‘Focus on studies, not events’

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) had instructed its senior students to refrain from pressurising freshmen students to join various extra curricular activities that are held on the campus every year. It has also asked them to let the freshmen concentrate on academics.

Seniors have said that one of the main reasons for such an instruction being made is that freshmen tend to get carried away by the activities and neglect academics, resulting in poor grades. The diktat was issued during the orientation week held at the institution before lectures started on Monday.

Speaking about the instructions from the institute, some seniors said that they had been asked not to pressurise the newcomers into enrolling for the events and only accept their participation if they do so voluntarily.

“In a bid to have maximum number of freshmen students joining the organising team of events, the organising teams try to lure them on the pretext that participating in the events would ensure that they have a better shot at internships and ultimately placements. Such an incentive is tempting for most freshmen and hence they enrol for maximum events. This results in more time being spent on activities due to which their academic performance suffers. This could be one of the reasons for the restraining instructions,” said Karan Mehta, media manager for Techfest 2016.