Institute of Hotel Management B.Sc Review By Praveen Kunwar

IHM Faridabad requires a rank from 6000 to 10000 in NCHM-TEE. I was a 10k rank holder and even though my target Colleges were DIHM, IHM Lucknow, IHM Jaipur, and IHM Udaipur. I got IHM Faridabad in the first round and little did I know that if I could have waited till the next round, I would have got IHM Lucknow. For SC/ST, the rank of 25k was admitted to our College. My course dealt with the production of food, sourcing of food, food and beverage services, housekeeping and front office work. The placements were more or less 100% but as a managerial trainee. In the first two years, we learn all four domains that I have mentioned and in the final year, we had to choose one. ATK (Advanced Training Kitchen) of our College was renovated by some of the modern kitchen designers and it was one hell of a place to learn.

There were six semesters, and in each semester, we had six subjects. All the theory subjects were also practical subjects. From the fourth semester, we go for industrial training for six months. Most of us were placed in five-star hotels for training as I was placed in Park Plaza Faridabad, and we were also offered a stipend of Rs. 1500. During training, we were made to work like workhorses as I used to work 14-15 hours a day. The companies started coming to the companies during the final year as more than classes, we had classes on placements training. Some people from QSR came and took the classes as they were adept in the industry and getting to learn from them made us pros of the HORECA industry.

There were in all 10 faculties assigned for our branch, and some of them also taught the diploma students. All of them had immense experience in the HORECA business and all were master's degree holders. Their teaching experience was also not less than 10 years as things have changed a lot in the last decade but the faculties have kept it up with that, and left no stone unturned in teaching us the art of using the modern kitchen. Modern style cooking was taught from them as gone are the days when traditional cooking was done because QSR too started their start-ups installing a modern kitchen.

Placements started in the final semester and brand restaurants like Taco KFC, Burger King, Biryani By Kilo, and Dominos were the top recruiters. All were offered jobs as per their specialization and most of the students were hired as trainees. I didn't find any interest in that because I knew during the trainee period, we will be made to work like horses and will be paid nuts. The average salary offered by most of these QSRs was 15-20k. After putting so much effort both in terms of learning and internship, these jobs can excite nobody. Most students still took the job as they were like, 'we can't study anymore'. I had other plans and moved that way because such jobs seemed meaningless to me.

There's one boys and one girls hostel on the campus. Both the hostels were two-floor buildings and had very limited rooms. One has to enroll at the hostel at the start because those who got the hostels will not leave the hostel, and because there were no empty rooms, I had to find a PG off-campus. There are many PGs in Patel Chowk, which is a kilometer away from the campus as many students of our College used to stay there. The hostels are fantastic but you need to be very lucky to get admission there.

The College area is small as it was a 5-acre land that had 5 buildings in it. Two of which were hostel buildings. One library building, one bakery building, and one main building where classes were held. There was a huge playground but no indoor sporting facilities for the students. Few sports buffs played in that scorching heat, but I never used that facility as the bakery building had so much to learn from that I spent most of my time over there. The buildings were a little poor and had no ACs. There were few guest rooms built which were like five-star hotels to train us. So, facilities-wise it was equipped, but aren't that advanced. By advanced I mean the structure because the kitchen and all were advanced, but classrooms, library, and other stuff could have been better.

The College started at 9 am and ended at 5 pm. From 9 to 1 we used to have practicals and from 2 to 5 classes. After that, we had the option to stay at the campus till 7 pm but hardly any students stayed as we were drained by then. The College hardly had any events and some of the events that happened every year included the 'Swachh Bharat' event on 2nd October and 'Van Mahotsav' on 5th June every year. We were made to have our stalls at 'Suraj Kund' which is the biggest mela of Faridabad.