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Queen’s University used to be one of India’s greatest and most successful universities in the 20th century and the very beginning of the 21st century. It was founded in 1888, when Queen Victoria was the reigning Empress of India, hence the name. The university was known for being British exclusive for several years, but it eventually transitioned into a new model which accommodated students from high-class Indian backgrounds.
Even though its initial history was marked by discrimination and prejudice, it went on to overcome these differences after independence. Queen’s became one of India’s leading universities in the years following 1947, emerging as the most desirable university for most middle-class Indian students during the initial years of India being a republic.
It is rumored that IITs and IIMs were modeled after Queen’s, and even if that isn’t the case, we can say with certainty that IITs and IIMs are the spiritual successors of Queen’s with regard to how much prestige their name holds. Unfortunately, the university fell on hard times, and eventually, it went insolvent in 2006. However, in the years preceding its demise, it conducted one of India’s most successful placement drives ever.
The culture of placement drives in India began in the 1990s, but it was consolidated around prestigious institutions like IITs and IIMs. Naturally, Queen’s also had one of the earliest placement drive campaigns in the country. In 1999, it conducted a fairly large placement drive for its time, in which 32 students ended up getting recruited. Some of them received packages ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 9,000 a month. This doesn’t sound impressive, but if you adjust that amount for inflation, it ranges from Rs 22,000 to Rs 41,000.
While that does not sound like too much, even by today’s standards, you have to remember that these were the lower ends of the packages. Some of the more successful students received monthly packages ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000. When adjusted for inflation, that amount ranges from Rs 110,000 to Rs 225,000. By the standards of that time, this was considered an insane sum of money. Queen’s was regarded as one of the best universities for students who want to immediately transition to a job after graduation.
Setting aside this placement drive, many graduates were able to find well-paying jobs on their own (as was common in those days). The late dean of the university, Rev Dr Jonathan Francis (1938-2009), was asked what made his students so successful in the job market. He only had one simple response: “At Queen’s, we let students forge their own path, but we make sure that their path is constantly illuminated by the guidance of those who have been in their shoes.”
What he meant was that Queen’s had a culture of corporate mentorship, in which industry veterans held lectures for interested students so that they could prepare themselves for future challenges. These lectures soon evolved to become full-fledged courses, and the students started gaining more and more skills with time. If there’s one lesson we can learn from their model, it’s that guidance and mentorship go a long way in developing a student and readying them for the professional world.
