How IIT Madras' 'happiness' programme helps students deal with mental pressure - India Today

How IIT Madras' 'happiness' programme helps students deal with mental pressure

• Roshni Chakrabarty
• New Delhi
• May 9, 2018
• UPDATED 15:41 IST
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IIT Madras has two student-run teams and a ‘happiness’ programme among other measures to help counsel students.

The very coaching and preparation to get into IITs is a nerve-wracking experience and news of student suicides especially when they fail to crack JEE or cannot deal with unnatural, continuous study methods is not new. But what happens to students who crack the exams and become an IIT-ian?

IIT-ians have packed schedules with classes, workshops, presentations, seminars and research projects among other work. Almost everyone is studying or innovating and such an atmosphere can at times become too much for the young college-goers.

India Today Education spoke with Professor MS Sivakumar, Dean (Students) from IIT Madras to know about the various innovate methods taken up by the institute to deal with student stress and suicidal tendencies.

Prof S.M. Sivakumar, Dean (Students), Indian Institute of Technology Madras

MITRA AND SATHI: THE STUDENT-RUN COUNSELING TEAMS

IIT-Madras has two predominantly student-run counseling teams -- Mitra and Sathi -- which help counsel students. While Mitra is for reactive handling of student stress and mental issues, Sathi is for preventive measures.

Reaction means when a student is already going through some emotional trauma; then the Mitra team helps in terms of coping with whatever emotional burden and also takes them to get professional help if they require it.

- Prof SM Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras

"As far as Sathi is concerned, it is for preventive work. The team works towards building skills the students would need in terms of coping with certain situations that they might have to tackle. They could be of different nature -- peer pressure they deal with academically or even relationships. They do get tensed about small things as well," the professor adds.

Members of the Sathi team are trained at the grassroots level so that they are ready to help impart the first level counseling before they take the students for professional support provided at IIT Madras.

IIT Madras has two student-run counselling teams which help provide direction to troubled students.

COURSES INTRODUCED TO HELP STUDENTS DEAL WITH LIFE CHANGES AND STRESS

First-year students need to take Life Skills (1 and 2) and a course.

"An important thing that students have to learn is how to get along -- whether it's with people, environment, animals or several other things. Students here undergo a change from being a school student to being an IIT-ian who is looked up to in terms of leadership skills, academic skills etc. So, how to get along and how to find ways by which to get along is the first step in Life Skills 1," says Sivakumar.

Students going from campus to corporate sectors need to learn certain important strategies. In Life Skills 2, IIT Madras deals with such changes that students wish to have, dream of, or are dealing with.

Many times, one of the difficulties they face is dealing with conflict -- it can arise anywhere and everywhere. How do you resolve conflicts? How do you become a leader? What kind of leadership skills are there? Why do you need to learn reason? -- These are some of the things covered in Life Skills 2.

These are seeds sown into the students so that they can build on all the seeds that we have sown.

- Prof SM Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras

The Happiness programme carried out in IIT Madras is a brilliant initiative that provides training and information to strengthen the minds of students and develop their personality.

Apart from this, another thing noticed among students was that though they had unparalleled creative skills, but didn't realise it. For this, IIT Madras offers a course on creativity too.

"I felt the need for introducing course on Happiness, called 'Happiness, Habits and Success' so students can understand themselves," says the professor.

Through this course, students can learn a variety of tools available to understand oneself and to understand the need for development through a scientific approach.

The course includes latest psychology research, the impact of positive emotions and gratitude, a guide to meditation, advice on how to avoid distractions, research on sleep and the power of habits, the power of language, and the definition of personal purposes.

The bottom line is -- when a student feels there is no other way by which his or her problem can be resolved and they see themselves corned, that is when they feel stuck and start to abort.

- Prof SM Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras

"If we build in them the skill of looking at various possibilities by which they can cope with the particular kind of corner they face, that is empowerment for them," adds the professor.

This capacity to deal with student stress or even suicidal tendencies is exactly what IIT Madras is building through various fronts -- through workshop modes, student-run teams like Saathi or Mitra, interaction with other students, discussion forums -- in order to communicate to students that there are possibilities they haven't explored.

