Jamshedpur, Dec. 5: They have been there, they have done that. And now, they are grooming those who aspire to follow.
A group of students from IIT-Kharagpur took centre stage at Michael John Auditorium in Jamshedpur on Monday to give 500-odd wannabe engineers tips to crack the prestigious IIT-JEE.
Earlier, similar expert sessions have been held in Patna, Bihar, but this was the first time that the IIT students’ social wing extended help to aspirants from the state.
The four-hour session was organised under the aegis of IITians for Youth (IFY), comprising some 40 top techies of the Kharagpur cradle, for students of Classes XI and XII of 13 city schools. The IFY wishes to mentor more youngsters in other cities of Bihar and Jharkhand, particularly capital Ranchi, over the next couple of months.
“Our aim is to build confidence rather than enhance knowledge. We have come across students who are brilliant in school academics, but yet fail to crack IIT-JEE. They study hard, but fail to perform because they lack in confidence and often don’t know how to approach questions. This is where we come,” said Ashutosh Kumar, a board member of IFY.
“Solve the easier questions first. Students generally tend to waste time on a question the answer to which they don’t know. This is a common mistake that needs to be avoided,” piped in Imbesat Ahmed, another member of IFY.
They had a point. The jam-packed session at Michael John Auditorium saw students interacting with IITians on physics, chemistry and mathematics to boost the belief that they too can. Even parents took part in the marathon tutorial.
“Almost every parent wants his or her children to become engineers. So, the IIT session was very impressive. Apart from course material, we were apprised of complications involved in cracking IIT-JEE through interesting anecdotes. It will help me in my preparations in the coming months,” said Rohit Kumar Mahto, a Class XII student of Motilal Nehru Public School.
Ravi Kumar, a student from Lucknow who takes IIT coaching at Prerna Classes in the city, said he was looking forward to more sessions with the IITians. “Their tips come from experience and are very helpful, be it on subjects or for nerve boost,” he said.
Ashutosh said similar interactive sessions were in the pipeline at Muzaffarpur and Patna in Bihar, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Bhubaneswar in Odisha and New Delhi.
As of now, IFY has planned just one-day workshops, but will extend the duration to a week to cover the most important chapters in the IIT syllabus. According to the members, conducting long-duration programmes depends on the resources available in a city. This time, they have planned a week’s programme in New Delhi.
“We did not have contacts and started from scratch last year. We realise that a four-hour class is not enough for IIT-JEE, but slowly and steadily we will make it big. For that, we need support from the institute. We would love to take classes across the country for free. We may not be Super30’s Anand Kumar, but we can sure try,” said Imbesat Ahmed, another member of IFY.
IITians for Youth was found in the summer of 2010, when five Kharagpur students — Akshay Kumar (electrical engineering), Abhishek Jadon (economics), Aashish Anand (mechanical engineering), Imbesat (physics) and Ashutosh (applied geology) — decided to help students who need them. Today, IFY is a group of 40 would-be engineers who apart from their own studies work diligently to churn out techies across the country.
“We have formed groups to work on syllabus, communication and interaction on physics, chemistry and mathematics. So, there are dedicated members to deal with each subject that matters. As far as academics is concerned, paying attention in class is more than enough,” Ashutosh said.
