Students on an exploration trip

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Students during their visit to the NGO Goonj; (below) Sundeep with his co-anchor Dipanjana

When many were protesting against the gangrape incident and some were celebrating the beginning of a new year, a bunch of youngsters met over a cup of coffee last week to discuss few other important things at the fifth edition of “Campus Crossroads” — a semi-formal workshop where young people from different backgrounds come together and share their campus experiences, talk about their life, ambitions and achievements.

Campus Crossroads is an initiative by Sundeep Chaudhary, a student of Masters in Commerce from Delhi School of Economics, who thought that getting students from different colleges on one platform to discuss different issues concerning them would be a good idea.
Sundeep says that after completing his graduation, he started working as an anchor with Pravah, an organisation working for social change. “Since I really believed in the idea of CC, I pitched it in and by August 2012, we were ready to hold the first CC,” he says and adds that the programme has been appreciated by many college students.
“In each of the programmes that we have conducted, we have come to know many interesting facts about DU and have even discovered new things to be explored. Like, one participant told us that DU students could avail free medical check-ups regularly. There have been many other revelations like this,” adds Sundeep.
Since its inception, the idea has come a long way. While it was started just as an initiative to bring students of different colleges together, in its recent edition the group went ahead with a social campaign to the work station of Goonj, an NGO working for reallocation and recycling of resources for the marginalised and for those in need.
“It was a nice idea to go there, as we got to know some intricate details of their functioning. It was enriching and inspiring,” says Sundeep.
Abhinandan Jain, a final year B.Com student, Kirorimal College, who attended the CC programme for the first time, says that it’s a really nice idea as it exposes one to activities that students in other colleges take up.
“Something like this takes you out from your comfort zone and inspires you to do better things,” he says.