An electronic board outside the office of Dean (Students), IIT Madras, urging students to call helpline if they have any stress-related issues.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PARENTAL PRESSURE WHICH IS A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO STUDENT STRESS

Parents will always want what's best for their children and their definition of 'best' usually consists of a high salary by which their children can live a well-to-do life.

But this means that most of the time they simply aren't aware about how they become the primary contributors to their child's stress which then creates health problems.

"It's not so easy that you will just tell this to parents and it will get done," says IIT Madras' Dean of students.

"Parents have a nagging fear -- 'What if my child is not able to have the comforts of a life that is good?' And it is always attached to the profession that they take up. They do not know that there are certain talents, skills and dispositions that one needs to have and build so that they can go into a particular profession," Sivakumar adds.

He says that parents find themselves in a mess because they keep saying "study, study, study". But all they want is for their child to do something meaningful while moving on in life.

Surprisingly, the professor says that parents need to focus on building the strengths if their children instead of focusing on the subjects they aren't good at.

If my child got 95 in maths and 50 in chemistry, I should put my child in a tuition class for maths because building a strength is what should be done.

- Prof SM Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras

Parental pressure is a major contributor to student stress.

COUNSELLING AND INTERACTION SESSIONS WITH PARENTS

At IIT Madras, a programme is held which school students along with their parents are invited to attend. Here, the parents are shown how their child really is. They are then told how they can nurture certain creative aspects of the kids.

I am not saying that don't do other things. But if you start to nurture and use language powerfully, the world will be a different place. We will be flooded with people who are very self-confident and who can do things they love to do.

- Prof SM Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras

"Today one of the biggest difficulties we face is parents push their kids into doing something. Many parents of that sort come. I sit with them and tell them oh there's a connection!"

He tells us about an incident where he met a metallurgy student of IIT Madras who said that he hated metallurgy as there was no mathematics there.

"So I sat down with him and showed where all mathematics is there and how beautifully it is intertwined with materials," the professor says.

"That was the end of his demotivated period. Now he sees mathematics in many different ways when he goes to his material course."

Professor Sivakumar says that a certain mindset change needs to happen which can allow child and parent see each other's points of view.

He explains:

So it's a way that the shift has to occur so it is possible for both the parent and the child to be able to understand. In fact, I did this exercise along with the parent so that they can understand where the problem is.

Prof S.M. Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT Madras, talking to students

PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLING UNITS AT IIT MADRAS

IIT Madras also has professional counselling units and two professional counselling providers. They use several means to touch students-it could be through online chat, or face to face counselling.

When the counsellor looks at a student we have pulled out of the brink, the reason seems to be a very simple reason, says Sivakumar.

The professor explains how we are blinded by stress:

If you take a coin and put it in front of your eyes, everything else disappear, only the coin is visible. A very similar thing happens to them-the moment they have a little bit more time, they come out of this rut.

"So, how do we bring in that particular time that they need to have -- this is what we work on," he adds.

Professional counsellors are present in IIT Madras who help students where Sathi and Mitra fail

HOW IIT MADRAS HELPS STUDENTS DEVELOP A 'GROWTH MINDSET'

Life will always have one challenge or another, each of which can help us learn various life skills. The moment we get stuck after failing to get to our goals via one path, our life seems to stop.

Students need to avoid getting stuck after a failure and develop a 'growth mindset' that can help them keep moving on in life without getting sucked into a depressive state.

"Motivation is about what you want to do, what you want to be, what you want to have-and these are not static, these are dynamic," Professor Sivakumar explains.

The concept of 'growth mindset' as explained by the Dean:

We need to understand that there are several ways that we can achieve our goals. There is no one single path that takes you to the goal -- understanding this itself will help enable you to see other ways to achieve your goals and therefore not get de-motivated. I call this the 'growth mindset'.

Professor MS Sivakumar has some amazing advice for students which most youngsters tend to forget:

"We are not here to do a sprinting. It is a long life. Don't worry! If you are 20, you have around 70 more years that you can live happily."

