MACFAST Innovation and Corporate Synergy (MICS)
• Mentorship programme – Alumni Interaction
• Industry Interaction – Industry experts /Visiting faculty Interaction
• Industrial Visits
• Internships
• Campus to corporate connect
Communication Skill Development Council
Communication is fundamental to the existence and survival of humans as well as to an organization. It is a process of creating and sharing ideas, information, views, facts, feelings, etc. among the people to reach a common understanding. Effective Communication is significant for professionals in the organizations so as to perform the basic functions of management, i.e., Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling.
A professional may be highly qualified and skilled but if he does not possess good communication skills, all his ability becomes irrelevant. A professional must communicate his directions effectively to the subordinates to get the work done from them properly. With this understanding MACFAST constituted the Communication skill development council in the academic year 2018-19, specifically to engage with activities that enable a student to cater his future needs of communication. Moreover, institutions like MACFAST look into the prosperity of its students in terms of placing him in a better company where communication skills play a major role.
Phase 1- Business Update Sessions
This activity is intended to enhance the general awareness, analytical ability, deeper understanding of world circumstances, presentation skills, vocabulary and reading habits. This activity includes the following process.
• Read the newspaper Daily
• Prepare a note on any three news
• Present it on the next day
Phase 2 – Business Update Sessions
This phase is designed to enhance team building among students along with all the abilities mentioned in Phase. In this phase following processes are included.
• Read the newspaper and pick up any one news as a team
• Analyze its past present and future implications if any as a team
• Prepare a PPT as a team
• Present it as a team consisting of three members.
Phase 3 – Business Intelligence Symposium Presentations
This activity is designed to enhance the business knowledge on contemporary and non-contemporary aspects. HBR Article Review and Book Review provide deeper understanding of concepts related to management. The indented outcomes of the program are
• To develop the professional presentation skills of young MBA aspirants so as to withstand the demands in their professional life.
• To develop the leadership qualities with a strong ethical background to efficiently and effectively manage business amidst of environmental turbulences
• To nurture communication skills to enable young MBA aspirants to competently communicate in the workplace
Industry Visit
YES Plus (Youth Empowerment and Skills Plus) Programme
YES plus (Youth Empowerment and Skills Plus) is a life skills program specially designed by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (the founder of The Art of Living Foundation) and offered to those between 18-30 yrs. It aids in improving the overall performance, boosting confidence, enhancing creativity and communication and in developing leadership and team building skills amongst other areas of self-development. It prepares them to face all challenges that the modern world poses at the individual, social, political and economic level. Most importantly, it helps create harmony and a sense of belongingness on the university/college campus, amongst students, teachers and the management.
It is a brilliant blend of interactive intense group processes, talks, presentations, physical exercises, yoga, meditation, profound breathing exercise; practical knowledge tips, music, dance and fun based learning oriented games.
Program modules comprise of:
- • Group discussions and role-plays to inculcate life-skills and employability skills.
- • Team games to develop public speaking and interpersonal communication skills.
- • Talks and Presentations to bring out attitudinal and behavioral changes.
- • Aspects of Asanas and Pranayama to increase concentration and clarity of mind.
- • Breathing techniques (like the world-renowned and well-researched Sudarshan Kriya) to flush out stresses and toxins.
Outbound Experimental Learning (OEL)
Outbound Experiential Learning is a training method for enhancing organizational performance through experiential learning. Such programs are often also referred to as outdoor management development. Achievement, performance and behaviors during these activities are reviewed through a process of discussion called debriefing, to identify behaviors that enhance performance or lead to failure or decreased performance. Strategies are formulated to deal with factors that hinder, and these strategies are then put to use in the activities that follow, to test their effectiveness and ultimately help the participants learn to change behaviors or processes back at work.- In Outbound Training Sessions, the facilitator invites the group to achieve a goal, but does not explain how to successfully complete the activity. Participants must work to find a solution individually and together as a team, and must communicate and learn from each other in order to be successful. The Learning begins with the experience followed by reflection, discussion, analysis and evaluation of the experience.
Add-on Courses
The class was not related to regular subjects; instead it follows an Add on course which is out of the student’s present syllabus. This Add-on course set with a course outline which includes holistic aspects of working capital Management in the corporate world. The syllabus includes five modules with course objectives and outcomes. These five modules elaborately deal with introduction, application, approaches and elements of current assets liabilities management. This subject aids the students in understanding the cognizance and significance of liquidity management in a business . The content generated outcome includes ability to analyse and solve liquidity crises , balancing use of sources of funds, estimating operating cycle and working capital requirements of a firm etc.
The platform / tools made use in these sessions is 100% online enabled by Google named as “Google classroom‟. Tools like PowerPoint, word and excel also came in the way of discussion. The frequency of contact was every day . Till 30th April , around 28 hours classes have been conducted. Class discussions was carried out in the form of video learning materials, assignments, practice problems, case studies and quizzes , articles , ppts, notes etc.
The classes were divided into two sections. The first section focuses on organization practices of MIS. This section is offered for 40 hrs. Add-on course which covers 26 Case Studies related to MIS. The second section covers 120 previous university questions and 7 case studies.
For conducting sessions, “Google ClassRoom‟ has been used. Students have prepared online Case study presentations. For this, online screen recording software was used. These presentations were uploaded to YouTube.
A total of 103 students have enrolled in Google ClassRoom. Except Sundays, all the other days, starting from March 23 2020 to April 30 2020, students were given online activities/assignments which have to be completed on a time bound basis. So almost all days, the instructor has been in touch with students.
Different online activities were conducted. A total of 51 case study presentations on YouTube were made by the students. They have also made 51 PDF/word materials related to 26 case studies. All these YouTube links and PDF/word materials are uploaded to Google Classroom. Seven Graded quizzes were conducted based on these Case Studies. Out of 103 students enrolled, 93 students have successfully completed the MIS Case Study Add-on course with a certificate with excellent grades. Each day the students were also given 5 university questions on a random basis and at the end of the day they were instructed to post the answers for these questions. The students have responded positively and they were able to come up with answers for all the 108 questions posted. This will act as a solved question bank.
The course was offered to 2nd semester MBA students. The nature of the course was an Add-on course and the prime objective was to supplement the syllabus provided by M.G. University. The course was designed for a total of 40 hrs of student engagement. The add-on course was named as Marketing Practice.
This course was offered through Google Classroom platform, Stream, Classwork and Grading features of the platform were extensively used for the course. Additional reading materials in pdf format, links to relevant websites, videos, etc. were provided for effective transfer of knowledge. Streams, assignments and other activities contributed to 28 times direct contact with the learners during the period of 19th March to 30th April 2020.
Other than class discussions, practical assignments, social media marketing exercises, case analyses and quizzes were included in the course to have continuous engagement with the students. There were 9 continuous assessments and a final summative quiz. 91 out of 108 learners who secured a minimum of 50% score in each of these assessments and the final quiz were declared as successfully completed the add-on course and thus became eligible to get the certificate.