The APOGEE English Press sat down with Abhinav Gupta, APOGEE Coordinator of the BITS Pharmaceutical Society, to discuss the association’s plans for the upcoming fest. 

The coordinator first explained that the society, a bevvy of students working directly under the professors of the Department of Pharmacy, interlinking BPharm, MPharm, and PhD scholars, is involved in the organisation of several events, such as blood donation camps. He added that this year, they would be conducting two main events.

The first event—their annual Dopper’s Quiz, which mixed pop culture, media, and games with healthcare—was something they had been organising for many years. Abhinav elucidated that while the Biological Association’s quiz focused on all life forms, the pharmaceutical society’s specifically targets human-related issues, diseases, and drugs. Abhinav clarified that, while this quiz was held online in the last couple of APOGEE editions, this year it would return to an offline format. He mentioned that most people who appeared for the quiz were already interested in pharmacy, so some tended to have an advantage over the others. He then proceeded to explain that this was the reason they had switched it back offline, to ensure everyone had a fair chance. 

The second event—a Scrub Workshop—is a new addition to their roster this year. Although initially designed to be a regular cosmetics event, the organisers faced a lot of setbacks due to the use of  potential chemical allergens. Hence, e they switched to a sugar scrub workshop involving organic l ingredients. He elaborated that a range of 32 ingredient combinations would be available for participants to use in making their own body scrubs. 

With regard to their preparations, Abhinav revealed that the planning and ideation for the scrub workshop started at the beginning of the semester. A major setback they faced was the budget, which initially reached ₹36 thousand, more than double the expected sixteen thousand. To save funds, they had to cut down on expensive ingredients and reduce the possible ingredient combinations from 260 to just 32. Nonetheless, Abhinav added that it was easy to get the event approved, as the team had prepared physical samples of the scrub prior to the presentation of the idea..

On his experience as Coordinator of the society, He stated that he enjoyed it,  but also highlighted challenges in assigning tasks to different individuals. He further added that as coordinator, it was his responsibility to maintain “brotherhood” amongst members of the society. He stressed that a major problem in preparing their events for APOGEE had been the classic ‘BST’ and the constant ensuing delays. To resolve this, he explained that he actively set deadlines before the official ones, ensuring that tasks and reporting were done on time. He also added that the society holds daily meetings to keep everyone up to date with what’s happening.

Lastly, Abhinav expressed his cautious optimism regarding the new workshop and requested all BITSians to attend their events.