After joining the chosen course students face pressures, which may be academic, personal, or career related. At times they may feel stressed and interfering in their pursuits. There is cross cultural, neo-ethnic convergence, increasing academic competition, Peer pressure, unique adolescent problems, mounting career demand, etc. among the student community. To prevent student going through these stress factors and to help them overcome the above mentioned problems, the Faculty Mentor and counsellor system are implemented in the College where in a teacher acts as Faculty Mentor and counsellor to a group of students.
Each teacher helps the students to cope up academically, give personal Counselling, extend career guidance, support co-curricular activities, co-ordinate welfare activities, interact with their parents, seek student’s involvement in pursuit of college vision and objectives and establish healthy, co-operative and academic ambience in the College.
The mentoring programme at Bharati College, a constituent all girls college of University of Delhi is perhaps the only programme of its kind in the entire University where the students choose their faculty mentor.
It aims to provide students an opportunity to gain exposure and benefit from the association with a faculty with experience, expertise and wisdom. It helps to anchor them in an alien atmosphere, devoid of a familiar familial system.
The mentorship programme should aim to create and nurture a supportive environment for the incumbents, give them proper and correct guidance, direction and equip them with much needed career skills.
It fulfils a very important gap right from the First semester as the college caters to girl students converging as admission seekers in various courses, offered by the college from across the country and in some cases- beyond. These students have to be hand held to indoctrinate them into the University and Institutional system and being fresh from school, they have to quickly adjust to achieve the right balance by taking the much needed quantum jump from a regimented school system to a more open college system.
A number of students esp. outstation students need to be guided regarding rules and regulations, dos and don’ts related to administration & academic queries and issues as also typical problems they face that they may not be comfortable sharing in their families/parents. The faculty chosen by the students to be their mentors play a big role in helping them through the myriad issues and queries they raise during the mentorship meeting and even later
Once the first semester students choose their respective faculty mentors, they decide on specific days in a week on a mutually agreed basis to meet face to face to raise concerns they may be facing- of any kind, individually or in group – ranging from mental, psychological, social, career related or even financial.
The students living alone or even in hostel are the most susceptible as they have to handle everything right from doing their daily chores to managing the totally different academic and sometimes administrative expectations. The mentorship program helps to settle their nerves and is like a support mechanism they can bank upon. The students appreciate the help extended by the mentors who often go the extra mile whenever approached. The endeavour of the faculty mentors has always been to help students gain the much needed confidence in their formative years. It is a time intensive activity and requires mentees to open up which in certain cases may take time especially with introverts. A continuous feedback system is maintained as also mentee record.
The program since its inception has helped numerous students to quickly settle down in a totally different environment as well as improving their ability to handle the changing expectation by the stakeholders.
Mentees should not hesitate indirectly confronting the problem and bringing it to the attention of the mentors.
