The Institute has an International Students Mentoring Unit under the chairmanship of the Dean, Student Affairs (DoSA). The mentors associated with students approaching this Unit, in addition to DoSA, are Dean, Academic Affairs, one of the senior level Professors, and the Student Counselor. The Mentorship program that is in place for the regular students is also applicable to the International students also. As-on-date, there are 45 undergraduate; 07 post-graduate and 05 PhD students registered in the academic years 2015 to 2017. The Mentors are in contact with the international students at periodic intervals and are linked through various forms of networking.
The Institute has about 250 international students on campus. The Academic Section of the Institute deals with the International students and the office of the Dean of Student affairs and the academic section jointly look after any special needs of the foreign or NRI students.
During 2017-18, the Institute decided to create a separate teaching section for the incoming international students. The data during the previous years was showing that many international students struggled with courses during the first year as they didn’t go through the rigor of Joint Entrance Examination through which the domestic students come in. Holding these students in one group ensured that we could assign the best teachers in a smaller lecture section than usual. This allowed the teachers to engage with these students more closely and help them with those topics in the courses that were otherwise considered to be difficult and needed some hand holding. Mathematics and some engineering science courses are typically the ones in which these students struggle often. Additional classes and close monitoring of their performance has significantly helped these students.
The students are also assigned faculty mentors and are constantly encouraged to keep a dialogue with them until a complete integration with their peers take place.
The international student section functions under the Dean of Student Affairs and periodic meetings are held with these students to ensure their seamless immersion in the academic and general life style a campus.
