Vidushi Sahay, the CoStAAn for Department of Publication and Correspondence (PCr-APOGEE), has had some extremely busy days leading up to APOGEE 2022. She had been traveling to various colleges until the last couple of days before the fest as well as managing APOGEE Snaps. The APOGEE English Press caught up with her outside SAC, where the department had been putting in last minute efforts for a successful turnout to the fest.

PCr-APOGEE’s primary work entails increasing the outreach for APOGEE and converting registrants to participants. The department also arranges for inventory— scratchcards, files, and folders—as well as ID cards and passes for coordinators, departments, and clubs. ‘Usually, we start our work as early as September and October before the fest in March–April time slot,’ said Vidushi. The work entails collecting databases of various colleges—especially in the Delhi circuit—and corresponding with and calling them to the fest. This time, due to the uncertainty around the situation of the pandemic, the department could only start calling colleges around 50–60 days before the fest, which was presumed to be in a hybrid/online mode before that. While the department conducted webinars and talks to increase outreach for the fest, the trips to other colleges they usually conduct for offline APOGEEs could only begin around four weeks back.

The pandemic also brought with it a unique prospect, wherein neither the 2020 batch, nor the 2019 batch, nor Vidushi herself, have experienced an APOGEE before. Vidushi was proud of her team for pulling off what was ‘essentially five months of calling in 3–4 weeks’. She said that a lot of the work had to be delegated amongst the seniors, while the juniors worked ‘for insane hours’ as well. Another problem that the department faced was the confirmation of the final events. ‘What usually happens is that the final events list comes to PCr by December, but this time, it only reached by February end,’ Vidushi said. It left them with less time to pitch events to colleges and interested applicants. Coordinating APOGEE snaps with all clubs and departments was another problem that PCr handled well.

The outreach for the fest also happens through the Campus Ambassadors program, which is marketed as an internship to students in various colleges. They are incentivized to promote APOGEE in their colleges and send root mails or Instagram stories for the same. APOGEE 2019, the last offline APOGEE, had 300 such ambassadors. That number had increased to over 600 for APOGEE 2021. This time, from over 1200 candidates, around 850 were chosen to encourage their collegemates to attend APOGEE.

Vidushi’s personal experience as the CoStAAn of the department has challenged her throughout. She was expecting a hybrid/online fest when she took charge of PCr but had to adjust quickly when the fest was decided to be offline. ‘APOGEE is especially difficult to promote, since most colleges do not know about APOGEE as compared to Oasis,’ admitted Vidushi. She said that most top engineering colleges, including the IITs, are 300–400 kilometers away from Pilani and it is difficult to bring in participants during the April heat wave at Pilani. Yet, the department has put in commendable work, and Vidushi expects over 300 external participants to come.

She hopes that BITSians thoroughly enjoy APOGEE as ‘We have worked our asses off to make APOGEE great again’. She concluded that BITSians’ view of the fest matters a lot to CoStAA and it helps in bringing in even more people for future fests.