Overview

The Department of Commerce (Morning) at St. Xavier’s College enjoys a pre-eminent status for the excellence of its teaching in this dynamic discipline. It is ranked alongside the highly-acclaimed departments in Commerce among the undergraduate colleges of this country. Our academic program is of the highest calibre and aims at transforming ideas and thoughts into applications and achievements.

The programme is designed to enable and empower students to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to analyse and synthesize the contemporary realities of the domain of business. It encourages students to explore the world of technology and digitization in the relevant field. Further, this course is designed to help cultivating entrepreneurial mindset and skills.

The diverse student structure together with dedicated faculties contributes enormously to sustain the efficiency of the Department. Apart from our committed faculty members and support staff, we are proud of our enthusiastic, vibrant and academically brilliant students.

The Department appreciates the exchange of ideas and assimilation of knowledge by organizing seminars and workshops on a regular basis. Faculty Development Programmes are conducted regularly. The Department also invites resource persons from the areas of industry, commerce and trade to conduct enriching seminars for students. These efforts aim to instil an in-depth knowledge among the student fraternity.

The Department uses an app-based student notification and attendance system. The application provides a user-friendly platform to carry on academic activities. This endeavour is a remarkable milestone in the history of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. The motivation goes back to the legacy of the Jesuits at St Xavier’s College, who are known for their innovations in terms of adoption of new ideas. In the footsteps of Father Eugene Lafont, who set up modern India’s first scientific observatory at St Xavier’s, the core committee of administration is spearheading the effort towards e-management of the various engagements of the college.

Simultaneously, the students are also encouraged to participate in social work and be aware of the social realities and challenges faced by this country. Our unique and possibly one of its kind “college to village and village to college” (’Prayas’) project was devised to achieve this objective. Additionally, the foundation course on inter-religious studies will surely build up the morale of the students to mutually appreciate and respect each other.

Our students fare very well in their CA, CMA and CS examinations as well as in all the other competitive entrance examinations like CAT, XAT, MAT, to name a few. They also actively participate in extracurricular activities, attend various national and international fests organized by premier institutions across the country.

Our emphasis has always been on the overall development of the students keeping in line with our motto “Nihil Ultra”. This collaborative effort will necessarily produce human beings for others and emerge as agents of change and transformation for the benefit of the society.

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Learning Outcomes-based Curriculum Framework (LOCF)

The B. Com. programme is founded on the basis of demonstrated achievement of outcomes (expressed in terms of knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes, and values) and academic criteria expected of graduates at the end of the programme. This programme is aimed at facilitating the students to acquire these attributes, keeping in view changes in the current socio-economic environment.

The LOCF of B. Com. has been designed keeping in view the graduate attributes, qualification descriptors, programme learning outcomes, and course learning outcomes. The committee has tried to frame the syllabi in order to engage students through an all — encompassing knowledge impartation.

Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce results in giving comprehensive knowledge of Management, Business and Corporate Law, Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Tax and Computer Applications. Thus, this programme helps students in building a concrete footing for advanced studies in Commerce and to stand with the requirement of business sector, insurance, banking seeking youth fit for employment.

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Aims of the B.Com. (Hons.) Programme

• Provide a conducive environment that holistically engages students through an all- encompassing knowledge impartation;
• Widen the scope and depth of the course enabling them to undertake further studies in commerce and its allied areas on multiple disciplines concerned with commerce;
• Construct a sound theoretical footing;
• Acquainting students with recent market practices;
• Encourage the students to advance their generic skills helpful in employment, internships, and social activities;
• To form men of competence, commitment and future ready leaders who are compassionate in the spirit of Nihil Ultra (Nothing Beyond — the motto of the College)

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Graduate Attributes of the B. Com. Programme

The attributes that a B. Com. graduate will be able to demonstrate through learning various courses are listed below:

• Disciplinary Knowledge
• Communication Skills
• Critical Thinking
• Problem solving
• Multicultural Competence
• Research Related Skills
• Information Technology and Business Analytics literacy
• Moral and Ethical Awareness
• Lifelong learning

The B. Com Evening Department offers a self-financing undergraduate course in commerce. The teaching staff comprises accomplished and enterprising teachers from diverse disciplines such as finance, management, economics, mathematics, statistics, information technology and corporate law. The B. Com (Honours) is a multi-disciplinary program consisting of seven core areas: Accounting and Finance, Management, Economics, Business Mathematics and Statistics, Information Technology, Business Law and Marketing. The syllabus has been framed keeping in view the academic and professional needs of the students in the era of the country’s increasing integration with the global system of production, trade, finance and technology. The academic program consists of classroom teaching, tutorials, seminars and interactive sessions, assignments, projects and internship with firms and NGOs.

Overview

The Department of commerce at St. Xavier’s College enjoys a pre-eminent reputation for the excellence of its teaching in this dynamic discipline. It ranks alongside the most highly-rated departments in commerce among the undergraduate colleges of this country. From a very humble beginning in 2006, today it is one of the biggest department of the college catering to more than 1500 students. Our academic program is of the highest calibre because we believe in the transformative power of ideas. Our faculty, and diverse student body from various social walks of life, all contribute towards the same purpose: to maintain the department’s excellent reputation in education at the cutting edge of economic, institutional and organizational aspects of commerce.

