Page 3: A Review of the APOGEE
Outreach Program
Page 2: A Take on Mess Matters and
Technical Student competitions
Page 4: Reviews of Cruncheez and
Sandpiper Cafe
I
t’s 7.59 PM. The gate
is crowded with
Cinderellas trying to
make it back before the
clock strikes twelve –
sorry, eight. Because
that is the time by which
every BITSian is
expected, nay required,
to be back on campus.
Unless you’ve been
living under your ‘razai’
for the past two weeks,
you must have noticed,
or faced some sort of
inconvenience, due to
the above directive.
Here is an analysis of this latest institute policy from the perspective of all the affected stakeholders:
TTT
Students: The cold has almost passed, and it’s time to go out – except that you can’t. Even if you haven’t flouted
any deadlines, there is a high probability that you will find nearly 75 people queued up to sign in the main gate
register, while all the other gates remain deserted. For girls, it is even worse. While they are “strictly advised” to be
back by 7 PM, those few who tried using the loophole in the grammar have found themselves narrowly escaping
punishment.
The Ganga gate, lifeline of many who find C’not far too distant to merit the walk in the cold, even has the
watchman shouting at bystanders and shooing them away from afar. Whether one goes to buy a pencil or a phone
recharge, no exceptions are made in this prompt refusal of availing any facilities at this completely off limit NoMan’s-Land.
Guards: It’s not just the students who are disgruntled. The security guards at the main gate are feeling extremely
harassed. Loosely translated, this is what they have to say: “It’s not in our hands, the students don’t understand that.
We’re more helpless than you. It’s just an added work for us to check everybody’s ID cards and make sure they
don’t leave without signing. It’s extremely time-consuming and students keep arguing with the watchmen here.
Maybe if you could all approach the higher authorities and request them to come up with some other solution, it
would work out better for everyone.” In addition to this, the guards would like to have walkie-talkies so as to have a
more effective communication with the watchmen at other gates. One thing which seems rather odd is that while
BITSians have only one exit point, the influx of outsiders has not been contained.
Students Union: Although the rumour mill has attributed this blanket ban to people jumping gates to go out of
station, using the lightly guarded entrances when drunk and eve-teasing cases outside, Aditya Bhatt, the President of
the SU, tells us that it was done in response to complaints filed by some students who were roughed up by locals
near the Ganga gate. We’re told that the Ganga shop owner turned a blind eye to the harassment meted out to
BITSians as ‘they were drunk, and thus, asking for it’; the institute decries this inaction and thus holds no empathy
for his loss of business. In the longer scheme of things, Bhatt suggested that the gates may be opened after the
procurement of breathalysers.
If the pilot defines how the show will be, the Winter Placement Window
seems to be on its way to garnering rave reviews. When the EPC spoke to
the then co-coordinator of the Placement Unit, Syed Ain Ahmed, at the
end of the last semester, they were gearing up for the test-run of the
window. They were excited about the opportunities it offered, glad for the
inconveniences it reduced and apprehensive about the problems it posed.
Arriving on campus in January, it was hard not to notice the ridiculous
relaxation in the expressions of the many psenti-semites who got placed
over the winter. Shyam Kalita, the new co-coordinator of the Placement
Unit is of the opinion that the new system has produced expected results.
Eighteen companies made the five hour drive to Pilani over the course of
the window. Owing to the confidentiality of the placement data and PU’s
unwillingness to reveal it, a quantitative measure of the improvement that
the overhaul in placement chronology brings to the table is as of now,
impossible. Of the three disciplines that were involved, Mechanical
Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering placements have benefited
from the change of placement season. Around half of the students from
these departments have been placed, Kalita tells us. However, those who
sat for placements from the Chemical Engineering discipline met with
lackluster prospects as these companies prefer to come at other times of
the year.
Bringing in companies in the winter hasn’t been the PU’s only
responsibility. It has taken up the task of ensuring that students have
sufficient exposure to industries and to placement procedures to be able to
cut excellent figures before the recruiters and make the best of the window.
The window was timed so that it did not fall in the shadow of placements
at IIT (which tend to include IT and high-paying chemical firms) and
Kalita feels that this precaution will have to be taken in the future as well.
No concrete decision has been made regarding the question of continuing
with this system in future years. Bringing more companies will require
greater logistics and the harsh winter isn’t too inviting. But such an
arrangement will encourage students to prepare well for placements, give
all students of the batch equally good chances of making a great job and
will ease the burden on them during the semester. Kalita thinks these are
very good reasons to keep the window open even as the temperature
plummets.
Institute Authorities: The area near Ganga gate, a beehive of shady alleys, holds a relatively higher probability of
the occurrence of untoward incidents; which is why it has been closed for students. The other gates are rarely ever
required by the students i