Midterm Review: GSAA (UG)

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Completed: 8 (20%)

In progress: 20 (50%)

Broken: 1 (2.5%)

Not started: 11 (27.5%)

With only a few days left for the Autumn semester to wind-up, we present before you a summary of the tenure of Varshit Kumar, General Secretary of Academic Affairs, so far. 

A total of 8 out of 40 of the manifesto points have been successfully completed. 20 points are in progress, and proposals have already been submitted to the concerned authorities for a number of them. 11 points on the manifesto are yet to be begun. 1 point has been broken.

POINTS COMPLETED:

1 out of 5 points of the Student Support Services has been completed. This was the launch of the Scholarship Portal to help the students know about various financial options available. 

2 out of 4 points for promotion of Undergraduate Research have been wrapped up until now – One being the launch of “Know Your Labs” series and the other being a proposal for the extension of ITSP by encouraging students to continue their research project during the semester in collaboration with the Institute Tech Council. 

In Career Cell, the initiative on “Placement Diaries” has been launched. It is a blog series of seniors reminiscing their placement experiences. 

In addition, the Re-vamp Policy@IITB series was launched, which made students aware of existing rules and policies. 

Under the Web and Infrastructure section, the integration of Student Profiles in InstiApp to ease the resume verification process was implemented by the Technical Council, and hence the point is considered as completed. 

Tagging of foreign department-specific courses as Department Electives in the absence of a course map for outbound semester exchange students has also been proposed. 

A certified policy-making program was conducted in collaboration with the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), and more such programs are yet to follow.

POINTS BROKEN:

The proposal for opening of at least 2 rooms to be accessible 24*7 throughout the semester in the LHC as a common area for group discussions and/or alternate study room was denied by the new Dean SA and was hence broken.

POINTS IN PROGRESS:

20 points from the manifesto are currently in progress.

As there were issues with conducting GCs due to student representation mismatch owing to Hostel 18, competitions are being conducted instead of GCs. While Mahindra Susten competition has already been conducted, those for finance and analytics will follow soon.

The proposals for allowing of distance learning courses offered by other IITs to be tagged as Electives and grade conversion function for outbound semester exchanges students are currently with the HODs.

The proposal for semester-long internships has been submitted to the curriculum review committee.

A proposal to initiate cross-department mentoring of students by professors for students to explore their research interests has been put forth before the HODs as well.

Student Lounges were established in the Language Lab, but not in the Lecture Hall Complex, where it has been already pitched to alumni and a proposal has been sent. 

POINTS NOT YET WORKED UPON:

11 points in the manifesto have not seen any progress so far.

Work on the inclusion of skill-based courses in domains like cultural, tech, sports, etc in the curriculum has not yet begun. 

Under the Academic Policy Reforms, the inclusion of Economics and voluntary semester drop have not been worked upon. 

Web and Infrastructure seem to be lagging behind in terms of work done, with 4 points out of 6 not being started yet. 

Points like UnRest, IITB-ONE and Happiness Course are events that would be implemented in the next semester, which is why significant work has not yet begun on them.

Link to GS meter: http://gsmetre.insightiitb.org/academics-ug