Letting your hair down at SVNIT Surat

So you decided to go for engineering (or maybe you didn’t), but that does not mean you kill the rainbow haired artist in you – at least at SVNIT.

The college offers a host of clubs and groups, all officially funded by the institute and run by the students, to kill non-college hours and non-examination months in a fun and productive way. Here’s an almost complete list (excluding smaller, non-funded groups):

CHRD: Centre for Human Resource Development. It includes under its umbrella the Dramatics Club, Music Club, Dancing Club, Arts Club, Photography Club, and the newly started Movie Making Club. Some of the major annual events organized by the club are:

– ‘Unplugged’ & ‘Rattle n Hum’ by the Music Club: Acoustic guitar/ light drums evenings, non-competitive. Besides this, the members might also perform in ‘Sparsh’, the annual cultural fest of the college, which has a dedicated singing night.

– ‘Spandan’ by Dramatics Club: The theatrical night, where-in the performers might present a full-fledged drama or a monologue. Awards are given out for best writer, director, actor, actress and monologue.

– Nukkad Natak by Dramatics Club: Street play competition held every year during Sparsh or MindBend (the Tech Fest).

– The photography club organises photo-walks and is responsible for covering each and every event that might happen around the college. The movie making club already has a dozen or so short films in its kitty.

Besides these annual events, the clubs meet as often as once a week and carry out few other events on a competitive basis throughout the year. Workshops are held regularly for those who are new to the art – hence making sure that anyone with an intent to learn can participate.

Literary Affairs Committee: One-stop-shop for the writers, debaters and intellectuals out there. It is sub-divided into a Group Discussion club, Book Club and an informal Quizzing Club. The club has set up its own little library housing fictional and non-fictional books. The club also organizes ‘Shipwreck’ for extempore, ‘Strategist’ for debating and a Spell Bee every year. ‘Renesa‘ is the official college magazine, completely written, edited and designed by the students.

CEV-Talks: Cutting-Edge Visionaries, the TED-talkers of the campus. For those who can talk, and have something to talk about. Any student from the college can deliver an hour long lecture on any topic under the sun – be it the latest technological innovation or the history of World War 3.      

E-Cell: Entrepreneurship cell, established in the light of innumerable start-ups that came out of engineering colleges all over India. This student body invites up-coming or already established entrepreneurs to deliver talks and share their experiences right from the scratch. It helps the speakers as well as the audience to develop touch points with real-life businesses out there.

As we move towards a globalized service sector, employers no longer want brainy robots that can execute instructions coming from the top. Rather, India today needs sharp, aware and creative engineers with good communication skills and confidence. Only technical knowledge will no longer land you that coveted job, because there will always be another candidate who can express himself and his knowledge better than you.

A number of the above mentioned clubs will help you along in job interviews – and thus your careers to be. You are more likely to be confident and fluent in your interview if you debated or participated in group discussions while in college. More and more employees are looking for scope of creativity and a good ‘work culture’. This trickles down to the recruitment process, as even the employers want people who can give something to the company besides just work hours and man power.

Probably the best part of these clubs is the fact that they are open to all years, all departments and all types of students in the college. While recruiting members from the freshers, the clubs look for interest and enthusiasm to work and learn rather than prior knowledge of the said activity.

Most clubs follow a mentorship format, where-in the seniors teach the juniors the tricks-of-the-trade and hand down the baton as they leave. Each year, the clubs aim to do better than their seniors, and thus with each passing year the clubs grow in size and quality.

This article is part of PaGaLGuY’s innovative Internship programme for engineering students. Currently, two such programmes are on – one on Creative Writing, the other is a Certification on Digital Media. If you are interested in partaking and  bagging a certificate, besides learning the nuances of effective writing, mail us at [email protected]