Denzil Celestine Dcosta is a dynamic faculty member, teaching in the Hospitality field for the last 11 years. He is a skilled Chef in food and beverage production. He is the BOE Member for the Department of Hospitality Science at Milagres College, Mangalore. His interest in Hospitality Science led him to serve as a Lecturer at Milagres College. Under his guidance, various events have been organized by the Hospitality Science Department of Mangalore. 

Milagres College Mangalore

What are your roles and responsibilities towards the students?

“To provide students with the practical and theoretical knowledge”

Majorly what I feel, my responsibility to a student is to impart knowledge. What we have attained through our education and also not only theoretical knowledge, teaches them something extra from what we can give. It is from our practical knowledge, from our industrial knowledge, that we can give them extra to make them employable person.

How do you tend to establish healthy relations with the students and fellow faculty? 

“Healthy Relations are established by being clean and clear”

Healthy relation is when one is clean and clear. That is whether positive or negative. It's not to be hidden and kept. It should be clearly informed. Whatever is there, take it on the spot, not talk behind the back. That is one thing that I trust in. Secondly, I believe that one should be a teacher/Mentor, when you are a teacher and be a friend when you need to be a friend. That is another thing I believe in is that in the class you need to be a professional. As a teacher, you should respect your profession, but outside you should know your limits as a teacher, and also be a friend to them. 

How do you try to bring a practical approach to the curriculum?

“Providing students with industry-oriented sessions, workshops, and webinars”

During our tenure, especially as a hotel management lecturer, what we feel is that let's say we have theory classes going on, we want to get into the things that are there of practical use. Let, let's take an example of an egg. We actually get an egg; we break it open there and we show it practically what is going on. And we tend to use a lot of videos of that particular subject so that the students will get in, not just by hearing but also through Visual Aid. 

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What are the best practices offered by the department to the students? 

“Department organizes various programs for the students where they can learn practically”

We are having a lot of programs where students can learn a lot practically by having these sort of, food festivals, team dinners, where we are having on the June 14th, we are having a team dinner very shortly. Another thing is we have a separate scheme called as earn while you learn scheme. Where a group of students forms a team, and they prepare some food in the morning and sell it in the afternoon. Part of the profit goes to the students themselves. So, we have a small bakery set up named MC delight in the college where the students get this opportunity to prepare the food and sell it to the other students or even outsiders for that matter. 

How do you strategize and update the curriculum to make it befitting for the students? 

“Curriculum is updated by converting the credit-based system to choice-based system”

As per my information, our curriculum was in the credit-based scheme and then it was shifted to a choice-based scheme. And now it's the new education policy where in a lot of inputs are put in like to our hotel management, a lot of new topics and new subjects are being added such as food photography, which was not there in the traditional curriculum. And now these new things that are there in the market, like molecular gastronomy, use of chemicals, and food use of Liquid nitrogen, are also being implemented and taught to the students. Even if we are not practical, we are teaching this theoretically and we can get some samples for practical purposes. We are trying to do that in this new education policy that is coming up. 

What are your views on higher education about the students from your department?

“Department provide students with full-fledged training to prepare for the higher studies”

Now, the students are taking degree courses and in the new education policy, the degree courses are going to be for four years. The fourth year is going to be honors. They can leave with the degree after the three-year span also, but if they finish their honors, they get an advantage that they can do their masters within, within a year. And secondly, the other thing is our total hotel management department doesn't need masters. If they finish their degree properly, getting a job will be very easy because presently we have companies, many companies asking us for employees. Just recently, I got a call from, Madhya Pradesh, an HR manager called me and told me that he needs at least 20 students immediately. So overall the market is improving after covid-19 and so are the job opportunities.

How do you help your institute cope with the competition?

“My Institute keeps itself updated with the time, especially in the laboratory part”

Competition is very high. In Mangalore itself, there are around 10 to 15 Hotel Management Colleges. What we stand out for our labs. When we teach practically, we make sure that our students are fully equipped with the practical knowledge that they require and what is actually required in the industry. We have a subject as food production under which I teach cooking. Some of the colleges do what they do is they just demonstrate. They don't go to let the students do it practically, but in our case, we don't demonstrate, what we do is that we give them the menu, prepare them with the menu and tell them to do it. It is exactly like how it happens in this industry. There's no one to teach you. They do it. Then they come out with the product and then we judge them on the product. We tell them what is wrong with the product and correct them. So, they're practically skilled. Spoon-feeding them is not going to do a lot, so we basically prefer practical knowledge over theoretical knowledge.

Do you have any extracurricular activities to enhance the skills of the student?

“Institute provide Students with extracurricular programs to expose them to the real-world challenges”

We have extracurricular activities like food festivals, team dinners, and Avishkar (Fest) and these are all events where students learn practical knowledge and practice it. And also, we have something called Navara where we induct students from outside to participate in our college and learn more.

What are the challenges you faced to uplift the quality of education of your department?

“University Syllabus was the biggest challenge”

The main challenge we face is the university syllabus, which is very constrained and limited which makes it quite difficult to work through. It makes us put extra effort in order to train our students. 

What are the approaches you bring in apart from the curriculum to teach the students?

“Provide students with the concept of Hospitality Science for developing their thoughts”

We call in hospitality professionals to meet our students to speak to them and to give their knowledge of what they have attained through the areas of experience and give them more practical experience. By doing so we make sure that our students are Industry Ready. 

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What do you see as the department’s greatest strengths?

“Fully Equipped labs are the greatest strength of our department”

We have fully equipped labs. And then, we are planning to start a new bakery lab on the fifth floor and also a modern kitchen with the latest equipment and state-of-the-art infrastructure. This helps our students be better prepared once they have completed the course. 

Any valuable advice would you like to give the students for them to have a prosperous career ahead?

“Students should concentrate and be goal-oriented”

what I would concentrate on is what you want to do first and then continue it with a strong mindset because I feel that is really important. If a person is goal-oriented, it is easier for them to be successful and have a prosperous career ahead.