What does BSW mean to you? How has your journey in BSW been?
BSW is the first point of contact for most of us after getting to IITD. These are the people who organize events for you and help you in the transition after coming to college. But BSW also gave me my friends in the form of my mentor and my co-mentees.
I started my journey in BSW last year as a mentor. I found the experience really pleasant. I also realized how important the program was for students. There is a lot of depth to mentorship in IITD than what it looks from the outside. So, I wanted to do my part for the cause. I decided to continue in this board and bring some new ideas to the tabletry for DGSec and here we are today!
Why do you think BSW is important for the student community at IIT Delhi?
As I said in my previous answer, BSW is your first point of contact here .It gives you a lot of resources like academic support, language Mentorship, mental health support, connecting with alumni and much more which is very beneficial. I would also add that It gives you friends and help you mingle with people across the years through its events and sessions .The Board of Student Welfare is your support mechanism throughout your college journey. So, I feel it is really important.
Did you always know that this is the place for you or you started out exploring first?
I would say that when I chose to be a mentor, I was actually exploring. Then once I became a part of the team, I realized how the system worked and the kind of impact it made. So, I decided that this is where I want to be.
One thing you have done in your tenure that you are particularly proud of ?
One thing I feel particularly happy about is that we are soon going to launch the Student Counseling Services portal. We are developing this portal to bring in more convenience and accessibility for the students who want to reach out for help. It cannot be iterated enough how important mental health is and how difficult it can be at times to maintain a good mental health at IITs. So, I consider this to be a major milestone in my tenure till now.
Could you share any funny incident of yours in BSW that makes it more memorable?
The funniest (painfully) part of my journey is that most of my journey till now has been online. * cries in online sem *
How close are you to your team? And how would you describe the efficiency of your team?
Despite it being an online sem, I am very close to my team. It is highly co-ordinated and a helpful one. If One of us is not able to work due to some reason, the other comes forward with full enthusiasm. They are all very sincere and dedicated towards the board. We are all working towards our common goal, which is to help you all at every step of your journey. I absolutely love my team and am looking forward to meeting each one of them in person as soon as possible.
Is there anything in your manifesto that you have always felt has been missing in BSW and you wanted to include it?
There is nothing specific as such which I felt was missing in BSW. Most of the things in my manifesto are add-ons to what already existed rather than replacing anything in the system. Overall, our goal this year is to make the board more accessible to all students of the IITD community through our various initiatives.
Supposing that the next sem would be offline, how will counseling and YourDost work?
For counseling, we have the SCS office where people can go and make appointments. As far as Your Dost is concerned, it has always been via chats and messages online which will continue in the same manner. I think the transition will be pretty smooth and people will face no trouble.
Any message from you to our readers?
My message to the readers would be that sometimes at IIT, you get the image that in order to be successful, there are only a few tried and tested paths that you should follow but that is not the case. It doesn't matter what you are doing till the time you are doing it well. So, you should explore a lot of things and then find out where your interest lies and follow that path fearlessly.
Interview by: Maitree Shandilya