Our teachers have working experience in their field of expertise, says IIFT Assistant Professor

In a conversation with Shiksha.com, Assistant Professor Rucha Karvinkop at IIFT Bangalore - Indian Institute of Fashion Technology talks about the industry-embedded curriculum that they follow. She also shares detailed information on curriculum design and practices that helps students learn about the current trend in Fashion Industry. She is a creative and detail-oriented fashion design professional with over eight years of experience in various facets of the Fashion industry.

Read the excerpts of the interview below:

Q: What are the salient features of teaching methodology adopted by your college? How does this differ from others?

A: Our teaching methodology is unique and is completely student-centric. We have listed few features below that define our teaching methodology in a better way.

• Collaboration and Discussion: We believe in collaborating the ideas and efforts of students during the class. It’s not always about delivering the lecture but we try making sure every session conducted is been interactive so the learning becomes easier.
• Participation: We try motivating every student to participate in every possible event, project and activity. Being into Fashion Design curriculum, it is important to learn and experience process practically.
• Encouragement: Is important to make students realise of their true potential. Also, they should know how they are performing or how they can work towards betterment.
• Mentoring: It builds confidence, develop resilience, and raise aspirations hence, resulting into developing specific skills or knowledge
• Teamwork: It is not always about students, but is also equally important amongst teachers. The subjects may be technical but not the teaching methodology. Also, its important for students to collaborate their ideas, everyone gets fair chance to showcase their skills.

Above all giving individual attention to every student and developing and analysing their individual skill sets or all over performance makes us different from others.

Q: How are you preparing your students to be industry-ready?

A: We encourage learning beyond classrooms. This helps students gain practical knowledge of concepts and in-depth understanding of real-life scenarios. For that purpose, we:

• Conduct various industrial visits
• Make students attend fashion events and shows
• Conduct seminars inviting Industrial experts to share their experiences, journey and challenges
• Try Industrial practices in the course curriculum
• Conduct ‘Fashionite’, an annual fashion event at IIFT where students practically learn how to work on a fashion collection, backstage and at event.

Q: What qualities you are looking for in student applicants? What qualities do they need to do well in your course?

A: We prefer giving admission to students who have a passion for fashion and art. They must be creative and must have the ability to think out of the box.

With having such students on-board, we polish their skills and carve them into a professional. But what equally important is the commitment from them towards work and zeal to work hard. Only then our efforts succeed and so does students.

Q: How do you ensure that your course curriculum is up to date and meets industry requirement?

A: We have a set of well-trained teachers coming from the same industrial background as their expertise. Also, we ensure being updated with the current industry standards. We do so by organising workshops and seminars for our faculty members facilitated by industry professionals and experts. They talk about recent trend and practices in the industry and help us understand how we can incorporate them in our curriculum

Q: Is your college receptive to innovation, technology, science and entrepreneurship? How? Could you cite some examples of these?

A: Yes, we are receptive to innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. We try to innovate learning experience with different projects, on-field assignments, making students work on the reports and conduct workshops to make students learn new skills. To keep students updated with the latest technological advancements, we try to bring all such facilities in-house. So, they can practise and make the best use of it.

Also, we have special diploma programmes in fashion Design and Boutique Management where we train students who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs in the fashion industry.