A large alumni circle, who take pride in their alma mater is the best thing that can happen to an institute. As brand ambassadors, their personal success often influences their institutes rankings. Higher rankings or reputation in turn attracts better talent and soon enough you have a party going - think Ivy League, the IITs. And what can sustain this party? 'Of course continued success of its graduates!' was the response I got during an informal chat with some of the IT industry veterans in India during a recent meet up. Not surprising at all, one would say..
For an institute that gave you so much how often do you think of giving back something towards continued success?
Many would agree for funds, infrastructure, organizing placements etc but how many would agree to giving some time - yes personal time? Won't it be useful to share some of the real world experiences such that the graduating students are better prepared? Will that be of value? I definitely think yes. To me it is like
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime
So, how can you as part of the alumni 'teach a man to fish'? In a generic sort of way there are many challenges related to physical presence, communication etc (reasons why we see very little of this in reality) but for a specific segment of learning technology it should be lot easier. e-Learning has long been there but mostly restricted to canned material. Technology interest groups, discussion forums have existed but are rather stateless in nature - no push beyond individual enthusiasm. No wonder we still keep talking about Industry academia collaboration as news items and not an everyday way of life. Isn't it time we changed that? Only question was 'how?' and the piece of advice I got from a star alumni is 'Alumni must join forces to make it happen' .
So what can you do as alumni?
For starters you leverage your experience. Easiest way is to organize tutorials, articles, learning resources such that learning is in easy steps and students have someone to consult. It would also help to organize them formally as a courseware .
Next perhaps create a group for your alma mater and invite fellow alumni to lend a hand in taking questions and providing feedback to students (having a group makes it easy to handle the noise).
Besides, the quality of learning would really benefit if it is not an add-on, but part of the core. Ideal would be to get in touch with faculty, and run some of the more structured learning resources as electives with projects that can be mentored and evaluated by alumni and published (not just grades but code as well)
Very confident that this would be far more than 'giving a fish', eh! And don't mistake it for a one way street. You would be surprised to see how much you learn in the process yourself by brushing up things and then of course there are so many new developments happening everyday and all you needed was a reason to get involved. What better than helping your alma mater? Do you think you need more?
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