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The Kota conundrum - Tribune India

Posted at: Dec 17, 2017, 2:12 AM; 

The Kota conundrum

The rising number of student suicides in Kota, the coaching capital of India, and various IITs and other elite institutions is not a story of failure of these youngsters, but of our system

According to the latest National Health Profile published by the government, one in three suicides in India is committed by those in the age group of 15 to 29 years

Aditi Tandon

It has been two years since Sumer Ram, a promising young student of medical stream and an MBBS hopeful, ended his life at a thriving coaching institute in Kota, the coaching capital of India.

Nineteen-year-old Sumer  had missed the selection for MBBS through the All-India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) by 20 marks in 2015. “My son wanted to improve his score to be able to get an MBBS entry in the 2016 edition of AIPMT. He had been at Kota for coaching for seven months, preparing for the next entrance exam. In December 2015 we got the news that he had committed suicide. It came like a bolt from the blue because everything was going fine. The institute people later told us that he had not attended classes for a few days. When we asked why they didn’t intimate us about our son’s absence, they said they couldn’t possibly track all students in the class all the time,” says a teary-eyed Hazri Ram, the deceased’s father, a resident of Nagaur district in Rajasthan. 

Hazri Ram is not alone in this anguish. Among the first recorded suicides was that of 19-year-old Nidhi Kumari from Jharkhand. Her father Rajendra Kumar is still grappling with the tragedy. She was studying in Kota for her MBBS entrance.

The latest suicide in this Rajasthan city happened as recently as December 7 this year and involved a young boy. Between 2013 and now, more than 56 students have ended their lives in Kota, unable to cope with the high-pressure preparation schedules for Joint Entrance Exam  (JEE) Advanced for entry to IITs and NITs and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for entry to top medical colleges.

The final push

Why are student suicides continuing unabated? Reasons are multiple. “Mainly because of the way the coaching centres and their schedules are structured. Annual expense to get a student coached in any top Kota institute is Rs 2.5 lakh. It’s a lot of money for most families. Returns are never guaranteed. But parents, in the hope of securing the careers of their children, take loans, sell properties and do anything they can to pay up. The pressure of this cost recovery is squarely on the student who is expected to study well and crack the test. A student’s individual potential for any discipline is secondary,” says Arvind Gupta, a Kota local, who has been tracking city-based suicides.

Each coaching class usually has 200 to 250 students with little personal attention being paid to anyone. Sundays are also not free as internal tests are scheduled on Sundays. The marks obtained in these tests form the basis to rank students within the institute. 

“A system of discriminatory teaching is followed in almost all top coaching centres in Kota, which focus on potential high performers who can bag top positions in JEE and NEET. The pressure on slow coping and low performing students is obvious,” says a parent of a student who killed himself. 

Alarmed by these deaths, the Rajasthan administration recently issued guidelines to Kota coaching centres asking them to ensure not more than 60 students in a class, mandating the centres to return the fees in case a student wanted to opt out and ordering them to institutionalise a system of sending SMS alerts to parents in case a student absented from a class for more than few days and without medical grounds. The present practice in Kota is to take yearly fee at the time of admission with no pledge to return the dues in case a student wants to exit.

Violatory practices

But all this is still being practiced in violation of the government guidelines as suicides continue and as does the business of these centres. The city has over 50 centres. Around 1.70 lakh students annually descend on Kota in the hope of making their dream careers. The commercial value of Kota’s flourishing coaching business is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore annually.

Why do students continue to queue up at Kota despite its reputation of a suicide capital? Reasons are clear. 

The mad zeal to crack the competitive engineering and medical entrance exams outweighs all considerations both for parents and students who, sometimes, have little option. 

When Varun Kumar, a Ludhiana boy, committed suicide at Allen coaching centre, Kota, on December 3, 2015, his father Balvir Ram was shocked. All Varun wanted was an edge to get enough marks to enter a government medical college which he had missed a year earlier.

“Coaching centres don’t exist in a vacuum. The ground has been laid by our faulty education system where there is a premium on cracking competitive exams while school education is ignored,” says Rajeev Kumar, a former IIT professor from Kharagpur. 

These Kota students often take admissions in the city’s dummy schools to complete their Class XII as they attend coaching classes on the side. Local administration is now cracking down on these dummy institutions.

