Before the commencement of the 1st semester course work, the students go through a 4 day program called Experience India Visit. It comprises of a 2 day visit to organisations engaged in Social Development activities in the environment space, followed by a presentation of their observations, learnings through Exhibits at the ABS on the fourth day.
Objectives
The objectives of this visit are as follows:
- To create an opportunity for students to visit to rural/urban/semiurban location to study a problem situation and to encourage them to use problem solving methodologies to document issues observed (like fish bone analysis etc)
- To orient the students to approach the entire Social Initiatives program at ABS through more practical and action oriented approach, through these field exposures
- To prepare the students to participate in the Social Entrepreneurship in the first semester in a more informed manner.
Implementation
Before making the visits to designated organisations, the students have an orientation session to the overall Social Initiatives Program (ACT) at ABS. The session also covers the action plans for the Experience India Visits and the expectations from these visits. The students are also given or referred to reading material related to the organisations and the issues that they work on, prior to making these visit so that the visits are more fruitful. The students are divided into groups of 5-6 members and each groups visits one organisation. Care is taken to ensure that the students in each group have a good diversity among them in terms of academic and professional backgrounds so that they can contribute mutually to the outputs of the visit.
Outputs
The students groups are expected to present their observations and analysis from these visits through Exhibits on the 4th day at ABS. Outputs on each of the assessment topics could be put on A4 or Chart size sheets in the group exhibit. Visuals from the project also form part of exhibit. In addition all the student groups also submit in a report format, all the outputs from these visits.
