Bridging to a better future

COEP Foundation’s Silicon Valley Chapter (SVC) is glad to announce a new initiative called WebSetu.

COEP Foundation is a non-profit charitable organization of COEP alumni. It is a platform to bring together alumni from around the world. The goal is to network, learn and grow as a community. The SVC is active in building a strong alumni network and leveraging it to help students and alumni.

Background

We believe that the major stakeholders in any educational institution are the students studying there, the teachers, the college administration, industries that recruit from the college and former students/alumni.

Everybody benefits if the quality of students graduating from the college improves. The students benefit from a better education. The teaching staff and administration gain a lot of respect and credibility. The industry recruits skilled and able engineers. The institution becomes a place of repute and a societal force to reckon with. This indirectly benefits the alumni since the college they went to ultimately tags them. In the final analysis, improving the quality of education is a win-win solution.

An active alumni connection was the missing piece in the picture. Thankfully, a few committed individuals formed the COEP Foundation. They established a channel to link alumni with the college. We, as alumni, can now make a meaningful contribution to COEP. The alumni contribution does not always have to be monetary but can take different forms. The ‘WebGuru’ series is a good example of how alumni can reach out to students and make a difference.

We, as former students, are committed to improving the quality of education in COEP. We will execute our initiatives under the aegis of the COEP Foundation. WebSetu is a SVC initiative for mentoring students in COEP. The first round of Websetu was carried out as a 1:1 mentoring project and was completed in July 2007. We received an enthusiastic response from students and mentors and decided to move it to a forum for the benefit of a larger number of people.

What is WebSetu and why are we doing it?

Most people know that they would be better off had they done things differently. Hindsight is always 20-20. However, it never hurts to have the knowledge to make the right decisions at the right time. Some people actively seek this knowledge and guidance. Some are lucky and end up making the right choices. However, a vast majority makes more mistakes than they really need to. Lack of information and awareness are two major factors affecting the decision making process.

Obviously, no one can make the right decisions all the time. Nevertheless, we can make a serious attempt to root out ignorance and increase awareness. Nowhere is this more important than in student life where the choices made make their reverberations heard over a lifetime.

It would be worthwhile to invest the time and effort to aid students in navigating through a bewildering array of choices and inform their decisions. Most students do not have a ready resource to tap into for help and clarification. They cannot sort through all the data at their disposal. Too often, they are simply not aware of their options. It is not their fault. The culture and the atmosphere they grew up in do not place a premium on awareness and exploration.

Bridging this gap between ignorance and awareness will be the primary focus of WebSetu.

The project aims to tie up students with mentors who will aid them in their student lives. The help offered will cover aspects related to current and higher education, study methods, internships, final year projects, career counseling, etc.
This is going to be a learning experience for both students and alumni mentors. We will consider all students who are serious about higher studies after B.E. Higher studies include M.S., M. Tech, M.E., M.B.A degrees and civil service exams.
The ultimate objective is to extend the scope to life mentoring where alumni can engage with other alumni for professional and personal mentoring.

How will it work?
1. Mentors and students will register on the Aarewah community (www.aarewah.com) website and upload their profiles. The profiles will indicate their e-mail id, professional background and areas of interest. A LinkedIn URL (www.linkedin.com) for the mentor should be provided if available.
2. Registered users would be able to receive notifications about new topics and posts if desired.
3. Students’ questions may be addressed to a specific mentor or to all. Offensive posts shall be removed.
4. Students will navigate to the WebSetu Forum to carry out a search for e-mail threads based on the type of information they are looking for or browse through each of the sub-categories according to their interest.
5. We expect some common threads to emerge from these interactions. We will compile this information into FAQ’s and make it available to all students.
6. FAQ’s will be compiled and updated by the WebSetu team.
7. The volunteer team will continually work to improve the scope and content of the relationship.
Selection Criteria
Any students, alumni or professors at COEP can be mentors/mentees.

For general queries or suggestions related to this project, please send an e-mail to websetu_mentee@coepalumni.org for mentees and websetu_mentor@coepalumni.org for mentors.

Volunteers for the project

Neeti Gore, Jyoti Shirolikar, Asif Pathan, Vinay Kakade, Mandar Waghmode, Sameer Vaidya.