Forming SES DTU

Back to college after a long summer break, this time entering the university gates as a second year student instead of a freshman, the campus was brimming with activities for the freshmen and all the student societies were open for recruitments, trying to attract new members. Closely analysing all the societies, I noticed that there was none that focussed primarily on environmental protection and conservation and being an ardent advocate for environmental safety, I decided to form one. Enthusiastic about this new idea, I called up my friend Vasudev to discuss about forming a society and as we started building upon our idea, we realised that we had negligible knowledge about the process of forming a college society. Sometimes I feel that ideas that pop up out of nowhere suddenly have a much better success rate than pre planned and highly discussed ones. So, this random intuition of forming a college organisation for spreading environmental awareness became my own enterprise.

The next day, as the classes got over, I met up with Sankalp, another batchmate of mine who had been quite involved in society work in the first year. So, I pitched the idea of forming a society to him and to my surprise he knew the procedure for that, now all we required was a professor who would back us as our Faculty Advisor. Something that just sprung up in my mind as a random 3PM daydream the day before was now developing into a real project. The whole week, I met numerous people, including seniors who were at certain posts in already established societies and friends who I thought would guide my way through the process of forming a society. Mostly what I got in response from the people I had a conversation with about my idea was that forming a society was not an easy job and it required approval from the highest authorities in the university. Undeterred by the obstacles lying in front of me, I talked Vasu and Sankalp into forming a team for our society. Full of confidence and without any concrete support, we knocked the doors of our HOD, Prof. S.K, Singh asking him about forming a society. What came next was 10 minutes of grilling and 3 blank faces standing bewildered in the HOD office. We were unprepared, and maybe going to the HOD without a clear plan was the best decision we made, because the fact that he dismissed us as students who talking nonsense really struck me as a challenge. I went back home and wrote down a summary about what our society was about and how we plan to execute our ideas. So, we got a few brochures printed, and shamelessly knocked the HOD's doors again. However, this times things went in our direction, the professor liked our brochure so much that he agreed to become our faculty advisor. 

The things don't end here. we had probably just come a yard in what was a mile long journey. What I learnt in the whole process was that things rarely go as we plan them and at every step life throws another hurdle for us to cross. It took us a week's time to prepare an official proposal for establishing our society which was to be presented to the administration. Our efforts had paid off, finally after two weeks of slogging our days at the college, skipping classes and meeting a hundred people, our file got approved and our society was established. I was now the president of the Society for Environmental Sustainability (SES DTU) and what started off as a "why not" was now there in front of our eyes and the funny fact was that I still couldn't believe that we had pulled it off. We gathered support from our teachers, friends and batchmates and everyone was extremely supportive of our initiative. SES DTU was now officially the only student led organisation at DTU which aimed at spreading environmental awareness and promoting sustainable engineering practices in the uni. We talked to a few people we thought would be an asset to the society and assigned them as heads of various departments. After 3 weeks of giving birth to the idea of forming an organisation, we were now a team of  6 people ready to change the campus environment. I cannot describe in words what SES means to me. Opportunities do not just appear all of a sudden, we attract them. Had I dismissed the idea of forming a society as just a mere thought, I would never have been able to build relations, find friends and earn the goodwill of the college community. The whole process was a very enriching one for me because at every step, there was something for me to learn. My growth in this past month has been tremendous and I urge everyone who is reading this blog to just think, build upon thoughts, go out in the field and do the work instead of cribbing about the hardwork that lies ahead. You gotta be patient and persevering, things take time and we should let time do its magic, all we gotta do is not miss a single opportunity.