficult to score. We have a CCE component for 30 marks, the elements under CCE are subject to the decision of the faculty members. We usually have a presentation for 10 marks, a quiz for 5 marks, class behaviour for 5 marks and the remaining 10 marks is usually a written assignment. These assignments and presentations oven become hectic for the students as some teachers wait until the end of the semester to give assignments which becomes a burden on students and does not let them focus on the semester end exams. The semester end exams often have a good timetable with a minimum of 2 days of gap between exams. For difficult and vast subjects, we often get 3-5 days of gap in between two exams. The college also gives a minimum one week of study holidays before semester end exams which is again a relief for students. There's no much pressure, students are often chilled out. It is very rare that the day goes hectic, unless we have a full day of classes!

The admission process is very simple in CMR University. When I first visited the college, there was an admission panel arranged for new admissions where a lot of faculty members were guiding parents and students about which course to choose. I got to know more about the courses offered by the college. The college also offered CA, CIMA, both along with B.Com Hons. same as ACCA and also BBA, BA and also had post graduation and PhD. Once I decided to go with B.Com Hons. ACCA, I had to collect an admission form from the office. I came back after a week for admission, after the results of 2nd PUC were out. The process was very simple. All I had to do was submit the filled application form, few documents and proofs like birth certificate copy, Aadhar card copy, 10th and 2nd PUC marks cards and conduct certificate of 2nd PUC, for all three of these original copies were taken which will be returned to the students after the completion of the three year course. After the submission of the above documents, we had to pay the fee and that's it. The admission process was over. The students were handed over with a file containing the course details and the college starting date and other details.

The college has an average faculty, who have a decent understanding of the curriculum and subjects. The faculty for the B.Com subjects are above average and provide quality teaching. The faculty for ACCA subjects are mostly below average. The syllabus of ACCA subjects is very huge and the faculty mostly fails to complete the syllabus in time and this becomes a burden for the students at the time of semester end exams. For few ACCA subjects, sometimes the university takes a lot of time to appoint faculty which also becomes a burden for the students. In cases of non availability of teachers, the university appoints external faculty for ACCA subjects who are mostly above average. The subjects need more of application based teaching rather than knowledge based teaching, which, most of the faculty fail to provide. Until now, I must say that we've had only 2-3 very good teachers for ACCA subjects, who have a pretty good knowledge on how to go on with application based teaching. Some of the faculty members just don't even know how to teach students which makes students restless in their classes and no one usually pays attention to such teachers.