UNFORGETABLE EXPERIENCE
It’s my pleasure to have got an opportunity to share my experiences about
the orientation course which I attended from 25.8.03 to 20.9.03 at A.S.C., Shimla.
Even the thought of spending 25 days at Shimla was very exciting. I opted for
Shimla, as I was encouraged by my friends, who had already attended this course
at your institute. I had in my mind that I was going to Shimla just to fulfill
the condition laid down by the UGC and for fun. But after attending the course,
my attitude towards such courses has drastically changed.
I arrived
in Shimla on 24.8.03 along with my two friends. I was quite surprised and satisfied
at the boarding arrangements made for us by the ASC. Affectionate and warm nature
of Himachali people made our stay very comfortable.
We were a bit nervous on the
first day at ASC. But we were warmly welcomed by the staff members and were informed
about the daily activities, rules, etc. of the programme. The faculty members
told us that they would be the facilitators and we would be the performers of
the daily activities. All the participants from eight different states were also
very cordial and within 4-5 days, we became like family members and all nervousness
had disappeared.
The
best moments were the morning warming up sessions. Daily group song from different
languages made us feel us proud to be Indian. One minute silence was like doing
meditation to refreshen ourselves for the day. Then thought for the day was to
express our views, opinions on a particular topic. Reading the reports and chairing
of the day were very instructive, inspiring and promoting self-confidence in the
participants. I observed that participants gained a lot of confidence through
these activities.
Another
good exercise was the formation of different committees. These committees as the
Brains trust, Academic, editing, gems collection, cultural, refreshment committees
inculcated organizational skills in all the participants. I was the convener of
the academic committee. We organized seminar presentations, quiz contest, project
work presentations before the house. It really helped us a lot. Now I am organizing
such quiz contests etc. in my college with great success.
The main focus of the course
was also to impart overall knowledge from several disciplines. For this purpose,
ASC had taken care to select resource persons from diverse fields. The other very
constructive exercise was “Microteaching” followed by ‘Self encounter’.
Though very wary of camera, we all had a face-to-face encounter with our strengths
and weaknesses. None the less, we also got an opportunity for one day sight seeing
tour to Kufri, Naldara and Viceroy’ lodge, organized by ASC.
I would
also like to take this opportunity to give some suggestions to the ASC that resource
persons should be from more diversified fields and subjects. Sometimes we found
the schedule to be quite monotonous, because of the lectures on the similar topics
such as ‘teaching’. There should be some more varied topics for the
lecture session. Otherwise, everything was fine. Everybody in the staff was very
supportive.
Then
the final day of departure arrived. We parted with each other with heavy hearts.
Three months have already passed and still I am in contact with participants through
phones. Really it was a very good experience. I suggested to my other colleagues
to attend courses from Shimla, ASC. In the end, I would like to say thank you
to ASC Shimla, for providing us this opportunity.
Jyoti
Lecturer in Geography,
Govt. College, Naraingarh
Reflections 