We value an interdisciplinary undergraduate education with an emphasis on critical thinking and discussion of original texts. But then only concepts without connecting them to the real world situation may not always be desirable. Bridging both theory and practice is essential. In an effort to achieve this we have moved beyond the traditional methods of teaching. We bring together notable scholars, academics and industry heads from broad disciplines to foster an awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of learned inquiry through seminars and workshops on a regular basis. We appreciate the exchange of ideas and breadth of knowledge that result from academics but at the same time feel that our students should also be aware of the social realities and challenges faced by this country. Our unique and possibly one of its kind “college to village and village to college” (which we call ‘Prayas’) project was devised to achieve this objective. Our emphasis has always been on the overall development of the students keeping in line with our motto “Nihil Ultra”.

Though young and youthful, the department has firmly established its name in the world of business and corporate sector as a source of bright prospective recruits. The department has excellent placement record in high profile corporate. The students of the department also have high success rates in CA, CS, CAT and other management entrance examinations for post graduate studies. The department has an excellent track record in extra-curricular activities in sports, NCC, NSS and various cultural activities.

The program in Commerce leading to a B.Com. Degree is spread over three years and consists of six terms, each approximately of six months’ duration. Apart from our faculty members and support staff, we have very enthusiastic, vibrant and academically brilliant students. Our students fare very well in their CA and CS exams as well as in all the other competitive entrance exams like CAT, XAT, MAT to name a few. They also actively participate in extra – curricular activities.

Objective

The course is designed to meet the following objectives:

• To integrate knowledge and skill that will sustain an environment of learning and creativity.
• To provide for a high quality education in business studies and offer as a platform for those who decide to continue with higher education and research or pursue a professional career after completing graduation.
• To assist to serve the needs of those who intend to work in the business houses or start their own businesses.
• To enable a student to be capable of making decisions at all levels of management.

Measurable Quality Objectives:

• To achieve pass percentage in every Academic year.
• To achieve placement for all registered students per year.
• To achieve Students Satisfaction per year.
• To reduce the carbon footprint in the department per year to make it a Greener Department (Converting several paper based activities to a digital mode).

The M.Com. department, one of the newly introduced post-graduate courses offered by St. Xavier’s College since its post-autonomy period, is governed by the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm of ‘conscience, competence, compassion and commitment’. Born in 2007, the motto of the department is to offer quality education in the higher studies of commerce and to develop human resources with social values catering to the needs of both, industries and academia, at the national and international level.

The curriculum designed with active co-operation of experts from within and outside the organisation, can easily compete favourably with one that is offered by any leading B-School in the country. But that exercise would have been futile if we had failed to deliver our best to our students in terms of classroom teaching and curriculum-support activities. With an eye to that end, we are in a continuous effort to give state of the art methods of pedagogy in the department – thanks to the team of our highly qualified faculty members, who are both committed and student-friendly. The practice of case-study based teaching with the use of multi-media and interactive sessions with the students is intended to make them feel more comfortable with the subjects offered which they can grasp with ease and elan.

The department aims at facilitating the students in the development of competency in research in the various emerging fields of commerce. The recently revised curriculum, effective from July 2014, is an endeavour towards this direction. Inclusions of papers like ‘Research Methodology with SPSS package’ in the 3rd semester and ‘Basic Mathematics and Statistics’ in the 1st semester are a few novel steps that the department has taken to make this possible. This, however, requires a re-orientation of mindset of the learners, who have unfortunately developed the practice of ‘mugging’ instead of using brainpower.

To overcome such constraints, we regularly conduct ‘soft skills development’ sessions with the purpose of changing their personality into a proactive and enlightened one. Every paper starting from semester I contains an element of evaluation on the basis of class participation – this is where they are encouraged and trained to make individual/group presentations, subject to a review by their peer group in the classroom. Each one is further motivated to go for summer internship at the end of the 1st year, so that they have enough of industry exposure. This is a value-addition to their degree which provides competitive edge in the market when they seek for placement, on-campus / off-campus.

The curriculum includes Project work culminating in presentations through public seminars. This further nourishes the ability of a student to make in-depth study on the burning issues in the business arena and prepare him/her to face the future world with greater confidence. Six batches of students have passed out from the department and almost all of them are already placed either in industry (both public sector and private sector, within and outside the country) or in schools and colleges. Quite a few are trying to crack NET/SET in order to do serious research work and join academics permanently.

Apart from offering M.Com. (With specialisation in Accounting and Finance), the College also offers M.Com. (With specialisation in Marketing) for those who want to build career in Marketing. Both the degrees will offer better competitive edge to the students in the job market.

Finally, the department works under the direct mentorship and able guidance of our Principal, Rev.Dr.Felix Raj, S.J. We believe that his constant support and encouragement will help the department to move vertically through its growth trajectory with its ever-increasing brand value in the days to come.