This story is from September 21, 2020

College begins at home with virtual lectures, downloaded books & notes

The new academic session for senior colleges has begun, but the charm of meeting new classmates, the first day orientation session amidst a packed hall, and the face-to-face interaction is missing.
College begins at home with virtual lectures, downloaded books & notes
Representative image
PUNE: The new academic session for senior colleges has begun, but the charm of meeting new classmates, the first day orientation session amidst a packed hall, and the face-to-face interaction is missing.
Colleges organised online orientation sessions for students to kickstart the academic year for various undergraduate courses even as many of them started without new books or meeting new friends.

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A first-year Bachelor of Arts student, Rozmin Bhagat, said the first day is always special to students as well as teachers.
“We are excited and nervous about new beginnings in life. But virtual studies were new as well, so I felt nervous and we still met our friends through the screen but it wasn't the same,” he added.
Bhagat said the virtual learning was not easy and it was difficult to concentrate through the screen and then there were connectivity issues as well. “But, on the brighter side at least our academic year is not spent in vain and we are moving forward with this new situation and getting used to it,” he said. Classes started on September 1.

Another student, Riya Jahir Samnani, from St Mira’s College who has taken admission to the bachelor in business administration degree, said, “I miss my classroom, my friends and my teachers a lot. Attending the class physically and attending it online has a huge difference. Online attending is like just sitting with our phones or laptop and it's so difficult to sit for hours and hours. When we used to attend lectures by going to our colleges it was so amazing, we had teachers to interact with our friends talking between lectures. We used to have great fun during our college time.”
Now, the students do not have any physical activities as they had earlier like competitions, events in colleges. “After college, we all friends used to chill out, and now it's just spending hours and hours on the phone. We had seven days of induction programme in which we got to know about different courses, internships, club programmes and other stuff. On the first day, I logged in and I saw so many students joining and everything was new for me then and even now,” she added.
Srihari Sathe, a student of Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, said, “The first day charm of sitting in classrooms knowing new mates, getting introduced to the teachers and strolling inside the new college has vanished this year as a result of Covid. Even the orientation that took place was not as exciting.”
Principal of St Mira’s College, Gulshan Gidwani, said lectures for the first year of degree college have commenced from September 1. There is no doubt that online teaching is a challenge and no substitute for face-to-face teaching. Teaching learning is also a facial activity and as such there are limitations to online teaching no doubt. But we have had a six day induction programme for our fresh students and from the feedback received from faculty and students it has been highly encouraging.”
At the St Mira’s College, the management has been able to conduct all activities online right from teaching to extra curricular activities, competitions, cultural events and even a virtual newsletter with three volumes so far.
Rajendra Zunjarrao, principal of Modern College of Arts Science and Commerce, Shivajinagar said they started online teaching from August 1. “At the PG level, we have 100% attendance. We had a live interaction with students using our YouTube channel. For first-year students, we had a three-day online induction,” he added.
The institute is also doing co-curricular activities in the online mode. “Our library is well-automated and we have an institutional repository. All the e-content developed is easily available to students at home through this IR facility. We have also created a principal's virtual office where visitors who come to college for interaction can do so via Google Meet,” he said.
The college also has a technical team that helps in cyber security.
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