Activities

Who we are…
The Counselling Service strives to ensure the welfare of the students by providing them with emotional, academic and financial assistance. By looking after your well-being, the Service tries to ensure that IITK is not just an institute, but a home away from home for you. The Service consists of a team of professional counsellors and a dedicated group of student volunteers and faculty advisors working in two primary arms - one concentrates on acclimatising the freshmen to the new environment, and the other deals with mental health issues of the students.

What we do…
The first arm comprises the student and faculty members of the Service. The Orientation Programme for the incoming students is organised by this arm. Six to seven freshmen are mentored by a student member, called their Student Guide, and a Faculty Guardian throughout the year. This arm also provides peer tutoring at both the hostel level and on a personal basis, as is required by the students. English Conversation Classes (ECC) is also run under the aegis of this arm of the Counselling Service for students facing difficulty in communicating in English. The second arm comprises a team of counsellors, who are trained psychologists experienced in helping students facing emotional and academic problems. The counsellors are approachable through telephone or mail. They also regularly visit each hostel to talk to students and look into general problems faced by them. The Counselling Service is driven by trust and the highest degree of confidentiality is maintained wherever required. For cases in which psychiatric intervention is required, the Service arranges for an appointment with psychiatrists regularly visiting the campus.All services are provided free of cost. The Service also conducts workshops and publishes literature dealing with various academic, personal, inter-personal, stress-related and other issues students face on campus. For those in need of financial assistance, the Service provides loans and scholarships from the Students' Benevolence Fund.

Academic Counselling
On an ongoing basis the Counselling Service monitors the academic performance of those students who are not able to meet the adequate academic requirements. Every concerned course instructor participates in this process by highlighting the scores (grades) and attendance data of the aforesaid students. These students are extended additional assistance whenever they indicate the need for it. The Service also provides guidance to students regarding the Slow Pace Programme.

Emotional Counselling
The Service provides assistance to help students sort out their problems, be it of personal or emotional nature or related to adjustment in a different environment here. The faculty counsellors and the student volunteers have themselves experienced some of the problems at some point in their life; therefore have an idea about how to tackle them. Approaching them can be the point where a profound shift for the better begins. For students facing serious emotional difficulties, the Service arranges professional counsel and personalized psychiatric assistance. Strict confidentiality is maintained here at the Counselling Service.

Financial Assistance
The Service arranges for financial assistance to the needy students in the form of loans and scholarships from the Students' Benevolence Fund (SBF).

English Conversation Classes
The Counselling Service also arranges for the English Conversation Classes for the students facing problems in conversing or expressing in English, at a very nominal fee. The notices for the same shall be put on all the hall notice boards a few days after the commencement of the semester.

Orientation programme
An Orientation Programme for the freshmen is arranged at the beginning of the session to acquaint them with the facilities, services, personnel, rules and regulations of the Institute. The Student Guides, the student volunteers attached to the Counselling Service, help the newcomers on campus to settle in the new environment. Faculty Counsellors are also assigned and act as local guardians for the students to share and discuss their academic and other interests, aspirations and problems and make them feel at home.