At a time when stress related student deaths are making news everywhere, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), conducted a stress management workshop on March 2, 2016, for students pursuing research.  The workshop was conducted under the Research Scholar Companion Program (RSCP) that serves as a platform to facilitate interaction between PhD students.

A day in the life of a PhD student at IITB starts with attending lectures. Students usually spend their afternoons in the laboratory conducting experiments, working on research papers and collecting samples to support their inferences. This occupies approximately eight to ten hours of their day. Besides, students who are in their first year of research have to take six to eight different credited courses in the institute as well. They also submit a dissertation for every course they take. Thus, most students bear a taxing 14-15 hour routine which may get mundane at times. To add to this monotony is the pressure to yield desired results, while repeated failures may cause anguish. Moreover, the stipend which PhD students get is less as compared to an income he/she would have fetched as a full time employee. Such factors may lead to self-doubt and anxiety about an uncertain future.

Shivani Manchanda, Counselling
Coordinator at IITB said, “We conducted the workshop to help students
understand that the stress they face is normal and one can cope with it.”
Manchanda also informed, “We maintain a Facebook page called ICare IITB
which is a self-help information page on stress, relationship etc.”

80 students attended the workshop. About the workshop, T. Pratyusha, coordinator of RSCP said, “Attendees were advised about issues like time management, stress management, meeting deadlines, and completing submissions in a hassle-free way.”

Jai Paranjpe, a PhD student in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT-B, said, “A session on meditation was conducted in which we were taught some light exercises to relax in stressful situations.”

Professor Debjani Paul, Department
of Biosciences and Bioengineering , IIT-B also shared her experience of dealing with stress as a research scholar. PhD students had requested to hear the story of her travails and triumphs as a scholar “It was reassuring to know that our professors too have been through similar stress and managed it successfully,” said Girish Ponkiya, a PhD student in the Computer Science Department at IITB. 

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