Life in Pondicherry University ever since I entered the School of Education as the first batch of two-year Master of Education programme (M.Ed. 2015-2017), has been exciting and challenging at the same time.
Earlier, as a child, I visited Pondicherry on several occasions because of places of interest such as the Aurobindo Ashram, the Auroville Matrimandir and ofcourse the French colonial relics in and around the scenic Rock Beach. However, before applying for the course after seeing a newspaper advertisement, I was completely ignorant of the fact that Pondicherry had a central university which houses one of the best Education departments in India, with a personality like Dr. M.S. Lalithamma, as the Dean and Head of the School of Education.
Upon my arrival during admission, I remember how warmly Dr. Lalithamma greeted me and my father in her chamber and that humbleness shown on the part of the HOD, reduced all my apprehensions about the place.
Since then, under the guidance of the exisiting five professors after Prof. Lalithamma retired in January, 2016, I have nurtured my talents and grown as a person. Here, we work as individuals and in groups in doing assignments, making presentations, writing reports on practical field visits and so on. We have adopted a research-oriented approach in teaching-learning and the faculty has always encouraged us to take up challenges and adopt creative approaches to change the face of teachers' training existing in India.
Recently we had a field visit to Chennai where we toured several national-level educational/teachers' training institutions that enabled a thorough understanding of existing practices in the field. We were also taken to the British Council to take up the level-test as an evaluation of our Communication Skills.
Several guest-lectures(by both Indian and foreign delegates) have been organized on different occasions to enrich our knowledge on specific course contents.
The engagement with field course, made us all serve as interns/ trainee teacher educators in different B.Ed. colleges in and around Pondicherry.
Apart from core academic activities in the university ,we enjoy a lot of co-curricular activities like quizzes and fests organized by different departments. The Silver Jubilee campus is an amazing place which houses our School of Education. The lush green, pollution -free, peaceful environment will make one feel in love with the place.
Weekends are the best part of life in Pondicherry University, where like most others, I too go out to the lovely beaches(Rock, Serenity, and Paradise), the Pyramid temple, Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville and Sunday market in the town of Pondicherry where you can develop skills like bargaining which is indeed useful in practical life!
Of course, there are pros and cons to everything, but the cons just teach you the art of adjustment and hence I left that to be explored individually. For now, let's all enjoy the sunshine and sea-shores of Pondicherry and share all the positive learning experiences I gained in my alma mater, Pondicherry University.
