Anagha Suresh Babu and Janani Balaji, the two co-heads of the newly formed Alumni Relations Team, are quite happy and satisfied with the way the team worked, despite it being freshly established and forced to face the hurdles created by the pandemic. The team did not have a former team to look up to or learn from. Anagha thinks this aspect was both good and bad for them. Since the team was new there were no expectations and little room for comparison. The workings of the DoHSS Alumni team could not be compared with that of the Insti Alumni Cell team because the latter is long established and has a much larger team. Luckily for them, the Alumni Relations Team of the Department of Management studies provided a rough blueprint. The DoMS team was successful with its events and ventures which was a green signal for DoHSS too. There were confusions at various points regarding logistics and approaches but this is where having a partner had its advantages. Janani says that everything went smooth as Anagha had similar ideas as hers and they did not have any major clashes. Having two viewpoints also helped create more discussions among the team members.
The team was divided into 4 coordinators, each incharge of four categories, namely, data, events, publicity and contacting. But as the events kicked off, it became hard to stick to the given position. The exact division and subsequent work distribution seemed to be practically impossible. Hence all the coordinators and heads worked together in all the departments. The team has successfully conducted four
Alumni Talks in collaboration with the Placement Team. The talks had alumni pursuing different career paths like MBA, UPSC, policy or higher studies. It attempted to provide the students with comprehensive information on various opportunities.
Anagha considers Data updating as the biggest task they had to take charge of. Collecting information and the contact details of the numerous alum was a bit daunting. The team did a student-Alumni mapping for the fourth and fifth years. They also collaborated with the Intern Team so as to provide them contacts to HR (so they could recruit department students) in companies where alum worked.
In her manifesto, Anagha put forth the idea of having an Alumni Buddy System for every student. However, this couldn’t happen because of the difficulty in mapping Alumni according to the interests and aptitudes of current students. It must also be noted that not all alumni are willing to spare time for current MA students. They are often busy with their own higher studies or jobs and could not be expected to stay in touch with the students. Janany had plans to improve the visibility of the department and the team through social media outreach but again, this didn’t take place.
All the Alumni talks and webinars happened through online platforms. It definitely helped in introducing a lot of Alums to the current MA Students. However, Anagha believes students have missed a chance of meeting them in-person and interacting with them. It is slightly upsetting that events like Alumni Meet and Alumni Chapters did not take place in the department. Overall, the two co-heads believe that the team did a fine job although they faced a lot of challenges. They expect the upcoming team to have enough data and manage them well.
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