May I help you? The good,the bad and the ugly. – HELP DESKS during admissions.
By Meghna Mehra
Admission season is on! And if you will go to University of Delhi you will se posters,banners and help desks of student wings to help aspirants.
But things are not what they seem to be. Behind all the smiles and friendly behaviour lies something else. There is a lot of hardwork and struggle done by every student wing for maintaining these Help Desks
Let’s try to find out different aspects of these Help Desks
THE GOOD
such help desks help aspirants to some extent. Since all student wings try their best to woo freshers they end up helping in their best possible way.
It makes applying easier when there are experienced people helping a person. During offline admissions last year, volunteers used to escort students to offices and helped in arranging documents.
This year,when admission process is fully online in DU, we can see student wings keeping laptops with internet on their desks to help finishing the form submission of students. Online portals like DU News,DU Beat,DU updates,etc are also helping students with online admission procedures as there are many students who have never done online registrations before.
It also enhances environment of university for students as they will know few people after admissions which will make them feel comfortable.
THE BAD
There is cut-throat competition among student wings during admission sessions to grab the most of the crowd for their image building among students.
But why such help desks are not set up in every university? specially those where there is no elections?
This question can be answered very easily. Because HELP DESKS are often used for political gains. Students remember those people who have cooperated with them during admission process which leads to recognition among students.
Later this recognition can lead to high number of votes and members.
it can also lead to brainwashing of kids as they have no idea about ideologies and they might end up choosing somebody who is not going to work after winning.
Second thing,if there are good volunteers without any political objectives then why there aren’t helping in non-electoral universities?
HELP DESKS are a good idea but they have become a political tool to get crowd on your side.
THE UGLY
Things can get ugly and sometimes they do.
Conflicts and clashes among student wings during this time is pretty common.
students sometimes do not get appropriate answers of their queries leading to confusions and cancellations.
A lot of students complain that they have been given wrong or no information during admissions procedures by student wings.
This way to help students is both good. Yet the political opportunism cannot be separated from these HELP DESKS.