Straying away from seminars

Workshops and seminars frequently happen in educational institutions and are not something new for the college-goers.

Though these academic activities are conducted for the benefit of the students, the participation of students in these seems to be less when compared to their interest in non-academic activities.
Though these workshops and seminars help the students in their courses and career plans, students choose to stay away from them for many reasons.
 
Educational institutions claim that through seminars and workshops, they provide an environment for the personal, educational, professional and vocational development of students and boost their creative skills.

But the student community has a different opinion regarding these academic activities.
Chaitanya, an engineering student of R V College, admits that seminars and workshops are not very popular amongst students.

“But there are people who are really interested in these activities,” he says.“College fests and other cultural activities are crowd-pullers. Hence, a majority of students are interested to take part in them. Also these extra-curricular activities are refreshing and students have fun taking part in them.

On the contrary, when it comes to seminars and workshops, students have to stick to the academics again and that’s what most of the students don’t want,” he laughs.

He adds further, “Seminars and workshops deal with one particular subject in depth. So the students from other branches can’t grasp the information. Hence, these should be conducted in a simple language and should include fun activities in between to keep the students involved and avoid monotony.”

Manohar, a BCA student of PES College, stays away from seminars and workshops and finds them very boring. The speakers at seminars deliver their thoughts in highly technical language that we can’t make head or tail of. Most of the speakers don’t have innovative ideas and repeat the same thing on every platform. Their speech can be made more effective with the use of audio-visuals,” he says.

Sony, a B Sc student of Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women, says that due to her practical classes and internals, she can’t make use of seminars and workshops being held in the college.

“I am pretty interested in these activities as I get innovative ideas through them. As today’s youngsters are more career-oriented, they are definitely excited about these things. A good number of seminars keep  happening in our college and whenever I get time, I make use of the opportunity. Most of my friends are interested in them too and take an active part,” she says.