The winterJAVA workshop.........memories

Last winter, I conducted a workshop on JAVA that I christened ‘ The WinterJAVA Workshop’. The workshop was all success - it included thirty 2^nd year students, two 3^rd year students and 2 Research Scholars from IIT Kharagpur. The participants also included a Railway Officer, two ladies who came from DVC and two ladies from SALUA. The workshop made my purse richer by 15-16k. And the experience and the confidence that I obtained was overwhelming. My students were more than satisfied.

It all started like this – I had promised some 2^nd year students of R.K Hall (for non-KGPian R.K Hall is my hostel ,I am the General Secretary, Technology of R.K. Hall) that I would teach them JAVA in winter. So accordingly I put up a notice in R.K. Hall mentioning that I would like to teach JAVA to interested students who would like to stay back in the winter vacation. I expected some 5-6 guys but the number was much larger. News spread to other Halls of residences and I started receiving requests to include students from other Halls as well. So I decided to include students of other hall as well. I also decided to charge Rs.500 per student . This would ensure that both I and my students would be sincere during the workshop. I put up a website in which people could register for this workshop. I put up fresh notices in all Halls(except S.N. Hall of course ).

Now space was a problem. Where would I find a room that can accommodate 30-40 people , that can station some computers for practical purposes, have blackboard for teaching, have chairs for students and so on ? Hijli high School was a option but it had many problems attached with it. It would cost me much and would be far away for my students. In the meantime I received a request from one of the KRAIG heads (Kharagpur Robotics Society) to include this workshop as a part of the KRAIG winter workshop . I readily agreed as this would provide me with everything I wanted- classroom, computers, projectors , etc. But eventually their were some problems and I had to do away with this idea.

In the meantime registrations were pouring and I did not know where to accommodate so many people. I could not call off the workshop as people had already booked their tickets accordingly . I took help from one Mr. Alok Saran – a native of Kharagpur who lives just outside the IIT Campus . He owns a Coaching Institute – ‘CAREER LAUNCH’ for preparing students for IIT-JEE. He promised me a classroom where I could conduct my classes. I had earlier helped Mr. Saran in many ways and he was obliged to me for that.

I asked people to pay the fees before the classes started. But very few did. All wanted to test me before they made their purses lighter by 500 bucks . This made me worried. What if I could not come up to their expectations? I became nervous . I never had gone on stage to speak something ,and now I was supposed to teach some 30-40 students for four hours everyday. And teaching IITians was not a joke.

I was really nervous. I started my preparations . I prepared some slides. I prepared my dialogues, anecdotes for the first day. It took me a lot of time.

The first day-I reached a bit early. Though I seemed inexperienced and nervous for the first 15 minutes, I gained confidence after that and all seemed a piece of cake from then onwards. I would entertain m students with jokes, give real –life examples for all that I taught. They seemed interested for they asked questions. I made sure they understood everything by asking them questions. I made people come up to the black board to solve problems. The classes were of four hours duration, with a 15 min. break . During the break we used to move to the balcony .People used to crowd around me and ask me to narrate my experiences. They used to listen to me with utmost interest as if I was some Nobel laureate or someone of the sort. For the first time in my life-I felt that I was someone .I felt confident.

Students seemed highly satisfied as all of them attended classes for all the 15 days (Though skipping classes is the second nature of an IITian ). All of them paid me as well in 2-3 days. This showed that I had come up to their expectations. I also took 2 surprise tests in which most of them performed well. I regularly collected feedback from the students. Most of them gave me 90+/100.

I took classes for 13 days though I had promised 15. This was because I fell sick and also had to prepare for an interview with Barclays Capital, Singapore. I promised to make up for the missed classes after the vacation.

Finally the workshop came to a close. All were happy as they were going home. I was happy –I had been selected by Barclays Capital . Also I was richer by 15k. I donated 1k to the Gopali Ashram, paid the rent for the classroom to Mr. Alok Saran, sent 6k to my parents and the pocketed the rest.[:D]