January 23, 2016 was a special day at IIT KGP, as close to a hundred students from four prestigious Kolkata schools were hosted on campus, in a tour organized by the Office of Alumni Affairs and International Relations at the Institute.
95 students of Classes 9 and 10 from the Asian International School Howrah, Delhi Public School Megacity, M.P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School and The Heritage School, visited the campus along with eight teachers and mentors.
The contingent was led by Mr Rajiv Agarwal, 2008 alumnus of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at KGP and currently co-founder and CEO of Edudigm Education Services Pvt. Ltd. KGP student members of the Alumni Cell and the Branding and Relations Cell accompanied the students during the day-long tour which gave them a feel of the facilities, infrastructure and campus life at the Institute.
The tour
The day began with a tour of the Central Library, one of the largest and finest technical libraries in Asia. After a half-hour stop at the library, the group was escorted to the old building of the Institute and the seat of genesis of the IIT education system in the country, which now houses the Nehru Museum of Science and Technology.
The walk from the library to the museum was filled with the enthusiastic, chattering voices of the school students as they took in the settings and ambience of the departments, research centres and schools amidst lush greenery and colourful flora.
At the museum, Professor Dhrubajyoti Sen, Chairman of the Nehru Museum, explained the historical significance of the KGP campus to the students, and its legacy as a pre-Independence detention centre for freedom fighters. The students enjoyed the freewheeling exploration of the Science Museum as well as the museum premises with its prison cells and other exhibits.
Mr. Rajorshi, Physics Teacher at the DPS Megacity, was especially impressed by the way in which Mathematics was explained with the help of models in the Nehru Museum. He said, “It was unique and something that the students would not find in Science City or BITM, back in Kolkata.”
After lunch at the Sahara restaurant on campus, the team was led to the arena of the ongoing Kshitij fest on campus. It was an exciting time for the students as they caught glimpses of Asia’s largest techno-management festival. They attended presentations at the Digital India: India Innovates Summit and also caught snatches of the different competitions and events being hosted at the Vikramshila Complex. The RoboWars platform appeared to catch their fancy the most, probably providing the “tech flavour” that they had been looking for.
Takeaways
The Office of Alumni Affairs has been organising such trips for several years now under its Institutional Development programme. Speaking to members of the Branding and Relations Cell, Mr Agarwal, who has been coordinating and leading the teams, said, “I am keen on these visits because the students get extremely motivated by seeing the entire campus and they study with an extra zeal. I am hoping it can be arranged for a longer time in the future, wherein students can visit different departments and laboratories”.
Teachers from the schools too affirmed what he had to say. According to Mrs Oli Ganguly, Mathematics Teacher at DPS Megacity, “Students 'land up' in engineering these days rather than 'choose' the discipline. Visits like these illuminate career paths for 9th and 10th standard students and help them to be more conscious. They are able to overcome aimlessness and that gives them an early start in preparations for the Higher Secondary and subsequent education.”
Kumaresh Maji, a student from DPS Megacity said “It was an inspirational and awesome visit. After this visit, I am now torn between Astrophysics or Computer Science as a career choice.”
Poulomi Mukherjee and Avimanyu Roy from M.P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School were fascinated by the experiments on Newton’s laws and electromagnetics on display at the Nehru Museum. While a degree in medicine (MBBS) is their first priority, this visit has opened their eyes to the scope of biotechnology and genetic engineering here and will motivate them to consider these fields as a second choice.
Going by the enthusiasm and positive energy that it has generated among the students and their mentors, visits such as these will indeed go a long way in inspiring such bright young minds and channeling their efforts in the right direction at an early age.
(A report by Debanjan Nayak and Hrishabh Narayan of the Branding and Relations Cell, IIT KGP)