Ice-breakers on campus: How colleges are helping students keep fit, network

Private universities are offering sports and fitness zones, shopping centres, food courts and spas to help students make new friends, socialise, de-stress.

As private universities step up their game, life is changing on these campuses. In addition to multidisciplinary courses and credits-based systems, they’re offering students recreational options as well — shopping centres, cafés, food courts, guest accommodation and apartment-style housing. These campuses are typically sprawling and hi-tech too, with wifi, electric vehicles to help you get around.

The on-campus gym at Amity University, Gurugram. You can also enrol for classes in yoga, aerobics and roller-skating, among other recreational activities.

Lovely Professional University (LPU) has a multi-storey students’ unicentre with branded fast food outlets, dining options and cafés; electronics showrooms; dessert cafés and incubation centres. “We have an Olympic-size swimming pool, a diving pool, squash and football courts and a cricket pitch. We want our students to be active and sporty too,” says Sorabh Lakhanpal, additional dean and head of student welfare.

There’s a hospital on campus too, as well as food kiosks that serve comfort food from across the country, from idlis and dosa to litti-chokha and chhole bhature.

The Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) has a food court that serves cuisines from across the world, including Chinese, Malaysian and Mediterranean cuisine. An indoor sporting complex provides all-weather facilities for jogging and football.

The indoor pool at Lovely Professional University allows students to keep fit in all weather.

WORK HARD, PLAY HARD

For students, this is a dramatic change from campuses that offered, at most, a garden or two, an amphitheatre and an AV room. It’s an opportunity to focus on overall development, keep fit, relieve stress, and perhaps as importantly, to socialise and make new friends.

“When I go to the badminton court, I get to interact with so many people over play,” says Vishnu Chowdhry, 23, a fourth-year BTech student at LPU. “This leads to personality development as you learn from different people with different perspectives.”

The physical education centre at Amity gets a lot of takers. “We test our fitness, take on challenges get to interact as teams and work in groups,” says Sravanthi Gonti, 20, a second-year student of business administration.

“A good university emphasises learning. Learning happens even when one sits in a café and interacts with other people in a friendly environment,” says Padmakali Banerjee, dean of academics at Amity, Gurugram.