In a welcome move, Hindu College is opening a research centre targeted at undergraduate students. This could be an opportunity for students to explore their fields in a way that is holistic and significant.
Hindu college, one of the leading choices for students vying to study at the University of Delhi (DU), has taken a progressive step by setting up a one-of-a-kind undergraduate research centre. This is the first research centre open for undergraduate students at DU. According to an update, the College will complete the construction for the Interdisciplinary Research Centre by March 2020.
The research centre is being set up to supplement the science courses offered by the college such as Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Statistics. The four-storied building will be housed on the main campus itself and will include diverse laboratories for each of the disciplines and research cells for the students.
Two fascinating additions are the language laboratory, and the media laboratory. Even though the college does not provide Journalism or Mass Media courses, the laboratory is built to assist the students from the Sociology Honours program who have a paper on Ethnographic Filmmaking.
Research at the undergraduate level is relatively unheard of and students mostly pursue it at the post-graduate level. While speaking to The Indian Express about the need to build this facility, the Principal, Dr Anju Shrivastava, said, “Within the existing undergraduate curriculum, there isn’t much space for research, but with students’ increasing curiosity levels and questioning capacities, and the rise of liberal arts, it becomes the responsibility of institutes to satisfy and enable students. For students, research will add to their credentials and also enable them to make an informed decision as to whether they want to continue or discontinue with the sciences after graduating.”
The research will not form a part of the students’ curriculum in the college but will be voluntary for students who are interested in pursuing projects outside their syllabus. To make full use of this facility, the college also plans on offering add-on courses for interested students. The Hindi, English, and Sanskrit departments of the college will be working together on the language laboratory and the Sociology department will be taking care of the work done in the media laboratory.
The total cost of infrastructure reportedly stands at INR seven to eight crores. The college will also additionally be spending INR two crores on the equipment required for the various laboratories. According to the college, the entire cost of the research centre has been raised through “philanthropic donations”.
Feature Image Credits: Livemint
Pragati Thapa
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