A matter of aptitude

There have also been demands to mandate aptitude tests for students seeking admission to Kota centres so that they know about their potential at the beginning. This recommendation is part of the Kota administration’s guidelines to coaching centres but has not been followed strictly. These centres continue to enrol all students whether or not they have the skill and the aptitude to bear the gruelling preparation schedules. Naturally, weaker students fall off the academic track, many ending their lives.

The cycle of suicides doesn’t end here. It persists through the student life in IITs and NITs and various other elite institutions.

Scores of students have committed suicide after entering IITs because while coaching prepared them to crack the entrance, it didn’t prepare them to stand up to IITs’ real challenge of research and innovation. 

Mahtab Ahmed, an IIT Kanpur student, who killed himself some years ago, had scribbled on his hostel wall, “I hate IIT.”

An M. Tech student at IIT Madras, Nithin Reddy, had ended his life after being asked to repeat a course in the final year. Nithin had already landed a job and the repetition  would have meant foregoing the job.

The rat race for elite colleges

Even this year, many suicides have been reported from the elite central technical institutes, including that of IIT Kharagpur’s aerospace engineering student Nidhin M in April. He hanged himself from a ceiling fan. “Let me sleep,” was all he wrote before he killed himself.

Former IIT Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, who headed 

a taskforce to recommend measures to prevent suicides on campuses, feels disproportionate attention and focus on IITs and NITs as India’s top engineering institutions has created the pressure on students to get into these colleges.

The Dhande panel had suggested end of single-room occupancy in IITs and to share rooms to encourage bonding. Another suggestion was to reduce the internet speed on campuses so as to wean students off gadgets and allow them time to concentrate on lessons.

Eventually, a system of MiTR (a guidance and counselling unit) was introduced in IITs to help students cope with the stress of institutional rigours. 

The hidden signs

But even counselling services tend to miss signs of stress among students. The counselling wing of IIT Bombay  had failed to recognise a student Srikant Malapulla as a depressive. A regular at the counselling  centre, he had committed suicide.

“There is no single cause or solution for mental health issues that drive people to suicide. The high levels of competition are a major reason of stress which is why on this World Mental Health Day, the WHO had asked all employers to put the mental health of workers on their agenda. This applies to educational institutions also. Frequent demands of high performance, regular grading and the stress of campus placements in technical institutions takes a toll on students. It’s time to address the issue holistically right from reviving the worth of school education to stressing conceptual knowledge rather than test-cracking abilities which coaching centres hone,” says Dr Rajesh Sagar, Professor of Psychiatry at AIIMS, New Delhi.

Mental health experts, meanwhile, add that suicides are an emerging epidemic in India. 

Recent data reveals over 1.30 lakh suicides a year, with young being the most affected and males being more vulnerable than women.

“One in three suicides in India is committed by those between 15 and 29 years and two in three between 15 and 44 years. The younger population is more at risk,” says the latest National Health Profile published by the Government. 

It does not analyse the causes behind the trend but presents enough proof for policy makers to consider mental health implications of economic growth, competitive markets, shrinking jobs and disintegrating inter-personal and social ties.

Alarm bells by Prankti Mehta Kadakia - Hindustan Timese paper

• 28 Oct 2015
• Hindustan Times (Mumbai)
• Pankti Mehta Kadakia pankti.mehta@hindustantimes.com

Alarm bells

CAUSE FOR CONCERN With two students suicides at IIT-Madras in the past four weeks, a look at prevention methods across Indian campuses, when peer counselling is most effective, and what institutes can do to help

‘But one day, I cracked. I bunked morning class, was crying in my room… I took a towel, tied it to the fan, tied a noose, apologized mentally to my parents and sister, and tried to hang myself…’

SHUTTERSTOCK

After dealing with two suicide cases in four weeks on the IITMadras campus, student Pankaj Joshi (name changed) wrote about his struggle with depression for the institute’s online campus magazine, The Fifth Estate, on October 20.

