Professionals terminated by their employers must keep abreast of the key developments introduced by the Government and handle the forthcoming chapter in their career with pluck and positivity
COVID-19, a pandemic that has crippled the world is being tipped as greater that the Great Depression during the 1930s. The fall out of this novel Coronavirus would have far greater economic consequences than imagined. Several economists are expecting the global economy not to revive before the fourth quarter of this financial year. The Coronavirus cases have now crossed more than one million worldwide with more than 59,000 deaths.
However, even in these times of uncertainty and despair, the light of education and enlightenment should be kept aglow. India is known worldwide for its education system and its education players have stepped up to tackle these unprecedented times.
Technology has come to rescue during these dark times. According to a KPMG and Google report, online education is on an uptrend with the number of users to reach 9.6 million in 2021 from 1.6 million in 2016, which by any standards is a humongous jump. With the new concept of social distancing, including students and corporate executives confined to their homes, users for online education are set to increase, including universities like Amity University that use technology to facilitate education. Online education has become the preferred educational partner, it is catering to over 1,00,000 students live remotely across its campuses around India and across the globe. These measures are being undertaken as a precaution against the spread of Coronavirus and to safeguard the health of students and faculty members. All classes are being held live online as per the existing timetable using the Learning Management System and Virtual Classroom system of the university. The faculty members are meeting online for taking several strategic initiatives like conducting interesting webinars for the academic community and the industry. Faculty Development Programmes to increase the research quotient and improve the project writing abilities have been conducted. Several such initiatives are in the pipeline for the coming weeks. All steps have been taken to complete the academic session as planned and preparations are in place to lay the foundations for the process of online examinations.
Amity’s Mentor-Mentee is also being conducted online where faculty members are in constant touch with students and are providing counselling to students. Furthering its initiative of using research for the betterment of the society, a ‘Research Network on Novel Viruses’ has been created. This network comprises of the leading scientists in the field of Virology at Amity and also from around the globe.
Here are some of the ways to use this time effectively:
Ask the industry/company for any remote work: In case your summer internship is cancelled, explore the opportunity of working remotely, as there would be definitely some jobs where this could be feasible.
Be an entrepreneur: You can start your own project; may be a website, a blog or any online social event that you have always been passionate about but never found time to give wings to your dreams. You might be surprised with the endless possibilities.
Read, read and read: If you have been unable to get an internship where you can work remotely, take this opportunity to read.
(The author is the Group Vice Chancellor, Amity University.)