Your FYI in April – General News and Updates

The month of April saw much activity on campus, from having the FSIS sessions and elections to the rising popularity of new clubs and workspaces. Here’s a brief look into the news and updates on campus from last month.

FSIS 

The FSIS (Faculty-Student Interaction Session), usually a semester-end event, was held offline for the first time after two years in the last week of March 2022 for all the batches. FSIS is the forum where students raise their concerns about their academics and college experience, and this year also continued the same tradition.

This session was new for UG1, where they experienced their first face-to-face meeting with the director PJN and their respective faculty. Termed as “Welcome Session for UG-1”, students met their professors for the first time in an informal setting. As the newest on campus, their queries mostly spanned their hostel and mess blues and requests for improving the same.

UG2 and UG3 had a joint session this year, and the students had quite a bit to say. Some slightly experienced and some at the beginning of their research journey, the dual degree students had many concerns to raise about the process of choosing their labs. They faced difficulties regarding schedule clashing and the irrelevance of the summer workshops to their actual research work. Many also expressed issues with the excessive number of compulsory courses in branches like CND and the various faults in the system of electives in general.

Another central point of discussion was the course feedback system. Changes were suggested to improve the current process and some new ideas were put forward as well, but the response from the authorities’ side wasn’t as convincing.

The outgoing batch of this year, UG4, was also the first batch with UGEE students. Much was talked about by the director about the milestones of this batch and their overall achievements. However, the students had their woes about most of their college life being spent over MS Teams. Poor HSME course allocation and challenging requirements was also an issue they wanted to resolve. Other questions spanned over the lack of co-ed spaces on campus, bizarre timings for sports credits, and how campus dogs have higher attendance than most students in IIIT.

Thus, this year’s sessions held the challenge of being the vent forum for almost two years worth of issues. Students are hoping this is a start to holding these sessions more regularly.

Elections

The Student Parliament elections for the year 2022-23 were held on April 6th, 2022, inclusive of all eligible batches. The pre-election phase lasted for around a week and had candidates buzzing with their manifestos, especially those of UG1, it being their first election. Social media and on-campus networking were some of the mediums used for the campaigns, with some candidates teaming up unofficially.

On the day of the election, students gathered in H105, batch by batch, to listen to speeches made by the candidates before the votes were cast. There were promises made to meet tall demands, each candidate trying their level best to prove their capabilities, and even some verbal conflicts wherein the EC had to step in to mediate.

Then the voting process ensued. As the students had to log into CAS on PCs provided by the EC, this was met with alarming questions about privacy issues. With certain plugins or software installed, there could have easily been a mass security breach. Since then, there has been questioning about the need for CAS verification for offline voting and if it could have been conducted in a safer way. 

Despite the voting fiasco, the voter turnout this year was high for other batches but relatively lower for UG3. (UG1 with 80.4%, UG2 with 74.9%, UG3 with a lower 42.2%, and PG1 with 78.9%.) Post the General elections, the parliament held their internal voting to appoint the General Secretary and the Speaker for this year, Mr. Pradeep Kumar Pal and Mr. Thatipamula Harshavardhan, respectively. 

 Workspaces

Felicity came to an end, and students were thrown back once again into their busy schedules. However, the four new workspaces in Vindhya A6 came to facilitate this. Studying, for some, now equates to long hours in the breezy AC, spacious rooms, comfy chairs, and unlimited VC snacks! 

Upon entering A6, a student who is perhaps more aware than others would turn left and check out the first workspace. Equipped with multiple individual desk spaces, it provides a quiet atmosphere, allowing students to focus.

If you cross the library and go straight into the two connected ground floor spaces, one comes across a lively enclosure filled with collaboration spots. Other highlights are cushioned seats, easy access plug points, and the high demand for “Silent Rooms”. These rooms were an exciting and unexpected addition, soundproof with blurred glass walls, useful for student conferences and maybe even some leisure time! The last new workspace lies on the first floor, conveniently in front of the stationery shop. Like the ground floor spaces, this also has its own silent room.

Compared to the old workspaces, the new ones are cleaner, versatile, and more comfortable. They are open 24/7 and also a great place to meet people. Because of their rising popularity, a drawback would be how quickly the workspaces fill up every day (snoozers are losers, quite literally). But now, with the renovation of the old workspaces in progress, we can hope that the high demand for more space is met as soon as possible!

New Clubs

Ever felt the need for a skateboarding or fashion club in college? Yes? No? Well, it doesn’t matter, ’cause they’re here! With the complete reopening of campus in March 2022, these two brand-new clubs have piqued our interest in them, so let’s see what they’ve been up to!

Skateboarding Club

Skateboarding, or what has recently been the reason for multiple broken bones on campus, started out as a hobby for a few RRC (Robotics Research Centre) members and quickly grew into an activity many people wanted to learn. Founders Kaustab Pal, Jhanvi Shingala, Swati Dantu, Amarthya Sasi Kiran Dharmala, and Rahul Sanjnani felt that they required proper trainers and equipment care; hence branched out from PEC. Aiming to create a safe environment for learning (falling) and having fun at the same time, they’re stocked with diverse skateboards and lots of safety gear. They have plans to hold tutorial sessions every week and occasionally go to skateboarding parks, and in the long run, they hope to form a professional team of IIITH students to compete and even wish to interest some professors in this sport. So far, the junior undergrad batches have shown active participation, so the club has even proposed constructing an indoor ramp on campus. You never know, this may just become our new favourite mode of on-campus transport!

Fashion Club

Shirts, hoodies, tracks, and shorts – the holy grail of most IIITians’ wardrobes. Convenient? Yes. Boring? Maybe. But why would we step out of our comfort zone for ‘apparently’ no reason? The Fashion Club to-be coordinators Pratishtha Abrol, Ivin Kuriakose, Yash Motwani, and Apoorva Tirupathi say it could bring some vibrancy to the campus. The club majorly sees itself as a free place for creative expression with no prior skills required. Owing to less practice time for events, they hope for more participation from the busy bees on campus. They plan to conduct tutorial sessions,comic-con dress-up days, costumes-from-scrap events, and engaging fresher activities to allow students to participate with no inhibitions and build their confidence. Founded by an LE member, they also have a team from UG2 in place. In the future, they plan to get involved in Freshers and Cult Night, hold their flagship ramp walk during Felicity as they did this year, and host frequent discussions (definitely not fashion roasts) and conventions. So now, if you see a bunch of berets or neon pants on campus, you know who to thank… or blame!

Along with the events mentioned here, this month was also packed with cultural performances and other happenings. Interested in some more IIITH “tea”?
Read the following to find out.
https://pingiiit.org/2022/05/apex-events/
https://pingiiit.org/2022/05/event-overflow-april-22/

Editor: Pahulpreet Singh