Chapter 5 - Being a PGDAVIAN : Exploring the Collegiate Experience

About The College

Pannalal Girdharlal Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (P.G.D.A.V.) College is one of the oldest constituent colleges of the University of Delhi. It was established in 1957 and offers a various range of courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. PGDAV college draws its inspiration from the teachings of Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati, who had paved the path for critical thinking, reasoning, and the quest for truth.

Apart from delivering education, P.G.D.A.V. believes in assisting students in becoming well-rounded persons by providing them with numerous societies, clubs, and exposure to different cultures through which they can vent their creative impulses and equipping them with creative and critical thinking.

The College comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, auditorium, conference rooms, smart classrooms, various societies, and clubs. With the state-of the-art infrastructure, the College meets all requirements of the individual student for making their college life intellectually engaging and a fulfilling experience in all respects.

1. Societies

2. Fests

While many students tend to overlook the college events because they don’t find them valuable or interesting, these events certainly are significant and worth attending due to various reasons including the great exposure, increase in the level of confidence through participation, and developing a broad sense of looking at things.

College fests are one of the arenas for students where they are put together from various streams and asked to manage a large event. This taste of a real-world experience builds a variety of skills and is a perfect tool for practical learning.

PGDAV's annual cultural fest, i.e., AAGHAZ acts as a catalyst to spark things up in one’s monotonous study schedules. Through AAGHAZ, participants get to showcase their potential, compete with their allies and further hone their multitasking, communication, teamwork and managerial skills. The participants as well as the organizers get the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals from the colleges across India, learn from their experiences and build a lifelong connection that helps one grow both personally and professionally.

Apart from this, other departmental societies conduct their flagship annual events too round the year which help participants to discover their interests beyond their college curriculum. Through these fests, the organizing committee gets a taste of handling real world scenarios while being with a team to have their back.

3. Corporate Exposure

PGDAV College has a highly active placement cell that acts as an interface between the students and the corporates by boarding companies to the campus, organizing talks, study abroad webinars and workshops for the collective student body. It leaves no stone unturned in providing a helping hand to students in their initial step into the corporate world.

Placement: PGDAV provides enormous growth opportunities from the very beginning of students' college life to make them placement-ready by the time they reach their final year. Last year, more than 300+ PGDAVIANS proved to be ideal candidates and received offer letters from 100+ companies including Deloitte, PwC, EY, FIS Global, Willis Towers Watson, DE Shaw & Co, TCS, Accenture, and many more. The year saw a huge jump in placement statistics with the highest package being 19.25 LPA, average package as 4.67 LPA and 4.00 LPA as the median package.

Internships: Internships provide a sneak peek to the freshers into the corporate world and PGDAV motivates its students to grab internships at top companies like LIC, Bajaj Capital, Coding Ninjas, EY, Accenture, Chegg, Teach for India, Spotify, Airtel and the list is endless. The year before saw 200+ recruiters offering stipends as high as 65k wherein more than 300 students were able to realize their dream internship.

Converge- The Placement cell organizes its flagship event, Converge-The Annual Internship Fair to bring the brightest internship and training opportunities for students pan India under one roof. This year, the cell hosted the first ever 3D Internship fair, Converge'21, over a Unique Virtual Platform and received a footfall of 1400+ students. Jio, LIC, Zomato Feeding India, Bajaj Capital, Coding Ninjas, just to name a few, were our top recruiters making the fair a huge success.

4. Faculty

PGDAV College has a team of committed and highly qualified teaching faculty and supporting staff. The college’s resolve towards inclusive education and a better society has grown stronger during the current pandemic. The faculty has been engaging more creatively with the students. In these unprecedented times, the college has shifted to online for continuing the pedagogical engagement. Despite many difficulties, the teachers managed to find their ways and made online classes a smooth dialogue between themselves and the students. The usage of google classrooms, forms and meet simplified the process of assigning tasks, assignments and PPTs to the students.

The faculty at PGDAV college believes in the overall holistic development of the students. As faculty members teach, they disseminate and impart basic or applied knowledge to students and assist students with the learning process and applying the knowledge.

Over the years, the College has emerged as a center of excellence under the stewardship of its highly qualified and experienced faculty. Many faculty members are associated with curriculum development and postgraduate teaching in the University, besides guiding students at postgraduate, M. Phil. and Doctoral levels.