Mentorship program for the new students

As the new batch of students enters XLRI this year, they would find themselves being escorted by seniors. However, the intent would not be ragging but familiarising the newcomers to the surroundings.

Such systems can be found in certain organisations also, where an older employee is assigned as the guide or “buddy” to a new staff.

The XLRI students’ body decided to take this step to break barriers in a more friendly and healthy way when new classes for the new batch starts on June 16.

According to this initiative, being taken by the external linkages cell of XLRI, the seniors would act as mentors and guides for the freshers.

In a letter submitted to the authorities, the students have said one or a group of seniors would take on the responsibility of an equal number of juniors and help them in understanding the institute, its functioning and the course structure better. “Such a system was prevailing in XLRI a few years ago, but those days there was more of bullying and it was stopped. But now students have come up with this proposal, which would help break barriers between the two batches in a big way,” said Madhukar Shukla, a faculty of organisational behaviour and strategic management.

The mentoring or guardianship programme would begin with the new students being taken on a guided tour of the campus. Later, it would get into the details of trying to understand the course content better, the nitty-gritty of joining one of the many communities on the campus among othes.