“I didn’t realize how big BSW is. When I applied I didn’t realize I'd be talking to so many people. BSW is a huge team that works not only for freshers, but for all of the IITD community.”
There is open communication amongst the members of BSW. Feedback is promptly taken into consideration. Furthermore, there is complete freedom to suggest ideas and initiatives. However, only very well thought out ideas are usually accepted and other ideas, though discussed, are not given much attention. Most importantly, everyone is very willing to work at BSW. The requests for volunteers are answered within seconds. The quality of work and dedication does vary a bit from rep to rep but is always satisfactory. The reps are allocated points for every task they do and the points table is visible for all to see. This incentivizes everyone to work diligently. The workload under different verticals varies across the tenure. For example, mentorship becomes important once the freshers join in. The reps work on a voluntary basis. However, it is ensured that people who miss out on volunteering for some initiatives are given preference for the next one. Hence, the workload is largely balanced across the board.
On average, board members are happy with the initiatives taken up by BSW as a whole. However, there are certainly tasks which need to be done which are cumbersome and disliked by people, such as designing posters or making teams for mentorship. People have expressed that there could be improvements in Academic and Language Mentorship. For instance, compared to last year, the number of initiatives and coordinators were fewer. In terms of work, the broad expectations of the people have been met. One thing that surprised people was that collaborations with other boards or societies often cause a lot of delays. Another thing was that people had not realized how big BSW really is. Some reps had felt that their job would be largely to deal with freshers, but they are happy to see that BSW is a huge team that works for all of the IITD community. Within each year, the bonding is excellent as expected and so is the bonding between most of the different position holders. One gaping hole that remains is that there is negligible interaction between reps and coordinators. This is attributed to the structure BSW follows, that is, coordinators interact with the secretaries and the secretaries get reps to work under them. Possible ways to overcome this problem can be to either change the functional structure of BSW to make coordinators and reps work together or to have more non-work and team interactions so that relations strengthen between people who don’t necessarily ‘work’ together.
When it comes to decision making within the board, there is an active attempt to ensure that all members know what they are working on and what will be the outcome of their efforts. However, there have been one or two minor instances of miscommunication in the current tenure. For example, a poster designed for an event ended up not being used due to differences in the vision of the members and lack of information about what was required from the design. This is likely to become less of a problem as college transitions offline. The biggest change offline will be that there will be more meetings. Online, most of the meetings are regarding work and there is comparatively less banter and conversation among people. So, team bonding will definitely improve. Moreover, a lot of the initiatives under Operations will be much more fruitful as workshops, mentorship programs and mental health sessions can be more interactive. The challenge offline will be the logistics of offline events and physical presence of multitudes of people. The transition might not be very smooth for reps as they have not experienced life offline.
Initiatives
10 - Initiatives in the GSec Manifesto
01 - Initiatives in the DGSec Manifesto
11 - Initiatives in both GSec and DGSec Manifesto
Completed
Mental Health Day:
Conducted engaging activities and workshops to teach students about prioritizing mental health.
AMA with psychologist on insta:
Ms. Nyamat Chadha hosted an AMA session from BSW instagram account to address queries regarding mindfulness, coping mechanisms and self care.
11 Rep and mentor training sessions:
Offline training sessions conducted for all mentors and reps by Mr. Lekh Bajaj
01 Sessions with BSW Alumni:
Hosted alumni (Core team members) of BSW to share experiences, insights and their learnings with the new team.
Gender Sensitization workshops:
6 hour long online training conducted by IGES.
01 Freshers’ Welcome Kit:
One stop solution to address all the queries of undergraduate and postgraduate freshers regarding registration processes.
01Virtual Help Desk:
Webex Cisco breakout rooms were set up corresponding to every Hostel during working hours to address queries of students and parents in the orientation.
01Past PoR Data Repository:
Acad and Lang mentor data on the official website, for future reference and verification purposes while applying for higher studies.
10 Representative of the Sem:
Bi-annual appreciation process for well performing representatives and executives and also to gauge performance of under-performing ones.
10Choose your Department:
A collection of all the opportunities and benefits for assisting jee aspirants in making a more informed choice about their department.
Foreign Intern ke Fundae:
A session for sophomores to assist in the process of finding a foreign intern.
Tour of Stalls:
A 3-day long event to introduce freshers to various clubs of IITD.
BSW Loan:
Now extended to MsC students as well. Successfully granted to more than 5 students.
Gatekeeper training session:
Training session on suicide prevention conducted by SPIF for all mentors.
Mentor allotment:
Was done in a way to allot mentors from the same branch and hostel to maximum possible mentees to ensure better assistance and interaction.
Department Coordinators:
Allotment of students who have been mentors in the past as head Mentors for each department.
SCS portal:
the portal was launched to book appointments with SCS and establish a feedback mechanism.
Speranza:
The annual BSW fest, consisting of fun activities and events, directed towards freshers.
CalibHer
An extension of Aluminescence focusing on distinguished women alumni and their career trajectories.
10 Peer support groups:
Establishing student support groups mediated by trained professionals for overall mental health and well-being.
Academic Mentorship:
Special support for students who aren't performing well in particular subjects through provision of course wise mentors.
10 Language Mentorship:
Accelerated English Learning program for incoming freshers, ensuring quality and uniformity of teaching resources.
Mock MBA interviews:
Connecting MBA aspirants to Alumni in top B schools so as to assist them with the process.
Ongoing
01 Career portal:
Currently working on adding information on more career paths including MBA, UPSC etc.
01PG Executives:
Adding 4 PG executives to the board to facilitate PG participation and outreach. Forms have been rolled out, interviews will be scheduled right after.
01 Weekly Sync Ups:
Meetings to discuss and analyze performance in the events conducted and plans/new initiatives/ ideas for the upcoming month.
10Alum mentors:
These mentors will be mapped to 3rd or 4th year students who wish to intern under their field.
10FAQs for mentors:
A one stop guide to everything that mentors need to know to carry out their duty efficiently.
10 Scoops:
Revamping SCOOPS to facilitate better quality and variety of merchandise.
Incomplete
11 Research Convention:
Workshops for research scholars on patent writing etc., organizing an intra-department research paper competition.
01 Research Opportunity Portal:
Revamping ‘Research Mentorship Portal’ to bring on board the research faculty of IIT Delhi.
10Alumni Fest:
Organizing events where students can have freewheeling conversations with alumni and enhance their networking.
Conclusion
BSW has managed to sustain a large proportion of initiatives in the ongoing tenure online. Though plagued with many of the problems we face online such as miscommunication, lack of team bonding, etc., it is impressive to see most of the team satisfied with BSW and very willing to work. This semester, BSW will see more focus on mentorship and language and have in mind a plethora of initiatives to make freshers feel at home.
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