Academics and Career Council

Recently, a new council was formulated and incorporated in the Student’s Gymkhana, the “Academic and Career Council.” The formation of this Council is one of the notable steps the Students’ Gymkhana has taken during this tenure. This was not the first time when a proposal for a council related to academics had come, discussions were in progress for a long time. Both academics and other career opportunities are important prospects to the campus community, the incorporation of these in the form of a dedicated council can be understood.

As stated in the AnC Council’s proposal of formation “Various models for Academics and related affairs have been tried by the Gymkhana in the past years but none of them have proved effective, in the long term”. The formation of Academics and Career Cell, which is now in its 3rd year since formation, was one such initiative which too was not very effective because of its low reach among the students and ambiguous distribution of responsibility among the cell members. The proposal for the AnC Council mentioned that “Cells themselves are relatively new entities and their powers are highly ambiguous in many scenarios. The Overall Coordinators not being elected representatives face several issues while working with various institute authorities and often end up routing them through the President or Chairperson, Students’ Senate. Similarly, although they are expected to work with the student nominees to DUGCs, SUGCs and other academic subcommittees, their control over them is ambiguous.” For the formulation and execution of long term objectives, the need for a more centralized body can be understood.

The structure of the council as proposed in the Senate. The council will be headed by 2 Executives, a UG Secretary and a PG secretary for the respective communities. There will be five major wings under it namely,

1. UG academics
2. PG academics
3. Research
4. International Relations
5. Placement Preparation.

The President Student’s Gymkhana, Chairperson (Students’ Senate) and Nominees from Institute academic committees – including the Senate level (SUGC, SPGC, SCDMC, SEPC) as well as the Dept. level (DUGC, DPGC) subcommittees will also be a part of the council.

Formation of a council with the focus on Career awareness and development of students intends to achieve an improvement in this regard. It aims to bring all aspects of the career needs of the students under one umbrella. Along with this, the council would overlook the functioning of the Career Development Cell, which in its present state, as stated in the proposal, “Has largely been dormant apart from a few individualistic efforts which were observed with some support of the existing bodies”.

Career aspect of AnC Council and integration of SPO with the Council:

It has been observed that while preparing for internships and placements, students generally face two crucial issues: unawareness of career avenues and lack of interpersonal and soft skills. Or more generally there are three major issues that will be targeted:

1. Career Awareness
2. Career Development/ Training
3. Career Opportunities.

Career Awareness is related to making the students aware of the various career opportunities which are available for them as per the skill sets they have. Career Development/ Training, meant to enhance the skill sets of students according to the needs and according to the career they want to get into. And lastly, Career Opportunities aimed to bring career opportunities for the students through companies, research platforms etc.

With this idea of collaborating all the three aspects of career, Mr. Pratyush Rai, President Students’ Gymkhana came up with a proposal in the 5th Students’ Senate Meeting (Special) for integration of SPO under the ambit of Student’s Gymkhana. The proposal is to bring SPO and Academic and Career Council together in a collaboration. The motivation behind this collaboration is to initiate a dialogue between the Gymkhana and the SPO. Mr. Pratyush Rai mentioned, “SPO handles the career opportunities aspect. Since all three aspects of a career are interconnected, they need to collaborate in terms of organization of career development activities and the conduction of the core placements. This collaboration will increase the accountability of SPO ( A body which currently works independently of Students’ Gymkhana) to the students and create avenues for the general body for communication of their concerns in a direct and transparent manner.”

The work horizon of the council is very wide and diverse. Thus in its initial phase, improvements and changes can be expected. Some ideas still in discussions include Industrial Collaboration, Preparatory Support for UPSC aspirants, Career Mentorship Programme etc.

As its first secretaries, Mr. Rahul Sethi (U.G. Secretary) and Mr. Arun Kumar (P.G. Secretary) have a great responsibility marching forward as their efforts will pave the way for the future of this Council. The formation of the council seems to be a step in the right direction, but still, it has a long way to go. It is hoped that this integration will catalyze the placement drive, improve the preparations of students and provide better career opportunities to the campus community.

The article has been adapted from the proposal of formation of the AnC Council which was passed by the Student’s Senate in the 5th (Special) Students’ Senate Meeting.

The proposal can be found here: link

Credits: Abhishek Agarwal and Smarth Gupta