‘Every day was pure agony’, writes Joshi. ‘I would sit clueless, watching others answer things that seemed like alien language to me. Class after class, slot after slot, I would just sit…lost. People at my internship didn’t respond to any mail…my mind was going into overdrive – what did I want to do with my life? Was I squandering my IIT opportunity?... Which top university will accept me with an early-8-point CGPA (which was threatening to go even lower)? I pretty much hated every second of every day.’

The two suicide cases, of MTech student Nagendra Kumar Reddy on September 21, and BTech student Rahul G Prasad on October 19, have raised several questions. No official data is available on IIT suicides, but according to a blog called Suicides at IIT, run to raise awareness about the issue, 76 IITians have committed suicide since 1981 — 15 in 2014, and seven in 2015, so far.

“In the past five years, at least five students I know have chosen to end their lives — we do not know how many failed in their attempts,” says Arya Prakash, an integrated MA in English studies student at IIT-Madras. “What has gone wrong in an institution that claims to provide professional counselling services as well as peer-to-peer counselling, where the Guidance and Counselling Unit was renamed ‘Mitr’ [friend]?”

“A large problem is that students and administration both assume that the suicide victim had difficulties in dealing with academic stress or with handling a relationship. As the blame is shifted to the individual, there is little reflection on the academic structure as a whole,” adds Veena Mani, a PhD scholar in humanities and social sciences at IIT-M.

While IIT-Madras is in the spotlight currently, similar cases prevail at various other IITs, and to a lesser degree, institutes across the country.

“Even at a social sciences institute like ours, we have had a few cases of suicide,” says Amita Bhide, professor and dean of the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Chembur. “Now, the stressors on students are so many — in addition to family and relationship issues, they are trying to build a career, pay off education loans, get placements that befit expectations, etc. Unfortunately, some students buckle under this pressure.”

At the IITs and in medical colleges, academic stress is a large factor for suicides, say experts.

“Suicides at institutes like the IITs and AIIMS make news, but there are cases at various other colleges that may not,” says Shobhana Mittal, attending consultant psychiatrist at the Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS). “This is a vulnerable time for students, when their roles and hormones are changing, along with their environment.”

“Most undergraduate BTech suicides (ages 16 to 21) are due to academic stress, the inability to cope and the shock of failure and its ramifications,” says Ram Krishnaswamy, a retired engineer and IIT-M alumnus, who runs the blog Suicides at IIT. 

“Add to this sexuality issues, relationship breakups, financial woes, drug and alcohol issues, and above all, mental health issues as depression and anxiety.”

A study published earlier this month by CIMBS says that 51.6% college students in Delhi have anxiety problems; 17.8% admitted to having suicidal thoughts; 64.6 % experienced depressive symptoms; 51.8% students felt overburdened by the academic pressures and career uncertainties.

“While this was a survey of 500 students from across Delhi’s institutes, considering that they come from all over India, it is indicative of students across the country,” says Mittal. THE ROAD AHEAD While most colleges — including the IITs — have strong counselling services, not many students willingly come forth to seek them.

“We have measures already in place — we provide counsellors, psychiatrists, even informal services from student volunteers — but the suicides still happen,” says Bhaskar Ramamurthy, director, IIT-Madras. “Students need to be forthcoming and avail of these services too. There is a stigma attached to seeking counselling.”

“We are taking several measures to try and remove this stigma,” says Soumyo Mukherji, dean of student affairs at IIT-Bombay, which saw a suicide case in May this year. “These suicides are a symptom of a larger, deeper problem, and we need to tackle the root cause of depression.”

I I T- B, Mukherji says, is working on hiring more counsellors, with different kinds of specialisations. They will also have student mentorship programmes, where a senior mentor can report a junior’s sudden fall in performance, erratic behaviour or other tell-tale signs.

“After recent suicides, the college has put in constant efforts to raise awareness about the issue. We've had stress management workshops and there has been an increase in the number of counsellors. Maybe the professors showing a little more empathy towards students could help bring a change," says Nilesh Bansod, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student at IIT-Bombay.

According to Krishnaswamy, institutes should take a serious look at measures taken in universities in the UK, US and Australia, “instead of trying to reinvent the wheel”. These include prescribing self-help books, online counselling programmes, guided meditation, and regular counselling.

