Extra- curricular activities are essential for the holistic development of student. These activities are fun-filled with lot of learning and therefore are the main attraction to the students. The extra-curricular activities teach the students organizing skills and develop in them the spirit of team work and leadership. These activities fall outside the realm of normal curriculum of university education, are voluntary and often involve others of the same age. The activities are directed under faculty sponsorship.
Extracurricular activities lead to higher educational retention, success and achievements in college life. The greatest advantage of participating in at least one of these activities is the build-up of social behaviours and students growing up to be more successful in communication and interpersonal relationships.
Crescendo is the largest inter-collegiate youth festival of Central India. It is one the popular youth festivals of the region, which brings a footfall of over 20000 students for various, fun filled, cultural and sports competitions. Tirpude Institute of Management Education (TIME) organizes this festival every year and tries to convey a message of social importance to the student communityby weaving a theme in the festival. The theme chosen, every year, signifies the importance of some current situation which largely affects the society at large – for example, the theme for Crescendo 2017 was ‘Cashendo-ATM’, signifying the current Government’s new policy of cashless economy and the limit on cash withdrawal from ATM machines across the country.
Some themes from the past, for Crescendo,are‘Mafia Masti’, ‘Nasha! Addicted to Life!!’, ‘Mosaic’, ‘Stripe-up’, ‘Entertainment kaGaramJugaad!’, ‘Happiness ka Junction’ and ‘Cashendo-ATM’.
Through these themes TIME is making the student community aware of the various ill effects of different types of addictions like Drugs, Violence, Alcohol& Tobacco. TIME, at the same time also endeavoursto communicate that the youth turn towards life and get addicted to good things in life like relationships, humanity, friendship, brotherhood and love. Hence the posters, designed to promote this festival and its events, boldly proclaim the chosen theme for the festival each year.
Some of the activities that are undertaken to promote this massive youth festival are:Flash Mobs (Street dance performances at Traffic Park, Futala, Poonam Chambers and leading malls), Street Plays (scripted specially for highlighting the dangers of drugs, violence, alcohol, etc.), Bike Rally, Walkathon (with specially made posters highlighting ill effects of drugs, violence, etc.)andExpert Talks (on de-addiction and non-violence).
The entire gamut of Crescendo events are organized under ‘Sports’ and ‘Cultural’ groups and TIME follows a corporate style of organization structure, entirely manned by students, to execute this mega event. At the top is a CEO, who has COO (Sports) and COO (Cultural) as under him/her for their respective functions. Both the COOs, in turn, have Directors and GMs under them who are responsible for individual events. The students thus get to understand the importance of organization, discipline, timeliness, delegation of authority, accountability and such other management functions followed by corporate.
A huge team of studentsworksrelentlessly and enthusiastically for the success of Crescendo. Above 2000 entries are received from different colleges in the region by the organizing team, every year, for competitions under various events. This youth festival kick starts in a unique way by way of ‘Crescendo kaMela’, which is a college fete organized to generate excitement and interest. Students are invited to simply revel in the atmosphere created for this purpose. As far as organizing is concerned, everything is ‘of the students, for the students, by the students’. A work culture of creativity and efficiency is the hallmark of Crescendo and all events & activities, from marketing to hospitality, are managed by the students themselves.