There is one question that has bothered me for long. The academic preparation or the quality in general of students entering IITs (and other top institutions) and Tier 2 institutions is only marginally different. But the quality of graduates from Tier 1 and Tier 2 is vastly different. From Tier 2 institutions, the best students do extremely well, even better than an average Tier 1 graduate, but if we compare the average Tier 1 and Tier 2 graduates, there is a significant gap.
(Is this gap only my biased perception? I do see a lot more IITians in the top rung of most tech companies. Is this bias and not truth. If truth, is this because of Old Boys networks of IITs. If there is no such gap, are all students and parents wrong in choosing Tier 1 institutions over Tier 2 institutions. One can have all these questions. But for the purpose of this blog, I will assume that there is a significant gap.)
Why a minor gap at admission time expands to a significant gap at the graduation time.
The obvious answer will be that the quality of inputs at Tier 1 institutions are far better than the quality of inputs at Tier 2 institutions. The faculty quality is better. The labs and infrastructure are better. They have access to more people who can help them in better curriculum and all that. Greater amount of resources can lead to better outcomes.
But I am not satisfied with this obvious answer. There must be other factors which are not based on resources alone. Are there cultural factors, for example. And the reason I am trying to find non-resource factors is that if indeed there are such factors, we can bring them to Tier 2 institutions and improve their outcomes without additional resources.
I believe I now understand some of those factors and sharing them in this blog.
Student motivation and aspirations: I think the biggest factor is that when a student joins a Tier 2 institution, the whole world tells him that he has failed in securing admission to Tier 1. This demotivates the student and his aspirations become lower. He stops working as hard as he used to do in school. Only a few remain motivated and hard working. And these students do extremely well throughout their careers.
Mentorship and Networking: In a Tier 1 institution, there are so many visitors, seminars, workshops, lectures. Industry leaders, successful alumni, top academicians, all are visiting the campus frequently. If a student attends even a very small percentage of these events, or interacts with very few of these visitors, that has significant positive impact. One usually finds seniors, recent graduates if not successful old alumni, who can mentor and advice. In Tier 2 institutions, one has lesser number of events due of resource crunch, but more importantly, when they do invite people, they are shy of inviting the top notch people. When a top person does visit a Tier 2 institution, the institution is too bothered about his/her comfort, keep a lot of time in the itinerary for "rest" and also not spend a lot of time interacting with students because the institution does not have confidence in how the students will behave. So the students don't get proper mentorship and advice during their academic program.
Culture: Excellence is a matter of culture. To give a simple example, if there is no attendance requirement, what percentage of students will attend a class in Tier 1 institution, and what percentage of students will attend a class in Tier 2 institution. How many students will try to get an internship on their own six months before the start date. How much is the role of students in taking decisions, giving them a stake in marching towards excellence.
Having recognized some of these non-resource factors, we have tried to make a difference in JK Lakshmipat University.
When students join us in the first year, we repeatedly tell them that not being in top 0.1% of the country on a given day does not define them. In any case, the country is not going to be built by 0.1% people. Many of the students when they realize that what they were considering a failure was only inability to be in the top few on a given day, they do gain some confidence and motivation. There are many sessions in our induction program from experts which makes them believe in themselves.
We have initiated a formal mentorship program in the campus. Every student gets a faculty mentor who meets them regularly and there is also a possibility of getting an external mentor to those who seek one, typically aligning with the career goals of a student. For example, those who are thinking of entrepreneurship, can get a mentor who has done a startup.
We have lots of visitors on campus from both industry and academia and we leverage these visits quite a bit. The visitors are not here to rest in the guest house. There will be people who will interact with them during their travel from airport/station to campus and back and once on campus, there is going to be a series of interactions.
We have a strong Student Mobility Program under which lots of our students spend a semester in IITs and other top institutions to get exposure to the kind of culture we want to develop here.
In our experience, these non-academic interventions really help in improving learning by our students and almost all of these don't require major financial resources to implement.
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