It has been an enjoyable and a special week at IIT Tirupati which proved that engineering degree at an IIT is not just about books and GPA.

The week started off with the screening of ‘How to train your dragon’, as a part of the life skills course, to learn about innovation and creativity. Then on Wednesday(17.02.2016),  students were taken to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre(SDSC), the branch of ISRO in Sriharikota. There we visited the Mission Control Centre, both the launch pads, Tracking centre, Space Museum and the Library. At the end of the visit, the students were addressed by Mr. P Vijayasarathy, Group Director, SDSC.

The next day, students visited the permanent campus site of IIT Tirupati and conducted an ecological study of the flora and fauna there as a part of the Ecology and Environment course. Set at the foot of the Shesachalam hills, the campus has a variety of birds, butterflies and plants. Though no dangerous animals were spotted, we saw the skin of a cobra (which is also a flagship species of IIT Madras). 

On Friday, Prof. Deshdeep Sahdev, Former Professor, IIT Kanpur and present Mentor of Quazzar Technologies, delivered a special lecture on “Resolving Atom in Backyard: Indigenous Technology in a Globalised World”. The lecture was interactive and it motivated the students to start their own companies in India.

On Saturday, student volunteers of IIT Tirupati visited Kendriya Vidyalaya No.1 at Tirupati and demonstrated experiments to encourage school students to pursue their career in fields of Science.

The weekend was filled with fun, thanks to the Out Bound Training(OBT) programme, conducted as a part of the Life Skills course. It was organised by the OBT team of IIT Madras for both, students and the staff. It was filled with teamwork based physical activities. Everyone enjoyed so much that students wanted the training to be conducted at least once in every semester. And with this IIT Tirupati became the first among the younger IITs, and second only to IIT Madras among all IITs to have conducted an OBT.

This article is part of PaGaLGuY’s innovative internship certification programme for engineering students. Currently, two such programmes are on – one is an Internship in Creative Writing, and the other is a Certification in Digital Media. If you are interested in partaking and bagging a certificate, besides learning the nuances of effective writing, write to us at [email protected].