Social life and life skills in focus as Mumbai colleges seek to cover lost ground after pandemic

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This academic year, Mithibai College at Vile Parle in Mumbai is starting a mandatory course on life skills which will include a topic on human values and ethics. Ramnarain Ruia College in Matunga is going to teach the importance of mental and emotional health in the foundation course for first-year students. Whereas at RD National College in Bandra, a novel concept of a “student connect” initiative will be revived to ensure peer support as students are back on campus. Different city colleges have introduced novel ways to help students ease into a new normal, post pandemic.

Pandemic after-effects

As colleges reopened, it was literally the first day in college for many students as for the past two years, they had had only online classes. For them, it is a huge leap from attending school before the pandemic to starting degree-college life afterwards. Their junior college years, which provide a transitional window, went in the blink of an eye as they sat in front of computer screens indoors.

“They are practically beginning their college life only now and are bound to have a certain amount of stress or nervousness,” said Dr Neha Jagtiani, principal of RD National College in Bandra. Whereas Dr Ashok Wadia, principal of Jai Hind College, said, “The uncertainty that students have seen in the past couple of years has taken over, leading to negativity. This loop has to break.”