Design: Swati Sheenum, G Shreethiga, Shaurya Rawat, Abhiram Pavithran O, Rohit Gadarla and Hardhik Pinjala.
T5E’s Placement Survey 2020-21 was conducted in the month of February to study students perspective of placement season 2020-21. The respondents of the survey were final year students across different degrees and departments who appeared for the placement season of 2020-21. The survey witnessed a total of 171 responses from undergraduate students and 96 responses from postgraduate students. The survey explored various aspects like Opinion, Academics, Career, Extra-curriculars and Preparation in the view of placements and the effect they might have on placements.
In this article, we explore the Extra-Curriculars aspect. This article revolves around the various extra-curricular activities that students participated in and their perceived impact on the overall placement process.
Do PORs matter in placements?
For both PG and UG students, an overwhelming majority of respondents believed that their PORs had a near negligible impact on their placements. However, as we’ll soon find out, some PORs were deemed to have been more significant than others.
Diversity of Profile
60% of respondents rated their CV as being fairly diverse, out of which roughly one-third wished they’d chosen to narrow their field of interest. A similar wistful trend was observed with the ones with a specialized resume, one-fourth of whom wished they’d taken the opportunity to try out different things.
Importance of specific PORs
And now the answer you’ve all been waiting for, which PORs actually mattered (at least to the students, if not the companies themselves). Ironically, the members of the placement cell felt that their PORs had the least effect on their placements. Equally surprisingly, but more pleasantly so, members of the music contingent were the most pleased with how much their PORs contributed to their placements.
PoRs which had less than 5 respondents are included in the “others” category.
Core Members/ Heads of clubs
Cores/Heads had much more faith in the value of their POR work, with 58% stating that they had a significant impact on their placement, compared to only 24% of non-core members.
No. of PORs vs CGPA
There appears to be no strong correlation between purely the number of PoRs a person has and their CGPA (Despite there being what appears to be a sharp drop off after 7 PORs, that’s only because the ones with >6 PORs were outlier; only 5 people in total fall under that category).
PoRs vs CGPA
UGs:
CGPA trends across individual PORs were similarly ambiguous, with very little variation among them. Among UG students, members of the Inter IIT Cultural contingent appearing to have the lowest average CGPA’s, and members of the Inter IIT Tech contingent having the highest. For PG students, the lowest and highest average CG’s were the I&AR and CFI competitive teams respectively. Note that “others” includes PoRs for which the responses were less than 5.
PGs:
For PG students, the lowest and highest average CG’s were the I&AR and CFI competitive teams respectively. Note that “others” includes PoRs for which the responses were less than 5.
Conclusion
As a student in the institute, extra-curricular activities are a major part for most people. Extra-curriculars and PoRs certainly affect various aspects of a student’s life including placements as is apparent from the survey responses. If not directly, they do influence placements indirectly at some level.
Next looking to find trends, we looked at whether the number of PoRs a student does in his entire insti life affect CGPA. There was no strong correlation there. Students with 6-7 PoRs had the highest CGPA which is most probably because of random chance as the average CGPA values do not differ much from each other.
Next, we looked at CGPA trends across different teams, but again there was not a strong trend there as well.
Overall, the point to take away from here is that PoRs are important as they do seem to affect placements in some way or the other (especially if you make it to the core team). They might be the talking points of the interview or might help to get a resume shortlist.
That’s it from the Extra-curricular aspect! Stay tuned for more analysis!
