I Want 100% Placements In BBA Department: Swarnika Dixit, IFIM College

With a campus strategically placed in Electronics City, Bangalore, one of India’s largest Electronic industrial parks, IFIM College provides holistic education. Along with its unique academic delivery model, IFIM College focuses on employability skills of the students. Constant learning being one of its primary concerns, IFIM College has developed an academic model which would help students face challenges of a fast evolving career. 

BW Education interacted with Ms. Swarnika Dixit, Assistant Professor & Program Head-BBA, Department of Management, IFIM College and spoke to her.

Excerpts:

Tell us something about your department. Which courses you’re having and how many students on campus right now?

BBA department is a part of IFIM college which is affiliated to the Bangalore University, IFIM started in 2009 and we have four different courses running in our campus that is BBA, B.COM, BCA and B.A Journalism. There are some activities which are department oriented and some that apply to the entire IFIM college. These activities become the differentiators for IFIM college. We provide five things which are very crucial for making students continuously employable, socially responsible and leading to their holistic development. We have SIP (social immersion programme), IIP (industry internship programme), personality enhancement programme, research incubation and we have mentoring. So these five activities which we provide to all the students makes us stand apart from other colleges who are just offering Bangalore university curriculum.

Now coming to the BBA department, we have total 284 students on campus, we provide a six semester curriculum, we provide specialisation at the undergraduate level. So fifth and sixth semester having specialisation- HR, Marketing and Finance. So if a student is not a post grad, on the undergrad level he is getting the specialisation basis on which he can take the job and due to this we have seen a drift in placements, earlier management students went for higher studies but now they are taking up jobs. The industry requires BBA grads and the students know with IFIM they will be industry ready and continuously employable thus BBA numbers are going up.

What has been the placements record?

Recent batch we have seen that 60% students have gone for placements both on campus/off campus, 40% for higher education. But this is a big drift, earlier 70-80% students went for higher studies and merely 20% for jobs.

Where do you think we are leading and lagging behind in education? What sort of support do we need from our government?

Now ours is a self financed institution, and we are planning to go for autonomous status the only thing the government can support us is how much avenues they can open for the UG students. You see in abroad UG students are almost at par with PG students, this trend is now changing in India, how much the government can play a major role by opening avenues for UG students which can motivate them to take more and more jobs. Industry trend is changing no doubt but how much is the public sector or government bringing about a change in the mindset also is important.

According to you what qualities should a student have to be a good student?

First and foremost perseverance is necessary. We are in the era of technology, IFIM is one campus where all latest technologies are available that can facilitate student to be an excellent individual. I would always say perseverance and use of technology effectively in the era of digitalisation. Use technology effectively, because everything is available on google does not mean your faculty are not important. Use the age and experience of faculty members to become industry ready.

What change would you want to see in your department in the coming five years?

We have the FUSION conference happening which includes all the streams, I want our department to have an exclusive international conference that only be pertaining to the BBA dept. And we are working towards it. Secondly I want 100% placements, the industry trends and mindset should change in such a way that 100% placements for the UG students and they should also take up the jobs after which if they feel they lack somewhere they should go for higher studies. For the same we push them to do lots of projects.

If any student wants to get into entrepreneurship, what are the initiatives you are taking for that?

Already we have an entrepreneurship cell for IFIM College students which facilitates them to work on startups and at the BBA level we have a paper on the same. Now it is through this paper we do a lot of activities like how to prepare a business plan, how to start a new business, how to expand an existing business etc. we facilitate them. There are students who want to start a startup ‘Dogs party’ BBA dept is working on this. We are helping them find out opportunities from angel investors etc. we are helping them prepare a good business plan, go ahead with the funding. I want the time they pass out they have a start up ready with them to take it up after graduation.

Any other update you want to share with us?

This year our students have also gone for international internships through AISEC, they have gone to Russia, Egypt, China etc. International exposure is very important. The duration is 6 weeks. Also there are certain requirements from the industry on which we are currently working on like digital marketing and business analytics at the UG level. We provide certificate courses for the same to our students.