Dietician

Query received from a student:
How does one become a dietician? What are the career opportunities in this field?
Priya (Allahabad)

Reply from out FutureMap counsellor:
Dear Priya,

To become dietician, it is easier to pursue post graduation course as with a few expectations, dietetics is studied only after a bachelor’s degree in any one of the following disciplines: home science, medicine, science (with chemistry, microbiology), hotel management and catering. Some universities offer postgraduate diploma courses in dietetics. Subjects taught in dietetics include chemistry, physics, nutrition and physiology. Dietician may be taken up as a specialization in home science at the Master’s degree level in many universities in the country. Delhi university, university of Mumbai / Madras also offer nutrition / health and nutrition as subjects at bachelor’s degree level. Dietician finds jobs in hotels, hospitals, in the processed food industry, and in teaching. The most lucrative prospects are in the field of private enterprise keeping in view the present trend for health food. Residential schools, Railways, and airlines also employ dieticians to run and / or supervise their catering services and look after their nutritional needs.

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Are you Servicing material?

You should be:

–A good orator and have excellent command over written and spoken English.
–Good at marketing skills, have a keen business acumen and administrative ability. Prompt decision-making ability is an advantage.
–A people’s person: Someone who enjoys talking to people. You must be patient, as sometimes an overdose of work can get you worked up, and that will affect your performance. So it’s important that you keep your cool.
–Highly motivated: You need to have tremendous willpower to stay in this kind of a job, to fight off the lethargy that sets in when you attend to calls at 3 a.m. Likewise, you need to avoid feeling frustrated when you haven’t got a single call the entire day.
–A team player: Even though you are servicing individuals, this career demands a lot of teamwork. Your attitude and work ethics affect your teammates.
– Organized or you’ll end up in a situation where your boss urgently asks for some important papers and you won’t even know where to search for them.

You should not be:

–Irregular at work.
–Haphazard in your work. You need to systematically capture details of your customer’s requirements and
also manage your work space effectively so that you don’t
waste time.
–Lethargic. You need to keep refining your skills. For example; If you don’t know how to use a software, you need to start learning it.

Hotel Management

The following query was received from a student:

Which are the good Hotel Management institutes in India and what is the admission procedure? I like cooking and can cook well. What are the career prospects as a Chef?

Rupesh (Mumbai)

Reply by our FutureMap counsellor:

Dear Rupesh,
Wish to be a chef, quite challenging and interesting career. The National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology (NCHMCT) centrally regulates academics for Hospitality Management through structured courses of studies that are imparted at the Government-sponsored 24 Institutes of Hotel Management and 8 Food Craft Institutes located in different parts of the country. The eligibility to enter the course in hotel management is Class 12. You need to write an entrance test consisting of English, Reasoning, General Science and General Knowledge. The test is of 2-hour duration and is held around April every year. The test is followed by a group discussion and interview, in which a person’s personality and confidence is seen. You can also join certificate or diploma course after X and also after graduation.
Apart from this you can also try The Taj Group’s Institute of Hotel Management at Aurangabad, Oberoi School of Hotel Management in New Delhi, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration in Manipal
One can find job in hotels / restaurants, air catering, railway catering, army catering, food processing companies, confectioneries, theme restaurants, malls, base kitchens, private hospitals like Apollo or Max, cruise liners, corporate catering, etc, One can also become food write or join teaching. And, of course, one can become an entrepreneur by setting up one’s own business. With Indian food becoming a craze over seas, the demand for Indian chefs is fast on the rise.