Students graduating from colleges and universities all over India are in a fix because of the Covid-19 lockdown as it is preventing them from completing lab work or make internship or job arrangements. Here are a few tips for them.

This is quite obvious that today the graduating students, whether passing out of UG or PG courses, are in a confused state of mind. They are ill placed to complete their education along with all lab-based practical work, and are unsure about final internships or placements.

Many who are already placed are not sure if the companies will honour the offers given the fact that the duration of lockdown and the contours of its graded nuanced and staggered withdrawal are not all known yet.

These are factors of the figures of infected persons in the country and the hotspots where the spread of the pandemic actually happens.

But confusion is no answer. Necessity is the mother of invention. And every crisis may have an opportunity hidden.

Strength of mind and evidence of intelligence can be seen in how one transforms this situation into an opportunity. I have five suggestions for my young friends.

1. Get into online learning quickly

First, get quickly onto online learning from google classes, webinars, zoom sessions, pdfs and URLs, links and ppts whichever your faculty members share or whatever you can lay your hands on through the internet.

For this, you surely need to have a smart-phone with internet, wifi connection at home and a laptop with camera.

Get onto Swayam and MOOCs courses, and note your learning from each source and your text books if prescribed separately topic wise as they appear in the syllabus. And along with way discuss with your peers and teachers.

2. Watch explainer videos and read manuals for practical work

Second, watch explainer videos and read manuals about each practical work you are supposed to do to at least know the technology, the process, the operations and the outcome of each practical work.

If there is offline physical face to face examination of your final semester, it is great, you can do quick practical practice based on this learning.
If there is only online exam, obviously the tests will focus on concepts and not in-studio practical.

3. Plan for a digital internship

Third, plan for digital internships with the support of your institute and its placement cell. If not being able to get support there, apply yourself to five organizations ideally in your city or nearby online for internships, paid or unpaid, which can engage you in digital research, survey, report writing, social media work, etc.

Such internships are very important now to engage yourself productively, get experience albeit from a distance, and certificate of completion of the same.

4. Keep appearing for online job interviews

Fourth, keep appearing for digital interviews from a distance whoever is ready to take of whichever organization, whether finalized by the placement cell of your organization or yourself. Do not be much choosy about the organization and location etc.

What you need now is a break into the industry in a bad economy year. Our experience at Adamas is that all the MBA candidates have been placed with an average of Rs.5.5 lacs per annum and none of the offers have been withdrawn.

More than 70% of the other students of various other schools have been placed in which a few withdrawal of offers have happened. So, there is no need to panic just now, unless the lockdown extends too long.

5. Study more and build your skills

Fifth, suppose there are no jobs coming your way, you need not still panic. This is just a few months or at best a year-long economic setback.

This is the right time to value-add to yourself, through an additional programme of learning or a higher degree, and surely the best time to do a few digital diplomas and programmes.

Personal value-addition in hard and soft skills, an additional degree, multiple internships and freelance projects are together the best way to make good the loss of a bad economic year and prepare yourself for the big leap when the situation alters.

Being depressed or even over-worried helps no one. Moving beyond the moment is important. Thinking beyond the moment is important. And knowing facts about the pandemic, its impact and way out is important.

Do not pay heed to rumours, do not spread any unfounded false content. Have faith in yourself. You are born to make a difference, and a unique one at that.

Bon voyage for a beautiful, eventful, joyful and productive life ahead, beyond COVID pandemic, when we and the world are better together.

– Article by Prof Samit Ray, Chancellor, Adamas University, Kolkata

This blog was first published by India Today. Click here to read original article.