Vedika's Review On Footwear Design & Development Institute - [FDDI], Noida

Retail and fashion merchandising is an all inclusive and integrated course for entrepreneurship, business management and the apt choice if you wish to work in the retail sector. I chose the college preferring the location and exposure the place would provide, the INI status, the faculty is supportive and knowledgeable and it's an productive, friendly environment overall.

The faculties of Retail department are the best as compared to the rest of departments, the are learned and experienced and experts in their own fields, they come up with new projects and practical learning experience for each topic everyday and they keep updating the syllabus as well according to the demands of our ever changing industry. They assist in the internships and hands on experience as well.

All the brands know about FDDI and their retail students, they recruit the students for operations and sales internship with the monthly stipend of 11000 to 15000 or weekend internships. Students also intern for visual merchandising, marketing, HR, Digital marketing, merchandising etc which is mostly unpaid for learning experience. Sometimes the faculty or seniors assist the freshers but they're well aquainted with the process after an year or so as they work in the industry n know about different fields. I have worked with DUNE London as sales intern, Gauge machine as marketing intern, and for many fashion brands, fashion shows and volunteeres for many college events as well. It is a great place for exposure.

Starting in this field is totally skill based and the payscale is low but there is grown after certain years of experience. The package companies offer is certainly low but companies like Bata, Nike, philocally, Pantaloons, reliance etc come for recruiting frequently. Amd alumini of our college are working with many reputed brands as managers and merchandisers like Uniqlo. We are connected with many of our alumni and they help us a lot in the industry.

The cultural events are mostly in house and the student body has organising committees which plans and execute all the events as a learning experience, there are annual fashion shows which have a huge footfall and designers from the industry are invited. It solely depends on the students what they wish to organise and how are they planning to execute from proposing the idea to pitching for sponsorship and hosting the event.

Student loan is available and scholarship is provided for merit based students. I haven't availed any specific loan or scholarship.

College campus is very old as of 1986, but it is spacious and labs are well equipped specially for footwear and fashion. We have a basketball ground and table tennis rooms for sports. Wi-Fi is available in both boys and girls hostel.

Infrastructure of girls hostel is better than the boys' there are 250 seats in girls hostel and it is spacious, cleaned on a daily basis. 4 sharing in each room, there's a lift, geyser, water cooler on each floor. There's a bed(with mattress), study table, book shelf, and a large cupboard provided to each student. It's alloted on first come basis. The occupency of boy's hostel is low they have dual sharing and 6 sharing rooms as well. There are many rental pgs and flats around the college for both boys and girls starting from 6000 per month which average price. All types of pgs with/without food and even zolo, oyo pgs are available at a walking distance.