The night when the first convert list of my program was about to be released; I was sitting at home, eyes fixed on the laptop, on the edge of my seat, refreshing the webpage every second.
Actually, that’s not true. I was happily chomping buttered Paranthas in Murthal, enroute Delhi after a weekend trip to McLeodganj. The Internet was weak and so were my chances.The only thing that worked on a very un-’reliable’ 3G connection was the Facebook App. When I got to know that the list was out, I was quick enough to ping an online friend to help me out here. This was a friend I made couple of days back on a Facebook group that was run by the Media and PR Cell of XIMB, IlluminatiX. Along with a similar thread on PagalGuY, the Facebook group helped develop an interface between prospective students and seniors. Questions on admission dates were answered, doubts on documentation were cleared, and queries on hostel facilities were being dealt with. The ever helpful moderators went the extra mile right from engaging in the group on weekends / late nights to answering questions on how good the internet speeds in the campus were! Personally, some questions and answers were so interesting that they would be great content for a Scoopwhoop article. For the sake of sounding serious, 2 important takeaways here:
- While it was definitely not an easy one and there could have been stray misses among the many home runs, senior students of XIMB did make life easier for their juniors by finding the right platform to interact with them, ensuring they were responsive, giving out an assurance of a helping hand wherever required.
- It was interesting to note the very effective use of the biggest social network which eclipsed the dominance of two other mediums; email and forums.
But the real cherry on the cake was the XIMB Mentorship Program that was rolled out. Each prospective candidate was assigned a student as a mentor which whom he or she could engage with, directly. The amount of coordination that would have gone into planning and executing all of this (managing interfaces on social media, manning the inbox, checking with the Admissions office) is simply superhuman, given how tight a b-schooler’s schedule can be. If this wasn’t enough, the ever-helpful governing student’s body at XIMB reached out to figure out trivial but important stuff like location maps to the campuses, laptop deals, cellular connections, et al. Damn sweet.
By now, a lot of queries have been resolved, doubts have been cleared, friendships have been forged even before college has begun.
Oh yes, I did get through. Classes begin in less than a week!
Photo used under (CC BY 2.0)
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