Things college Management should know – An open letter to a college director

Dear Sir,

Hope you and your family are doing good and are safe amidst this COVID19 pandemic situation.

Sir, it’s been long that I have written to you, and this time I am up with an extremely different topic to share with you – COVID19 and its Impact on Students. This COVID19 has created a jinxed pandemic situation worldwide, not only for the human living but also for sectors like manufacturing, export & import, tourism, education, entertainment, healthcare, policing, etc. Amidst all this, we have witnessed a loss of GDP, human lives, mental health, savings, globalization, and employment. According to a survey of CMIE, there has been a tumble of the Indian unemployment rate from 7.22% (January 2020) to  23.52% (April 2020). This is doleful! This disheartening situation hit the worst of the newbies because of their high aspirations and has learned and practiced a lot of entire their graduation life. They dreamed of earning a handsome salary by the end of this year, but see the irony this coronavirus played with them, by not letting their final semester exams getting over too.

Sir this pandemic came out of the blue and still pottering with any effective vaccine. A similar situation might slant back in the coming future, and again, sitting idle would not be a smart solution to it, so it is high time for us to learn and prepare ourselves with some of the imputations –

  1. Difference between Industrial needs and the training provided We Indians have an age-old practicing of doing, what is been told, that’s absolutely a good sign but should not forget about the generation’s development. As Munshi Permcahnd said – “Be rooted in your ethics and rituals and bloom in the modern world”. There would be surely a significance of old concepts, languages, tools, or methodologies, but these should be used to form the fundamental base to upcoming and emerging utilities. It is a major problem with the Indian institutes that they are are though something different or old technology which is completely different from industrial demands. That is why industry pays/invests a little more after hiring to get an organization ready workforce. If we spare some time to think about this issue and match our training with ongoing market demand, then it would be easy for students to get placed, the company to get a quality pool, and even the college to channelize the entire process.
  2. Problems when securing Internships & Placements Especially the students of 3-tier, 2 tier or small city face this problem of being deprived by the company’s job offer. This is because of the lacking skillset, non-engagement of college TPO and the company’s recruitment body, and lack of awareness. This can be bridged by providing better skillset training to the students, giving them sessions about soft skills, maintaining healthy relationships with the company, and onboarding industrial trainers and mentors. For the financially backward students, college should provide economic help in traveling, form filling, course fees, etc. Kindly do not just stick to that attendance register and those semester scores, they will be simply resting on that web portals only, and are not going anywhere with the student.
  3. Encouraging Individual Taste It should not be the case that out of a class of 100 students, 50 will opt JAVA and the rest in Oracle. NO! The entire corporate, software, and professional industry are wide which is craving for many skillsets. Let those required skillsets come from your students. Just keep in mind, where liking meets passion and work, money comes all its way automatically. So keep your students’ ears wide open with an open mind for letting in all kinds of information regarding all the sectors, salary, geographical location, and futuristic scopes. After that it is the synchronization of the student, to get that adequate amount of knowledge get synced with his or her likings and create hos or her career with individual responsibility.  Along with the students, you might get the chance to explore the unseen corners of career building.
  4. Getting the correct exposure for the budding talent You can not ask a barber to mend your shoes, similarly, you have to get on board with appropriate recruiters or institutes for a particular set of interests of your student. Otherwise, the whole nurte=ured set of talent would go wasted in vain. For example, if you have students interested in Web designing, data science, core language skillset, game designing, ML, AI, AR/VR, etc, then you have to reach the companies who are looking for similar talents and engage them with your students. Even let them know if at remote location job proceeding processes or interviews, assist them all through to reach their final destination. Feeling your high-spirit and positive vibes the student will turn optimistic too.
  5. Channelizing their interests with sound mentoring   Have a perfect set of mentors, professors, industry experts, and learning source ready from your end, then bring down a meeting with students, learn from them, what they want, what they do have with them, where are they lacking and about their researches. Then brief down the individual skills with appropriate mentor assignment and if needed hire a tutor or purchase the course, from external media. This is a way to stand with the students, guide them, learn from their end too, and making them independent of their choices and responsibilities for the future.

I am very sorry to you Sir, if I unintentionally went too far with this topic, as I wanted my junior batches to learn from current shortcomings and want their future to be secured and glittering. I strongly believe this is the case with most of the students like me, and wanted to give a thought over it, with your wisdom. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Thank You & Best Regards!

Your student