“DISHA” MISSION ACCOMPLISED

When SPANDAN decided to conduct DISHA- A Pre-placement Workshop we had two clear objectives in our mind.

1. To give COEP (College of Engineering Pune) students the best in class training and guidance in GD and PI and equip them with skills to face their placement process confidently.
2. To raise money from this workshop for the SPANDAN’s activities.

But when we started working on it there were many things to worry about. First of them was how to get the hall and classrooms for this workshop. Initially we were thinking to organize this workshop outside the COEP, as there were some problems to conduct it on campus. But later we drooped that plan and thanks to the support from the Director and HODs of COEP this problem was finally solved and we got permission to use institutes halls and classroom for our workshop. Due to all this we decided on schedule of the workshop just 3-4 days before the workshop dates and hence it was daunting task to reach to each and every student and to advertise for our workshop. But there was no looking back. Chintaman, SPANDAN’s chief coordinator with the help of others worked relentlessly to overcome all these problems and in just two days 80 students registered for this workshop.

DAY 01

The day started at 6.00 AM in morning. Last night it took 3.00 AM for us to catch our sleep as there were many last minute things to do. I gave final touches to the presentations and also called Tejas to confirm if he and others (Ami and Deepak) boarded their train on time. When I told them about the idea of workshop last week, these guys liked it and immediately agreed to join me conducting this workshop. I invited Ranjeet, Vinamra and Deepak just a day before the workshop and they also accepted the invitation without any hesitation. When I reached at the venue there were students eagerly waiting for the sessions to start. There were 10-15 last minute registrations, which took our tally to 93. Only thing these students know was there were 5-6 IIMA guys coming for the workshop so many of them thrilled with the idea of meeting with the best brains of country.

Its 10.00AM when I started with my first presentation on SPANDAN’s activities and workshop overview. Ranjeet was first one to join me. Later Tejas, Ami, Radhika and Deepak who traveled all the way from Mumbai and Vinamra joined us. When I introduced these guys to students everyone got shocked to see they have in front of them someone who scored 99.999 in CAT and someone who had strike rate of 6 out of 6 IIM call conversion. This assured them the best investment of their time next two days.

The next 3 hours we all conducted a sessions on GD and PI and covered all nitty-gritty’s of the GD and PI. This session was interactive and we cleared all possible doubts the first timers can have. COEP students made best use of this opportunity and hadn’t missed a single chance to interact with the faculty. They also caught hold of us in break and asked n number of questions on CAT. All of us were always ready to help them and even agreed to conduct a separated session on CAT if time permits us to do so. After the lunch break we started with MOCK GD. This session was planned to give the real experience to students. We divided them into group of three and two of us moderated their GDs. We analyzed groups and individual performance and gave them feedback for further improvements. All this continued till 6.00 PM and we concluded our day 01.

DAY 02

It was time for the some more hard work for us. There were 93 PI to be taken and we were only 6. Ami went back to Mumbai and Dhyanesh joined us as replacement. When Vinamara told he would not make up today, the task became more difficult for us as we were only 5 and per head need to take more than 18 interviews in single day. We decided not to compromise on quality and fixed on 20 mins of PI and 10 mins of feedback for each student. We started at 9.00 AM in morning and continued till 7.00 PM to finish all our interviews. It was really great experience for the students and us also. We interviewed students from the various braches of engineering and guide them how they can improve further.

All of us were totally languished with non-stop schedule since morning. But there is one more promise to keep and that was a session on CAT. It was 7.30 PM I decided to conduct this session and ask other guys to finish their remaining interviews. The session continued till 8.30 PM and with that we concluded this two days workshop. It took 1.00 AM for Mumbai junta to return back to their home but they were not complaining but rather delighted with the joy of helping others.

Accomplishments

1.The most significant achievement of this workshop was the way students of COEP got benefited from it. Here is the snapshot of how these students rated this workshop, which I got from the feedback form they filled.

Below are some of the actual feedbacks we received from the students of COEP

“It was very interactive, personal attention was also provided. Basically it cleared quite a few misconceptions too. The speakers were just excellent. “
Neha Gandhi TE Comp Science

“The workshop was really good and it had honed up my GD and PI skills. The panel was best. Personal attention we got was good”
Subhod Chaudhari TE Production.

“Its really very very good. It really helped me a lot. It helped me to know the Do’s and Don’ts of GD and how to face PI.”
Hemant Joshi TE IT

“ It was a nice experience to interact with people who guided a lot, shared their experiences. Experiencing the GD and PI before the actual placements was the best thing of this workshop.
Milind Patil TE E&TC

“ The workshop was good and very useful in all the respects. Here our inabilities, lack of soft skills are scanned especially in mock GD and PI. The interviewers were excellent and words are less for appreciating their qualities.
Doshi Sonam TE Mechanical.

“ Workshop was very much well managed. It increased our confidence for facing GD and PI. Also it helped me to improve my personality.
Mahant S TE Mechanical

“ The overall workshop was good. It definitely added some value in our personality, certain doubts also got cleared and GD/PI phobia got reduced in some extent. It proved really useful.
Sagar Gangarde TE Mechanical

“ It was a interesting event. I got lot of important tips that will really help me in actual GD/PI”
Ankit Ambekar TE Production.

“Most special thing of this workshop was it was interactive and one to one unlike other presentations. I benefited tremendously."
Radhika Jagtap TE E&TC

“It was very well organized and the interaction with various IIM students really help to boost our confidence.
Neha Parashar TE Civil.

2.Though the workshop was conducted for the fund generation for SPANDAN’s activity, in the two days of this workshop it took back seat and all of us were working to give best value to students for their money. Below are the figures on what we achieved on the monetary target.

Money earned from fees: 92*150 + 50 = 13850
Overall Expenditure : 2540
Fund Generated : 11310

3. When we decided the conduct this workshop all of us thought it will be just a normal Gyan session but at the end of it we realized we also got a lot from this workshop. We come across various students in these two days and interacting with them was a great learning experience for us. And yes a noble cause of helping others and indirectly to SPANDAN gave us really great feeling.

Kindly visit HERE to view the snaps of this event.