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Education Plus
Lessons from student culturals
MEERA SRINIVASAN
PRISCILLA JEBARAJ
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College festivals are truly the training ground where future scientists and managers collaborate to share perspectives and develop new skills.
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Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
Aiming high: Students at an aeromodelling session during Kurukshetra’ 08 at Anna University, in Chennai.
Eavesdropping on conversations at the Anna University student canteen last week was an interesting exercise. “I told you the angle should have been smaller… If we hadn’t added that piece, we would have got a higher lift…That was a great way to ensure balance, but they lost out on efficient energy usage.” The snatches of excited scientific conversations flavour the vegetable pulav that is being served at the end of another hectic day at Kuruksh
etra 2008, the university’s inter-collegiate technical festival.
Listening to his students dissect their performance, one professor ruefully remarked that he wished they showed such interest in the classroom.
“There is so much that we can learn only by trying it out,” said Divya, a III-year civil engineering student who helped organise MegaStruct, a contest putting civil engineering principles to the test. Her professor agreed. “We cannot teach everything in our practical classes. This kind of event will help them handle real situations when they get a job.”
It is not just the technical experience that will come in handy in future life. Sivesh Selvakumar is a mechanical engineering student who took part in competitions at last year’s Kurukshetra, but has changed roles to become an organiser this time round.
“Taking part was more fun, but in spite of the tension, I have learnt more this time. How to work together in a team, handle money, deal with the real mechanical world away from the classroom… I had never visited a scrap yard before this festival,” he said.
Saarang
The same lessons are being learnt just across the road, in the Indian Institute of Technology, where the biggest collegiate cultural festival in south India is being organised entirely by the student community.
The whole campus is in a festive mode and it is the possibility of active involvement that makes the event special, say students. Being part of a decision-making process and later, being able to execute it in a style that suits them best, not only makes the effort their own, but also boosts their self-esteem significantly. “Each one has a role and is expected to perform it well ,” said a student.
Alumni confirm that the experience comes in handy at the workplace. “You get to learn a great deal about team work, how to behave in an environment outside college and about interacting with people in the industry,” said Manogna Navin, a member of the core organising committee of ‘Saarang 2006’, who is now working for Lehman Brothers.
S. Shivashankar, a former cultural secretary of IIT-Madras, noted that the opportunity to interact with professionals and colleagues makes the experience significant.
“These events offer several lessons in time and crisis management. You learn to be a team player, leader... and also learn to strike a balance between academics and extra-curricular activities,” says the young professional, now working with KPMG.
Even when companies recruit, they look for well-rounded personalities, alumni observe. Kurukshetra’s student director K. Senthil is already realising this fact, with several sponsors making him job offers purely on the basis of his organisational skills displayed during the event.
“They are very impressed that we can manage Rs. 40 lakh in funding and over 350 volunteers to pull off an event like this,” he said. Despite the flattering offers, the final-year electronic media student is more interested in higher studies.“
Universities abroad look for more than your grades… they want to see evidence of initiative and creativity,” agreed Hephzibah Thampi, final-year Anna University student.
In preparation for her applications to top institutions such as MIT and Caltech, she ensured that she was involved in such extra-curricular activities right from her first year. The results are now paying off.
Sethu Chidambaram, who now works as a software engineer with Infosys, was a student director in charge of marketing and media for the inaugural Kurukshetra. “First of all, we had to convince faculty and management that we needed such an event. And then to create an event of such magnitude, starting from just a basic idea and then sell that idea to corporate sponsors was a great learning experience,” he remembered. Not only did the experience give him confidence for job interviews, he hoped that it would give him a headstart when he branched off into the management field.
As engineering colleges and recruiters plan the “soft skills” training and “practical experience” needed for education to match employer’s needs, they would do well to consider the valuable expertise gained through technical and cultural festivals such as Kurukshetra and Saarang.
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