GNLU: A preview/ An Insider's account!

So you gave CLAT and got through to Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.

Congratulations!

I am sure you'll have a hundred questions about the University. You might even be considering whether to choose GNLU over some other University. Well, I hope this post helps you in deciding.

I’ll try to summarise what all things you can expect from the place.

Location:

Gandhinagar is Gujarat’s capital. It’s a very green city. Amazing roads. No traffic. If you are someone who likes the hustle-bustle of Mumbai then you’ll find the place boring. Gujarat has prohibition, something I think all of us know about. There are no night clubs in Gandhinagar. There are very few good restaurants but that can be managed by going to Ahmedabad which is just 30 minutes away. If you are someone who likes peace and serenity then Gandhinagar is the place for you. Transport is relatively cheap. People of Gujarat are famous for their friendly behaviour and their helping attitude. Girls can roam around safely. We have a 9:30pm curfew time for the college hostel which is good enough because there is hardly anything open in Gandhinagar post 10pm.

Campus:

The campus is still under construction. We stay in the old campus of NIFT. Students joining this year can expect to spend 4 years out of 5 in the new 45 acre campus. The new campus is sexy. It will be among the best in the country. Although, the current campus is not too bad either. We have arguably, the best hostels amongst law schools in the country. Almost all our requirements are easily met in this current campus. But then, as Seth Godin says, “Good is not great.” :)

Faculty:

Okay this is a toughie. I think I can safely say, like all NLUs and I think Universities in general, we have the excellent, the good and the ugly. A few teachers are amazing. They will literally make you want to attend class. Sometimes, when you have a free class and that faculty is teaching in some other class, you’d want to go and attend that other class. Yea, they are that good. Some of them are okay okay. We can’t call them good or bad. They are in-between. Personally I feel that faculties are only there to guide you where to go. Legal Education should mostly be self learning.

Students:

The best part about GNLU is the variety of students that we have. The year I joined I was told that GNLu has students from 26 states now. We are a diverse crowd. We have had it even before IDIA started working on it. :P Students are helping. There are 160 odd students per batch so there will be a lot of people you’ll get along with and learn from. The students are the elements which make a university. Shri Jairam Ramesh will be happy to see that even though right now GNLU is not the country’s best law school, the students are right up there. :) Seniors are very helpful. They will make you feel right at home from the very first day. There is almost no ragging. Everything done is in good humour and will be enjoyable for the new student as well. Nothing outward happens. GNLU students appreciate talent. People will look at you with respect if you can sing, dance, play a instrument, are a good orater, can play CS like you are invincible, can write notes even during boring classes, have a good sense of humour, are a foodie or just have a good collection of movies/sitcoms. :D

Placements:

Yes, this is what everyone thinks is the most important way to judge a University. I disagree. Contrary to popular opinion, GNLU has a very good placement record. If we see Legally India statistics for this year’s placement then we can see that 73 GNLU students have been placed in reputed places. The batch had 145 odd students. So after 73 there are 145-73= 72 students left. GNLU is, according to me, one of the very few law schools in India which sends a lot of students to litigation. That’s what NLUs were set up to do, right? I can safely say that out of the 72 students left, 30 to 35 join litigation. So that leaves only 35 odd students. We have 20 students who are going to pursue further studies in prestigious institutions in India and abroad. That leaves only 15 students. Who knows, maybe some of these 15 have been placed somewhere after the latest LI update on the recruitment page. I am not sure. 10% of a batch not getting their desired placement is normal. The fact that GNLU has 150 plus students in a normal batch makes it even more difficult for the college to place all of them. Amarchand Mangaldas took 15 students this year still that would only be 10% of the batch. Imagine if GNLU had 80 odd students and Amarchand took 15. It would change the situation completely. So don’t just blindly follow statistics. Consider all the parameters. If you are a good student and you do decently in academics then you’ll get a job irrespective of which law school you join.

So this is a brief overview of GNLU. Please be sure that this is not everything about GNLU. It’s just a basic outline. Ask specific questions to know more.

I won’t tell you what I think is GNLU’s rank is in the country’s top law universities because frankly it doesn’t matter. No one gives a damn about the ranking yet people fight over it. I am personally against giving so much importance to Moots. MPL is a good way to judge a college’s mooting prowess but not enough to judge a college. So don’t read too much into it. Visit the college website for more details.

I am a fourth year student of GNLU. If you are someone who got through and wants more details then send me a message on my LI account or post your facebook account link in the comments, I’ll ping you.

Don’t ask me if you should GNLU over HNLU or NLU-J or NLU-Bhopal or NLU-D or any such thing. Every college has its positives and negatives. Choose wisely and then stick to it. Stop cribbing once you get into college, you got what you deserved.

P.S. – I’ll try answering all genuine queries that any one of you have in your mind. Post it in the comments.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover or price, a person by his/her clothes/accent, a law student by his laptop/CGPA and a law school from its website/campus/MPL rank/India Today or Outlook rank.” – This is an original Napster quote. :P

All the best to everyone. I hope you have fun in law school because in the end, that's all that matters. :)

Jai Hind!

P.P.S. -This post first appeared on Legally India where I blog under the name of Napster.