“Academic pressures in the west are ruthless too, but the circumstances are different,” says Mukherji of IIT-B. “There, students can take 10 years to graduate if they want. In India, especially at the IITs, you are using government resources. It is impossible to afford students who take only one or two classes a semester and spend years on campus, when there are so many more waiting for that seat.” PEER COUNSELLING KEM Medical College in Parel has workshops for students and faculty on suicide prevention. They are taught to identify signs of depression, how to get a depressed student to talk, and so on.

“This has really worked for us — we have seen so many cases where peers report depression in other students,” adds Shubhangi Parkar, dean at the institute.

At IIT-Delhi, similarly, students are coached to bring to notice signs of depression in their peers.

“Recently, minor exams were coming up and a student disappeared,” says SK Gupta, dean of student affairs at IIT-Delhi. “His friends immediately reported this to the authorities.”

However, some students are concerned that peer counselling is not entirely effective.

“Mitr’s method involves peer-to-peer counselling, and only some cases are referred to professionals. I am doubtful about this, as firstly, untrained people — or those with little training — are dealing with deep psychological issues,” says Veena Mani, a PhD scholar in humanities and social sciences at IIT-M. “I have been told that students find it hard to trust Mitr volunteers, as most of them are moralistic in their approach, and students feel that they will tell professors about issues they think can affect their grades.”

“Frequent checks should determine whether they are being implemented effectively,” adds Prakash of IIT-M. “For instance, if the volunteers are going to be judgmental about things like relationships or alcohol, it defeats the purpose.” 

(With inputs from Damini Priya)

IIT-Madras: Two suicides in four weeks raise several questions - Indian Express

IIT-Madras: Two suicides in four weeks raise several questions

According to some professors its changing character with an increase in the number of students has led to an alienation of those who come from weaker backgrounds as the main reason for the suicides.

According to some professors its changing character with an increase in the number of students has led to an alienation of those who come from weaker backgrounds as the main reason for the suicides.

The suicide of an engineering student in the hostel room in IIT-Madras on Monday was the second such incident in less than a month, raising serious questions about the pressures on IIT-M students to succeed.

According to the police, Rahul G Prasad, 22, a B.Tech student from Kerala’s Kollam district, hanged himself in his room in Ganga Hostel on the campus. No suicide note was found. On September 21, N Nagendra Kumar Reddy, another student who committed suicide, had also left behind no clues to the reasons for his suicide. There have been about 10 suicides in the last five years at IIT-M.

Among the reasons being floated for Rahul’s suicide are a failed relationship and anxiety about his placement. His teachers says he was a bright student although he had a few papers to clear. His classmates said he failed to appear for a periodical test held on Monday. “Since there was no suicide note, we are now looking at various angles including a reported relationship that he had,” said the police officer.

If anything, the suicides highlight the stress levels for students at the institute. According to some professors its changing character with an increase in the number of students has led to an alienation of those who come from weaker backgrounds as the main reason for the suicides. “A section of students who are highly competitive and an increasingly ambitious faculty also create a tough academic environment here,’’ said a researcher.

An MA student said the change in the character of students and the entry of first generation learners also create conflict. “Even professors who would stand for rights and equality conveniently avoid Dalit students or those who come from poor backgrounds as a delay in completing a thesis or projects would affect their careers too. So many teachers don’t think it is useful to help these students; instead they prefer the best ones. All these realities strengthen the alienation of a section of students who eventually fail to convince themselves about their goals and purpose of life,” he said.

Mitr, earlier known as Guidance and Counselling Unit (GCU), a body comprising faculty and senior students is there to provide guidance and counselling “for students who are facing any curriculum-related or or personal problems”. Director Bhaskar Ramamurthi has denied criticism that Mitr is not being run properly: “it is playing a significant role and addressing several issues,” he said. He added that IIT-M has an effective suicide prevention mechanism and the campus hospital also has an advanced system offering psychiatric help.

A day after the suicide, IIT-Madras was silent on the death of the student. Administrators and departments were busy with arrangements for Saraswati Puja. The administration of IIT-Madras was silent on the news of suicide.

“We all learnt about the suicide from the media although we have multi-level communication systems and mail services. The suicide of a student remains a shame for many in this institution as we are all supposed to run after bigger dreams and career,” said a head of department.

