When the world saw the coronavirus outbreak back in March, many people across the country stayed staying at their homes. Adjusting to this new lifestyle has been a real challenge since then. Be it a mental or a financial affair, devastation was seen all across which pushed for some acclimatisation. Hence, massive reforms in the elemental lifestyle have been visible lately.
Amidst all these negativity going on in the country, IUT (Islamic University of Technology) Career and Business Society was consistent in delivering what was required for the students during this precarious stretch. They had a very compelling part in involving the students for skill developing webinars. They conducted 10 webinars which mainly focused on the vital things that the students needed to learn. They also conducted workshops. For instance, second year and third year students took part in an exclusive workshop on how to assess and decipher a business case. They also familiarised the freshers with various business concepts and terminologies.
Following CaseBites 2020, an intra-university business case competition was organised by IUT CBS which was an icebreaker for the freshers to the world of business competition. Several webinars were conducted later as well. One of the webinars featuring Sabin Rahman-- the vice president of Organisational Change and Employee Experience-- focused on the interview process of different organisations and drafting a professional CV. Another webinar hosted by IUT CBS featured the chief product and technology officer of bKash.
IUT CBS also works on preparing the students for various national business competitions. Prior to ISCEA Ptak Prize Competition, a workshop was conducted focusing on supply chain management which was done with the incentive of ICSEA. Besides these, IUT also partnered with Robi, Unilever and Banglalink for conducting various career-based webinars.
The IUT Career and Business Society invited accomplished alumni of IUT for conducting seminars focusing on engineering career paths, allowing the present students to connect with the alumni. Apart from all these, CBS also stood by the people who needed help in this pandemic caused crisis. They successfully conducted 'Eid for Everyone' project and partnered with Mission Save Bangladesh ensuring a happy Eid for 25 families. Meanwhile, Biznation 2020, a business competition which was postponed back in March was also successfully resumed. With two rounds completed and the finalists fixed, the final is set to take place very soon.
The President of IUT CBS Sadat Haque had this to say about the ventures during the lockdown period, "Lockdown was a big setback for us since we had to postpone our first inter university competition. As the team had an urge to perform and faced a new challenge to do it during this pandemic, slowly but surely we are acing it."
The pandemic has surely changed many things. Although lockdown caused disruptions in normal life, it surely brought the students of IUT an array of opportunities to build their skills upon. They have got opportunities to challenge themselves and explore new horizons.
The writer is a final year student at Islamic University of Technology (IUT).
She can be reached at ebtesam@iut-dhaka.edu