Greetings,
I have been reading the reviews that are posted here. Most of them are against NIIT and found a few that have been positive. As for me - I think I am on the fence.
I was a student of the Malad Centre and was there for almost four and half years of my life (breaks included). I found some extremely good and acutely bad points about NIIT. When I started off, it was a super place to be in and an extremely challenging course to cope up with. But as time went by and I got to know the place and people better, I saw cracks in the scheme of things. First and foremost time management. My first semester took 8 months to complete. Second took abt the same time, third was bang on 6 months and fourth is a totally different case.
Here is the bad part....
During the fourth semester NIIT "outsourced" its operations to a franchisee. And along with that it almost sounded like the death knell for most of us. For almost 3 months our course staggered. I remember we had a faculty who thought we were in school and surprise surprise I was asked to move out of the Machine room one day coz I had reached late. WOW. Glad she was let off soon. And then atleast we had a guy (a new centre head) who had a sense of direction. Things picked up after that but well it takes a lot of time and effort to get everything in shape. But time is one thing that was lacking. I was done with college for almost 1.5 years and was really desparate to get on with PP.
What didn’t help at NIIT was the attitude of the people in power at times. They wouldn’t care less about what kind of machines were there or how the course was progressing. Backups of folders - who cares.... Instead - we had counsellors and faculty’s who were more than happy to arrange for Saree and Tie Days and silly competitions. To a limit it is good keeps the atmosphere jolly but when that is the only thing people do - I guess we were there for more than that.
Some had forgotten that this was a private institute which charged a hefty amount for IT Training and didn’t think twice about giving us a piece of their mind as we went wrong on our projects. A couple of times I was on the receiving end it was more than embarrassing to listen from a counsellor who has absolutely no clue of the difference in Java and Visual Basic. I am glad I didn’t snap back at them as a customer of NIIT and not a student of NIIT.
But here is the good part of my story - I applied before I was done with my fourth semester (abt a month in advance). And this is the kicker - I applied - got interviewed at NIIT was sent out to a company within a three days. I got through the final round of interviews with some effort (took abt 20 days for the whole process). I ended up in a MNC which had abt 30, 000 people working for it. It was a French IT services company with locations in more than 30 countries. And the pay package offered was more than even I had thought about (a five fig monthly sal). To say the least - a B.Com. grad with IT training from NIIT and be considered on par with BE’s and BTech’s I have to say NIIT has helped me a lot.
Did I get lucky - probably yes. But do I think of it that way - in a way yes. But what got me thru the techincal rounds was the education at NIIT and I can’t deny the fact that had it not been for them I wud have probably wound up as an Accountant some where though I wanted to be an IT professional.
I met few committed people, few who thought they own the place and the works but honestly from what I have seen and experienced.. NIIT - have to love them but have to hate them as well.