Ramamurthi said they were helping the police in investigations and the parents to take Rahul’s body back to home. He said there was no official communication about the death as the police investigation was on. “We are giving all possible help to the family,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Facebook post by a student that is being shared by the students has this to say: “I don’t hear or see anything around me acknowledging the tragic end of someone who shared this campus space with us, who probably ate at the same mess, shared a classroom or hostel. This silence is deafening, disturbing. Have we become so indifferent, that we don’t pause for a while, that it doesn’t matter because it isn’t us or me?”

In the wake of the recent suicide, a student writes about his own battle with depression, and how he overcame it.

http://www.t5eiitm.org/2015/10/it-is-always-darkest-before-dawn/

It is Always Darkest Before Dawn

Posted on October 20, 2015 by T5E

This guest article about how a student battled depression and overcame it, has been removed because of concerns from several quarters. We’ll put it right back up in a few days.

Please join the institute community in mourning Rahul G Prasad’s untimely death and do write to t5e.iitm@gmail.com, if you have any opinion to share on the state of mental health among IIT students.

IITs step up measures to control increasing student suicides - Pagalguy

IITs step up measures to control increasing student suicides

28 September 2015

Suicides at the IITs have grabbed enough attention from the public and the authorities at the IITs. Six suicides have been recorded in the IITs, so far this year. We spoke about the barriers that students faced while approaching a counsellor in the campus in the Part-1. Here is what the IITs had to say when PaGaLGuY spoke to them regarding the additional measures that have been initiated in the campus apart from the exisiting Counselling Cells.

Dr Shikha Jain who heads the counselling department of IIT Roorkee says, "IIT Roorkee has a Counselling Cell with student volunteers, instead of just the administration and the counselling team. Since students spend a lot of time amongst their peers, we decided to train these student volunteers to identify any student who may be in need of help," She also added that the training that is given to the student volunteers is done by professionals from time to time. The students also use the anonymous forms to notify the Counselling Cell if they find any student's behaviour unusual. On an average, there are 3 to 4 students who visit the counsellor in a day. "There is no time limit that we have for the sessions while consulting with students. It entirely depends on the students and the extent of their need."

Mikul Patel, who is a volunteer with the cell says, "Certain students may have issues in their personal life or in college. We notify about such students to our counsellors if we ourselves cannot help them in any way."

IIT Madras rechristened their counselling cell as 'Mitr' (Mentor for Individual Transformation) two years ago. They have now redoubled their efforts, not just to reach out to the students who possibly are in need, but also to create acceptance among the students to 'visit' a counsellor. "We have 80 student volunteers, called mentors in the campus who are in the 4th year. Each of them is responsible for close to 10 students of the junior years. In order to acquaint the mentor students with the rest of the campus, we conducted an informal cricket tournament, where both mentors as well as juniors participated. 

 The students spend so much time with each other so it is good to have students involved in helping each other," says an official from IIT Madras. The core members, which include the Student Advisor, and the Coordinators in-charge for the hostels, are trained professionally along with the mentor students.

IIT Bombay started a new Facebook page, ICare IITB, in the wake of recent suicides, in July 2015. This is in addition to the already existing counselling cell in the campus. The institute has also increased their number of in-house counsellors from just one counsellor to two permanent counsellors and one more on a contractual basis. 

"Students can use the Facebook Page to get regular tips on managing stress, anger, anxiety etc. We also come to know about any upcoming workshops organised by the Counselling Centre such as academic stress management," says Aditya Menon, a second-year student.

'Better late than never' is what the mantra seems to be, and the IITs are vigorously trying to make sure that students don't take such extreme steps such as suicide due to distress. Despite the presence of counsellors, IITs have now sought the involvement of the students in order to tackle the growing number of suicides. However, it remains to see if these initiatives will bring about any drastic changes in the rate of student suicides in the IITs.  

(I)IT's Not Right to Give Up Fight - Indian Express

(I)IT's Not Right to Give Up Fight

By Siddharth Prabhakar

Published: 23rd September 2015 03:45 AM

CHENNAI: The suicide of yet another post-graduate student at the prestigious Indian Institute of Madras (IIT-M) has once again put the focus on the high pressure conditions in elite institutions.

