Indian Institute of Foreign Trade M.A Review By Debanjana Das

The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade is an Autonomous body which acts as a research institute for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to contribute to the skill building, mainly for the External Sector of India. The Institute originally offered MBA programs as a B-School but has branched into offering Ph.D and Master's programs in Economics as well. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) have graded IIFT as a Grade 'A' Institute. Overall, IIFT is a prestigious Institute that only takes in students after they qualify both the Written Entrance Test as well as the Personal Interview round. Hence, getting admission at IIFT will give you an edge over other candidates in both your corporate and academic life.

The M.A Economics program is highly competitive because many students sign up for the Entrance Exam. IIFT conducts its own Entrance Exam every year that is conducted online in CBT mode. After qualifying the cut-offs of that year in the entrance exam, it is followed by a Personal Interview round that is conducted online with a two-person panel in general. The course offers a specialization in Trade and Finance that students elect in their 2nd year. The course also teaches Stata, R, and Python depending on what students opt for. A mid-term is held 1-1.5 months into the semester and the end semester. There is relative grading for both the exams.

The faculty is highly qualified, very professional and very helpful. They will cooperate with students and try to clear their doubts in the class itself. Besides, students can reach out to them on mail or in person at their respective office rooms during working hours. Guest faculties also come to teach sometimes, from ISI, IGIDR and other highly renowned Institutes. Overall, the academic environment at IIFT Kolkata is very rigorous and highly commendable.

There is a dedicated Placement cell at IIFT that works across the Delhi and Kolkata campuses. It has separate student coordinators at both campuses that work round the year to bring in companies for Summer Internships and Placements for final year students. The highest CTC offered has been 24 LPA for batch of 2022-24 and the mean and median CTC is 13 LPA. The Placement Cell also shares different courses that students can do during their semesters at a reduced rate as a student of IIFT. Different academic speakers and corporate events are also organized to ensure students seamlessly make a transition from academic to corporate life through networking opportunities.

The M.A program is non-residential, and the MBA program is residential. Hence, availability of hostels depends on how the Head of Institute will allocate after the MBA program commences. The priority will be given to people from outside of Kolkata. The hostel has double sharing as well as single sharing provisions. The boys and girls hostels are separate with a regular mess serving at regular hours for all people irrespective of hostellers and non-hostellers. There is also a tennis court and basketball ground. The curfew is late at night around midnight.

The IIFT infrastructure is well maintained and incredibly high-end. The classrooms as well the auditoriums, all have centralized air conditioning. The classrooms have world class technology built-in which is at the professor's hands to use during class. High-end projectors, multiple white boards, laptop connectivity, ports, mics and speakers to enable the entire class to hear the professors. There is a dedicated IT and Computer Cell that can be contacted by both the students and professors in case of any technical or connectivity problems inside or outside the classroom during office hours. There is a huge, dedicated library with books. The Administrative Block contains an atrium that is divided into floors that have various offices each with their separate workload, such as the Finance Office, Program Office, Faculty Room, IT Cell, etc. MBA and M.A students have separate classes according to their schedules that are given in advance to the student's official university mails. IIFT is one of the few institutes with access to highly sought-after databases such as Bloomberg, World Bank etc. and it has access to more than 4000+ online books and articles. There is a serene pond located in the middle of the campus between the Hotels and the Academic Blocks. There is a Nescafe canteen that is open from 10:00am to 4:00am every day. The staff is also very polite and helpful. Other than this, students can also avail the mess food available at regular timings in the hostel’s food section, which is actually quite cheap. The entire campus has Wi-Fi that can be accessed after getting one's device registered with the IT cell. There is also a dedicated Anti-Ragging Cell and POSH Unit for all people on campus, students and staff included. There is clean drinking water available on every floor of the campus and the washrooms are very well-maintained. Women's washrooms also have sanitary stations on every floor. The campus is very inclusive, clean and well-maintained.

There are various clubs and societies that students can join following a rigorous recruitment process. The M.A course has the IIFT Economics Society, Analytics Club, Alumni Relations and the Placement Cell. There are talks of opening up more clubs at the campus including Film Society, Sports Club, Debating Club, etc. As IIFT follows a B-School model, the students are kept on their toes to participate in extracurricular along with their academics. This definitely goes a long way in supporting the students in their professional and academic journey.