Indian Institute of Forest Management
Network of Indian Environment Professionals (NIEP) is pleased to bring out a series on Environment Institutions in India which provide cutting edge skills and an opportunity to serve our mother earth. Our association members who have passed from this institute will provide you an inside look into the working of these institutes and how you can build your career around them. So, if you are planning to join this institute, become our member today and get your queries answered.
The first in the series is Indian Institute of Forest Management by Shika Kalra, IIFM Alumni and NIEP member.
Established in the year 1982, the Indian Institute of Forest Management is one of its own kind catering to the management needs of the development sector particularly the in the area of forestry, natural resource management and its allied sectors. It is an autonomous educational Institute funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. Over the years IIFM has evolved into a premier educational and research institution in South East Asia and has earned considerable global recognition for the same.
Established in the year 1982, the Indian Institute of Forest Management is one of its own kind catering to the management needs of the development sector particularly the in the area of forestry, natural resource management and its allied sectors. It is an autonomous educational Institute funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. Over the years IIFM has evolved into a premier educational and research institution in South East Asia and has earned considerable global recognition for the same.
Courses Offered
The courses offered at IIFM include the prestigious 2-year Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Forestry Management (PGDFM), the M.Phil Level Programme in Natural Resource Management (MRM) and Short term Management Development Programmes MDP’s.
Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management
Every year around the middle of June, a set of around 40-45 students from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds walks into the IIFM premises carrying aspirations of becoming competent professionals who would meet the managerial requirements of the corporate and development sectors at the end of the next 21 months of the PGDFM course here.
Admissions to PGDFM:
How to prepare for the entrance exam?
The final year of a Bachelor’s degree in the life of any Indian student is the time to decide the destination and the right road to reach there. It happened with me too. I was pursuing my Bachelor’s from University of Lucknow when I decided that I had to go for a career in management. Looking back, I realize that management for me at that time only meant big multinationals and fat salaries. However, as the final year of graduation came to its middle, we (me and a whole lot of my friends preparing for management) came to know that there was something called the ‘sectoral management institutes’.
My interest was slightly aroused when I first heard of IIFM since I was already associated with a monthly environment and health investigative journal. A little more curiosity led me to access the IIFM website ( http://www.iifm.ac.in/ ) and there I discovered a whole new world….a world which offers enough challenges, excitement and novelty, unknown to many a ‘MBA aspirants’.
Many such aspirants are not aware of the opportunities which lie untapped in the sector that we call ‘Development’. Even I would have missed it, had it not been the information provided by the correspondence courses which are greatly instrumental in one’s success in the entrance exams. I found the correspondence course provided by Institute of Management Studies ( http://www.imsindia.com ) sufficient to be able to crack CAT. I also took coaching from another coaching institute in Lucknow (which I did so as to be in regular interaction with other such aspirants like me and to know how they were preparing for the waterloo!!). I also referred to certain other useful books for building up a base like a vocabulary books by Norman Lewis and Wilfred Funk and a couple of books on reasoning. Some books that I particularly remember are ‘All about Words’, M. Pandey’s book on verbal reasoning and ‘Trachtenberg system of Arithmetic’ which gives many ways to make mathematical calculations faster.
The students go through enough rigour to be able to become PGDFM students. They undergo many months of preparation to appear for the highly competitive Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by one of the Indian Institutes of Management which is taken by over a lakh students every year. Those who wish to join this institution also fill up another form which can be obtained by the admission cell in IIFM so that their CAT scores can be considered by IIFM as well for admission to PGDFM programme. The announcement for admissions is generally made in the month of August in the leading national newspapers and the IIFM website ( http://www.iifm.ac.in/ ).
The CAT exam is usually held in the month of December in all major cities of India.
CAT is generally considered to be an extremely tough exam by the aspirants. I think more than the toughness it is the shortage of time and its demand for application of all reasoning and logic that a candidate has, in a span of two hours that makes it appear so. There is never a set pattern to predict the expected trend in the next CAT. In case of CAT I actually enjoyed the preparation. I remember solving five test papers of IMS (that’s 2*5 hours) every day in the last 15 days before CAT, apart from review of mistakes. It was almost addictive. There were various sections in this paper like Reading & Comprehension, Reasoning with Mathematics, Quantitative techniques etc. However, as I have mentioned earlier, absolutely nothing is predictable about this paper.
How to prepare for the interview?
Once the CAT scores reach IIFM, the candidates who are able to achieve the required level of score in each section of CAT are shortlisted and called for Group discussion and Personal interview at the IIFM campus itself. These are conducted in the month of May. It is advisable to keep a parallel preparation for the personal interview and Group discussion as well along with the preparation for the written exam. One just has to keep abreast of the latest in the world in general and Environment in particular. I remember having occasional GDs with my friends on numerous topics.
The interview at IIFM was the first feel of warmth at this place. The pre-interview anxiety in the morning made me believe that I was not feeling well. Unexpectedly, the panel tried to make me as comfortable as possible by asking if I needed a doctor or any medicine. It was different that by the end of the interview I was feeling so light and fresh that I actually stayed behind till the all the others who had their interviews on the same day got over with theirs to cheer them by describing how nice the panel was! I was mostly asked questions related to my subjects in graduation and certain other questions relating issues such as media projection of poverty in India which I now realize were meant to judge my attitude towards the sector to which IIFM caters. The group discussion had varied topics for different groups for e.g. my group got the topic ‘WTO and India’.
Everyone gets a chance to speak atleast once. Noise makers are appreciated neither by the panel nor by the fellow candidates participating in the discussion. Attentiveness and polite presentation are the secrets to success here.
So, finally the ones who manage to pass through all the above mentioned filters are invited to join the IIFM community….nah….I should call it the IIFM family. It’s a fraternity that warmly embraced us when we first collected here as a new PGDFM batch. Most of us had vaguely heard the words ‘Forest Management’ and ‘Development Sector’ but did not have a clue as to what exactly will we be doing once we pass out of this place. Thanks to our faculty and our alumni we soon settled down into the beautiful surroundings and understood the nature of tasks that we’ll be required to do as PFM graduates. It was only too pleasant to receive numerous emails from the alumni welcoming us to into this fraternity’s fold, telling us which books to refer to, which place in the city to check out for fun etc…those who were in the city itself came down to treat us with ice creams and coke and shared their experiences in the field!!
In addition to Indian students, there are students from SAARC countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh who add to the cultural diversity of every PFM batch.
(For more information please visit http://www.iifm.ac.in/ )
Shikha Kalra, a member of our network and a Alumni of Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal is now studying at Harvard Business School , USA
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