Initated and organised by: Lata Sivaprasad in coordination with Ms.Charu Gupta of Scholars’ Trust, VJTI.
Members visited : Jayant Pendharkar,
B. Gopal,
Ganesh Kulkarni
Lata Sivaprasad
Ms.Charu Gupta, who is actively involved with VJTI for the last 7 years and is now Trustee of newly formed Young Scholar Trust. She was earlier teaching at St.Cathedral’s school. As a first time visit, Ms. Charu invited members of Fortress to meet and interact with the students sponsored by this Trust.
This Trust has adopted a few interested students of the first, second, third and fourth year students who have been given scholarships by the Trust. Four of the outgoing students of the fourth year were felicitated by her and other ongoing students who have availed of the scholarships. The sponsored students come from the rural areas of Maharashtra and have a weak financial background.
Members of Fortess spent an hour and a half with 20 engineering students specializing in Electrical, Production, Mechanical and Software Engineering. The students were very happy to interact with the professionals of TCS. Jayant spoke to each student with each of them introducing themselves and expressing their interest in future career. There seemed to be a wide gap between what they have been specializing in and their desired career path. Out of the 20 students(2 females and rest males), most of them expressed their desire to join IAS in order to improve the administrative services in the country.
It seemed like that the students were well aware of the bottlenecks in the general administration existing in their region. Jayant further spoke at length on the need to focus on the subject of specialization vis-à-vis the need of the industry and also pursue their interest and hobbies. Gopal and Ganesh spoke in detail about the importance of mastering the fundamentals and concepts pertaining to the subject of specialization, as a prerequisite for job interviews. They further stressed the need to explore, think out of the box and always find solutions to problems and new areas of challenges. Lata spoke about the need for good communication skills and the importance of conversational English, need to develop soft skills which will help build confidence, self-esteem, ability to face interviews confidently for employability and know and explore the inner mind of oneself.
The students further asked questions about options for career paths and memorable experiences of career growth of Fortess members. At the end of the interactive session, students felt very happy and wished success to the 3 outgoing students of the fourth year.
Subsequent to our visit Charu has informed that she could meet with members to discuss
– on the volunteering from Fortess members for mentoring students who need motivation,
guidance with respect to employability and workplace readiness, improvement and recognition of non-cognitive, skills, improvement in communication skills, etc.
– take guest lectures on any topic of interest from how to apply for internships, how to make
career choices and any other related topics that will interest the students
– sponsor for small events like picnics, prizes for students, stationary etc.
– adopt a few students who want to be mentored, connect with students, follow up on their
progress etc.
She mentioned that each sponsor gives Rs.25000/- which goes to the adopted student for payment of fees etc. So far the sponsors have been from well-wishers and friends.
Comments by Charu:
Students were very happy to interact with Fortess members and were thankful for motivating and for guiding the students. Charu expressed her desire to have a continued association with Fortess for the benefit of the economically and socially backward students.
