Entrepreneurship : Students mindset.

I will speak with reference to Bengal only.

When I was there at the WBJEE counselling (year 2009), I noticed parents, students regardless of their ranks asked one basic question – “How are the placements?”
The parents doesnt seem to send the students to colleges to study. They mistake colleges to be employment exchange centres. Sorry, if I appear rude. But lets accept it as a fact. I remember a guy (Suraj Das, CSE, freshers-2009) who told “main jis college mein aapna 4 saal waste karne wala hoon.. janne ka haq toh banta hain!?” while I was taken aback by a surprise.
The typical mindset of a normal bengali parent is to get their children study, get into a good college, and come out with an offer letter. My dad also thinks the same, himself being an entrepreneur… even my mom (my maternal grand dad, by the time of his death was the owner of 7 rice mills, 5 brick mills, few oil mills… I am not going to other ventures at all.) I am always surprised when they ask me to join MNC.

In the similar fashion, the student also thinks of browsing through the books, bunk classes, “enjoy” life.. read before the semester exams (even I do so), get good score, appear for interviews, If they crack it.. they have the broadest smile on their face and go on to “enjoy” life even more, else abuse the system, or the interviewer.. or plainly curse their “luck”.

It is more of the parents psychology than that of the children. They will force their child to take “Mechanical Science” although their wards loves Computers, because of the “recession” bug in their mind. Result: Students who wanted CSE/IT took other departments, and maximum of CSE/IT students never knew what they are taking !

They are afraid. 2 ways:
1. afraid of taking risks in the future
2. afraid of getting on stage speaking or doing something entrepreneurial. they fear failing and people mocking them.

They wanna take the short cut to making money. They dont want to approach the startups for either job or internships, the idea of them becoming entrepreneurs is far!

Somewhere, in our ecell, the idea of completing each other has been replaced by “competing” with each other.. in the fight for popularity! 🙂 Result: few guys with immense potential backed out of the ecell, hating it now speaking all ill !

For the students, I feel running the ecell, organising events are the best ways to explore the entrepreneurial abilities. But they find time to play counter strike, go around with friends, but when it comes to these activities…they are enthusiastic to organise fests… but ecell activities?? WE ARE BUSY WITH THE SYLLABUS! #fact

It is not entirely their fault. They should be guided to this path, with regular counselling. I, being a student understand them well.. and being in the ecell and associated with entrepreneurship activities in Kolkata also understand this mentality as well!