The Scholars' Avenue

We caught up with the current VP Gymkhana to see how far he had come with his proposals and we got that and and a lot, lot more. Here are some of the highlights on the interesting developments going on on campus.

Initial Proposals
1. Alternative careers group: There has been considerable progress in the following two areas:
a) Finance Cell: A student body responsible for spreading awareness of career avenues in finance (CFA etc) has seen been set up in the campus.
b) Communiqué Expansion: Communiqué has expanded its scope substantially to include preparation techniques, vital tips and requisite information for cracking less yearned examinations like CFA and FRM..

2. Placement Scenario

a) Department Representatives: Student representatives have already been appointed by the department T&P in charge to do basic research on companies that could come for placements. However, they will currently not be allowed to contact the companies directly but will rather have to hand over their research results and relevant information to the placement committee for further processes.

b) Final Year Placements:

Better, extensive and in depth information of the records of students being collected. This is expected to be of great help for students who are interested in PSUs as they are particularly interested in this kind of data.
Profile Pages for each student under the IIT KGP domain being set up.
There are plans to conduct mock test sessions in October.
For the first time, PG students have been made part of the placement committee and the step has been quite successful.

3. Infrastructure for Societies

An earlier plan to utilize the CTS building had to be shelved as the place was taken up by the counseling cell. Currently, search for appropriate location is going on.

4. Tie-up with Big Bazaar

This initiative is primarily for expediting home delivery of merchandise at discounted prices via tele-shopping. However, this is not of very high priority and is not expected any time soon.

5. Sponsored Industrial B.Tech and M.Tech projects for students

The entire project has been scrapped after being declared unviable.

6. Gymkhana website
Gymkhana website slated for a massive overhaul. It will be made more interactive with polls, GC updates, online forms and lots more.

7. Counseling Center

Mental health professional has already been hired. The plan is to train student coordinators to spot potentially suicidal students and later train them into student counselors.

8. DELL Laptop chaos rectification: After extensive negotiations, DELL has finally agreed to come to Kharagpur and host a ‘service camp’ where they will offer laptop service at much cheaper rates.

9. Institutional Foreign exchange Deal: The initial plan is to facilitate and promote exchange programs in order increase exposure and interaction as well as a provision for students to go abroad at lower rates.

11. SPICMACAY

KGP chapter revived after a long gap and hence the organization of the Pt. Hariprasad concert

12. Netaji Auditorium Sound System: Set to receive a major revamp.

13. Institute ERP System: This is expected to be up by the middle of the spring semester. Student relevant modules have been proposed including an extensive hall specific module. However, this is still in the initial stage and it requires extensive data collection and is not expected soon. Also proposed are a Library module, a Gymkhana module and modules for specific societies. This project is separate from the Combo Card project which has run into rough waters. It’s at a stand-still at the moment primarily because of some negligence on the administration’s part