For an engineering-crazy society and parents, getting an admission in the IITs is seen as the pinnacle of achievement for any student. Considering the fat pay offered by companies during placement drives, many students from humble upbringing or rural backgrounds enter IITs with sky-high ambitions, but with equal vulnerability, said an IIT-M professor. 

“They fail to cope with the tough and demanding courses,” he said, speaking from his experience as a hostel warden. The situation is worse for post-graduate students, who have graduated from colleges or universities ‘lesser’ than IITs, as there is an exponential rise in the output demanded by the professors and the course structure, said a PhD student.

Another former M Tech student of the institute alleged that there were cases where professors would extend the project or grade it lower, thus damaging the placement prospects of students. The professor who has also been a hostel warden, said students at the institute were aloof and do not have a support system of friends or family to fall back upon in case of a failure in exams or placement tests.

Agreeing with this view, the research student said IITs are vastly different compared to arts colleges or even other engineering colleges where a huge friends group would ensure sharing of grief. “Inside IITs, students who are already under the pressure of a tough syllabus have to deal with failure on their own. This culminates into suicide,” he reasoned.

The aloofness is for a reason, the M Tech student said. “Students condition themselves to be self-centred and driven, with a focus only on professional success to be preferred as best candidates for the campus placements. They don’t have a social life where they relax,” he said.

The professor said every hostel has at least 2-3 members who would be depressed. “It is the warden’s duty to be vigilant and recognise such persons and take him to a counsellor. IIT-M has Mitr — a unit which specifically deals with this. But a counsellor can only be successful if they get complete access to the patient’s thoughts,” he said.

Reasons for suicide have often been trivial. The professor recalled a case where a student killed himself as friends he considered educationally inferior scored higher marks in the GRE examination. “In some cases there are also family issues,” he said.

197 - IIT-M to post counsellors in every hostel

IIT-M to post counsellors in every hostel

M Ramya, TNN Jul 12, 2013, 06.51AM IST

CHENNAI: From this academic year, students at IIT Madras will have a friend in need, a resident counsellor, round the clock. The institute authorities will also have an early warning system.

The institute is set to recruit 20 trained counsellors, one to reside in each hostel so that the 7,000 students can get help at any time. The initiative follows steps taken to help students handle academic stress and other pressures after an increase in the rate of suicides on campus over the last couple of years.

Dean of students L S Ganesh said the resident guidance officers would have a degree in psychology or sociology and possess good communication skills. "Mitr ” our existing guidance and counselling unit ” is gaining in popularity. But, the waking hours of students are not the same. And student volunteers are sometimes bound by secrecy that proves costly," Ganesh said.

The counsellor is expected to toe a fine line between alerting authorities and faculty about students on edge and serving the role of a confidante. "The challenge for the officer will be to establish trust among students," said Sivakumar M Srinivasan, IIT-M professor and head of Mitr.

There is a proposal to change the existing arrangements, which advocate separate hostels for undergraduates, postgraduates and research scholars. "We want UG students to be in touch with their seniors, who can assure them they've 'been there done that'," Srinivasan said.

The institute was among the first in the country to set up an online confession page in 2011, now popular on social networking sites. Revamping the guidance and counseling unit into Mitr has doubled the number of students reaching out when they need assistance. A 24-hour helpline in partnership with Medall Healthcare is also in service. Parents are regularly kept in the loop of the academic progress and behaviour of their wards, and encouraged to report trauma and history of mental illness in their child.

A task force set up last year to investigate student suicides at IITs and other centrally-funded technical institutes recommended various initiatives to guarantee the mental well-being of students. It suggested that each institute allot Rs50 lakh to provide psychological support to students. Committee chairperson M Anandakrishnan said, "All the IITs and NITs are taking measures along the recommended lines. We suggested the government set up an empowered committee to monitor the progress and give support. That is yet to happen."

All the IITs and NITs are taking measures along the recommended lines. We suggested the government set up an empowered committee to monitor the progress and give support. That is yet to happen.

Anandakrishnan | counselling panel head