The course away from the "Rat Race", needs to explore!

I appeared for the NIFT entrance exam and luckily cleared the cutoff. Hence was asked to fill the form for counselling. Every year the cutoffs are different and ranks are allotted to candidates. The ranks are the only cutoffs for various branches under 16 campuses of NIFT PAN India. Rank wise counselling schedule is done and we have to attend any one of the nearest NIFT campuses on our counselling day with the required documents. I availed of the OBC (NCL) quota for my admission. There is a minimum mark of about 50% in class 12th to appear for the NIFT entrance examination and age should be not below 21 years. Also, there are 2 separate exams for B.Des. and B.F.Tech. The B.Des. has two parts in the entrance examination one is CAT and the other is GAT and PI/GD. For B.F.Tech. only GAT is required. The counselling happens at the same time at all the 16 campuses of NIFT and from there one can select the subjects the candidate want to pursue along with the choice of campus.

The course curriculum basically comprises apparel production and technology. Including Fashion retail management, production management, supply chain, import-export houses, entrepreneurship etc. There are usually 35-40 seats per campus in a batch of Fashion Technology. All the faculty members are old and have vast experience in their respective fields. Most of the faculties are PhD. in their fields. Faculty from IIT is also here. Plus the guest faculties are also called for some subjects. There are optional subjects introduced which also includes sports in them. The termly exams happen every 6 months. Though a bit of pressure is there during the exams but the BFTech. students are under much less academic pressure than the design students. Hence they get a lot of time for skill development and extracurricular activities.

Internship opportunities are available at mostly all the companies that approve our internship requests. It was hard to find an internship during the pandemic but still, we managed. There is a textile internship after the end of 2nd year and an apparel internship at the end of 3rd year. One can join as an internship trainee at the companies. There is also a GP Group project in the 4th year for 6 months approx. The internship experiences are quite good and there is a lot of exposure during this time. The college supports a lot during the internship from getting the official request letter to official emails everything is personally assisted by the college and faculty mentors.

From the 8th semester onwards we are eligible for campus placements. Companies do visit the campus as well as NIFT has a central placement system too in which students can prefer any campus for their campus placements. The salary is not very handsome in the beginning. Usually starts with Rs. 20,000/- per month which is really not an acceptable offer after investing about 15-16 lakhs in the education and getting this amount is not justified. Though there is a need for our college to fix the minimum salary for placement companies. Most students find off campus placements with good packages than on campus placements. One can also go to further study masters in Fashion technology or fashion management. My personal plans are for entrepreneurship in the field of technological advancement in fashion or having my own import export house someday.

About 1.30 Lakh is the fees per semester (Excluding hostel /mess fees). With every new batch admitted there is a fee hike of about 15% approx. Also, there are government scholarships available as well as in campus student's loan facility too. NIFT has a "Sarthak Scholarship scheme". The details can be found on the NIFT website. The campus jobs are also there but the stipend is not worth the work. Like you will be posted as an assistant in the library or have to work for particular hours a week with a maximum of up to Rs.160-200 will be paid. The 1 time expenses in the stationary are more than a student spends on his/her fooding for 3 days.

The campus life overall is good at the Hyderabad campus. As it is situated in the heart of the city at a very Posh locality of Hyderabad. We have a metro station just above our college main gate. Commutation is not a problem overall. The food is quite awesome here though mostly you will get south Indian foods. There is no hostel for boys on the campus they have to make their own accommodation arrangements. But girls hostel are there and have time restrictions too. There are a lot of clubs and eateries where usually students spend their weekends. We have our annual campus fest Spectrum which is a mega event including fashion shows and outside performers. Other colleges of Hyderabad also participate in this. There is inter-NIFT Annual cultural and sports meet CONVERGE which is hosted by any campus among the 16 campuses. Hyderabad was the host for CONVERGE 2019 and we had a lot of fun that time. Other than this lots of events happen throughout the year. Festivals are celebrated DJ Nights too.