College isn't that easy like I thought in school

Bhatinda is a great area. I am from Rajasthan but Bhatinda feels like home too now. I like the area, it is very peaceful. Talking about college, the teachers are supportive and the theme parties seniors organize are the best part of the month. Like last month we had an Italian themed party and I enjoyed a lot. My seniors had a Punjabi theme based party too. So, college is a good time.

I got a rank of about 13000 in NCHMCT JEE( National Council for Hotel Management & Catering Technology Joint Entrance Examination). Like JEE or any other entrance exam, this too had an online counseling procedure by which I landed into IHM Bhatinda. I wanted to do something non-academic and related to cooking, so this was the ideal thing. There was no interview but the candidate should have more than 50% marks in 10-12th. NCHMCT is a multiple choice entrance exam with questions about general knowledge, science, maths, current affairs, etc. The pattern of the paper is easy and I was able to secure 469th ranks in the All India exam. I did not have to give an interview because my admission was solely based on the entrance.

Currently, I am in the first year and we have 7 subjects as of now, that includes subjects like food production, bakery, nutrition and some science-related subjects too. All of them are easy to study and we get good marks too. There are no electives till now, however, we will have the elective option in the future. I am happy with my course because we are doing things practically too in our labs apart from theory learned within the class. The labs are fun to attend because that’s where we experiment whatever I have learned in the class. I never miss a single lab and I love eating whatever I have cooked.

I am in the first year and it’s been just 4 months in college. I have not done an internship yet, however, my seniors have told me that we have to do compulsory industrial training after the first year. Finding an internship is not that tough because our college calls various hotels for internship drives, so students get an internship easily. Some seniors of mine were paid during their internship period and some were recruited without stipend but were provided with other facilities like staying arrangements etc.

As it is a Hotel Management college, students get placements in various hotels and food chains. Some of the hotels that come here for placements are Radisson, Oberoi, Taj and other new hotels too. Overall, everyone gets placed by the end of the year somewhere of the other. We do have lots of pre placements seminars where teachers guide us about interviews for placements. Many personality development sessions are also organized for the students. As a matter of fact, the scenario has improved since the last 2-3 years.

In the past 4-5 months of the college, I have seen a lot of events like theme lunch, Fresher’s party, festival celebration, etc. There are no colleges nearby so no other students attend our events but I guess our footfall is 400 something. And we enjoy being a part of them. College management is very supportive in terms of facilities and teachers to enjoy our events. Primarily, these events are organized by our seniors and so, they do the primary work.

My fee is almost 1 lac per year. I feel that it is justified because the equipments we use in the lab are very expensive. We use so many ingredients in our labs and all those expenses are covered within our fee. Also, our fee also includes mess and exam fee. All we had to do was, purchase the uniform from outside. But still, overall, the fee is not too high when compared to the facilities we are getting and it is affordable too.

The college has some kind of scholarship test but I did not give it and neither took a loan. But I've heard that there are educational loans that can be taken to study this course. College does not help in facilitating loan facility for the students so students have to look for it themselves.

There are more extra-curricular activities than we used to have in school. Dance, music, cooking etc. Cooking competitions are very common in our college and other colleges participate as well. It is fun to do all this as I was not involved anywhere in school and it is a lot of exposure. The college is very supportive for all the Extra-curricular activities and provides all the necessities like mic, music set, utensils etc.

I do not live in hostel so I do not know much about it. However, other hosteller friends of mine tell me that the hostel facilities are not that good but not that bad either. Rooms are available on sharing basis and no single rooms are available. Cleanliness is thoroughly taken care of. The hostel environment is quite good. There are many PGs outside the college premises and usually, seniors live in the hostel.

I'm not very sure about this since I've just started my course but there is some network for students to connect with their seniors which I'm not sure about. But still I am in touch with my seniors and they help in every way, from academic to hotel issues.

It is simple to give exams than to stand in the kitchen for 4 hours as we have a lot of time to prepare for exams. Having labs daily make us sleepy when we go back to our rooms and have no energy left. We have exams, 2 times is a semester. One is in September and the other one is about to happen in December. The exams in the month of September were of 30-40 marks. Apart from that, we have lab tests at times.

The faculty is excellent. Like my bakery class teacher is very qualified and experienced. She gives us real-life situations and such examples which are very relevant. They actually help us to think outside the box and analyze situations instead of just learning the theory. Other teachers are also good and help us whenever we are stuck. They are very friendly and also tell us stories about our seniors who are currently working in the industry.