The Adhyapana Team conducted its first training session outside Karnataka on the 8th,9th and 10th of May 2009 at The College of Engineering, Pune. This training session was coordinated by Katalyst. It was truly a great learning experience, a different city , a diverse set of students, and a whole new approach to training.
The start to the training was marred by a few (mis)adventures, with one of our team members almost missing the bus to Pune, and then we getting down at a wrong bus stand and literally being taken for a ride all around the city by an autowallah.We finally started the class on the 8th nearly an hour and a half behind schedule with really bored students who were tired of waiting for us!!!
But after that,things got back to normal, thanks to the excellent arrangements made by Anjali, the program coordinator of Katalyst. We were put up at the college guest house and the air conditioned classrooms did surely help us in the sweltering pune heat. Anjali surely ensured that we didn't loose ourselves again by even getting lunch and tea delivered to the classrooms!!!
This training session was also special ,since it was one of the most diverse classes we have handled till date.There were students from Architecture, Medicine, Civil, Mechanical, Metallurgy, Electronics, Computer Science, BSc and the students were from different years as well with varying skill levels.We had come up with a special 3 day course for the students, designed in a way that would benefit everyone .
It was certainly a challenge to win the confidence of the students after the nearly disastrous start but it was even more challenging to retain their attention. The Games and activities came in handy and after a couple of activities all students were back to their attentive best. The first day was totally dedicaded to softskills with special emphasis on communication skills. The second day had a mix of classes with GD, resume writing, vedic maths and C programming. We wound up the course on the third day with some quant, interview sessions and some more C.
We lay a lot of emphasis on student feedback.We take written feedback from the students at the end of each day's training and a quantative f
eedback at the end of the course. The feedback is throughly analysed and all valid comments are taken as inputs for the next training session.The feedback from the Pune course was highly satisfying . on a scale where 4 is rated as the highest and 1 the lowest, the average rating for the overall course stood at an impressive 3.63. All courses had an average rating of above 3 .One of the highlights other than the exceptionally good student feedback, was the pune food and hospitality.Mango juices, vada pavs, dal roti, bakarwadi and the exquisite chats, the thought definitely stirs up our hunger. We didn't have much time to shop or go around Pune though other than a visit to M.G.Road.We were back in the bus on sunday evening on our way to Bangalore - a strenous 15 hour journey.We were tired but happy that another training had ended successfully with a very positive feedback.We are now looking forward to the followup course in Pune , later this year.
