Meeting the students

An important task for me this summer is to mentor the eight summer students working with me.  We met last week and planned out activities for the next two months.

The first meeting with the summer students was very interesting.  Out of them 6 are in their second or third year of undergraduate program, while 2 are Master's students.  Depending on their previous course work and interests, I have divided them into four working groups studying four topics.  Our plan is to have biweekly seminars, which all the students are expected to attend.  In the first seminar, I will give a talk on one of the four topics, and in the second meeting in the same week, one student from the working group doing this topic will give another talk on it.  The intention behind getting students to talk is to ensure that they are working regularly and understand the concepts well enough to explain them to an audience.  Since the audience only has me and the other students, they will also not feel intimidated.  Also, although each group is expected to focus on its own topic, this seminar will ensure that they also get a broad understanding of what the other groups are doing. Students will also be working on certain assignments and experiments every week.  

The whole point of the summer program is that the students should learn to work on their own outside a typical classroom atmosphere.  Thus, it does not make sense for me to give standard three-times-a-week lectures.  It is much better that the students work on their own and approach me during my office hours, which have been generously scheduled.  On the other hand, there should be some kind of structure in the program so that I can ensure that the students are working and sufficiently involved. Hence, the biweekly seminars.  

I guess I am essentially designing the program on the lines of VSRP at the Tata Institute, with the modification that students will also give talks and that they are younger than VSRP participants.

The whole plan seems to work fine at the moment.  The students are regularly meeting me during office hours and are taking a lot of interest in their topics.  I am waiting to see how they do their assignments (or if they do them at all) and how they plan their talks.

I am also hoping that the regular seminars will inject some life into our currently very sleepy department as many of the faculty are traveling this summer.  

Non-program interaction with these students has been a lot of fun.  One of these students seriously believes that he is the next Messiah who will revolutionize the way science is taught in the country.  It is great to have dreams and ambitions and I applaud his noble intentions. However, I hope that he will learn in the next two months that one has to know a bit of science before bringing about a science revolution.

Yet another student was hoping to work on a project which is sort of my STEM field's equivalent of splitting the atom! Once again, I do not wish to discourage him. But, he is certainly not working on that here with me.

The other six students have not displayed any abnormal characteristics yet. There is one female student (FS) in this group and the above mentioned two students are trying to "mentor" her (without being invited, of course).  The other day, these two walked into my office to tell me how the reading material prescribed for FS is not appropriate.  I was secretly amused at their "concern", but firmly told them to focus on their own work.  I later thought of some measures to make sure that FS doesn't get stifled under their "care", but it seems that she herself is doing a good job in warding them off.

In conclusion, the summer program is holding up well for now.