Part 2: Journey as a GDSC Lead throughout the year

Hey there 😎, welcome back again. First of all congratulations on getting selected as GDSC Lead, if you are here means you were selected as a Lead or you wish to be selected in the future and want to have an idea of your responsibilities as a Lead so that you can excel in your interview.

Note: Those looking for some interview tips for getting selected as GDSC lead, please read my previous article here. I am damn sure you will thank me later. All the best.

Okay, so to run a successful chapter throughout the year, you will have many resources either in terms of people, knowledge, skills, or sometimes finance and mentor too. Hence, the most important thing which you need to work on at the very beginning is the “Formation of Team”, so to form a team, I am attaching few points which need to be taken care of for sure.

1. Take a team of Max. 5 Core Members officially, a minimum of 1 mentor (Probably Ex. GDSC Lead) and a Faculty guide — You might be thinking that you will need more people but believe me, if you will take the best 5 people in all 5 domains, your team will rock for sure.
2. Since this is really a professional experience at a great scale, so try to avoid including your best friends just for the certifications and goodies unless they are very much interested. If you think they deserve to be in your top 5 Members of your college core team, then go on else take discussion as a Lead.
3. Minimum 2 members from your just junior batch (eg. If the lead is in the 3rd year then 2nd-year students) — The reason why they are to be included is, now being working under your leadership they will learn and grow and in the next academic year, they will lead better than you because they have very close experience as a lead last year and they will try to take it to greater heights that previous year and this is how the community grows, they grow, and you help them to grow.
4. Generally, we have domains around Cloud, Android, AI/ML, Web Technologies. So try to include the best candidate of your campus of each domain along with a Marketing and Social Media Guy. Make everyone feel as they are Lead.
5. Give Opportunity to lead the events on their own, you can provide assistance but give them whole powers to conduct that event successfully. For eg. The core team member who is from Android Domain, ask him/her to lead Android Study Jam on his own, and under his/her guidance all others will work, similarly for other domains too.
6. If you are conducting hackathons or events at a large scale where you will need volunteers, then onboard volunteers for that particular event, give them exposure of work, and then ask them to join next year as Core Team or Lead, if they really want to.
7. The above points will definitely help you to command smoothly throughout the year and others to learn and grow exponentially. Because learning comes with responsibilities. My Philosophy is to help few people to grow from low to highest rather than helping 100s to become average. Because in future those few will lead 100s and help them to grow from low to highest.

So now when the team is formed, discuss among your team the plans for the next 1 year, push your limits, and help 1000s of students to grow throughout the year.

Congratulations, you did a very important thing in the correct way.

Other than the above points, few things that a Lead has to be taken care of is -

1. Make sure to document all the activities which you have done throughout the year. From social Media Credentials to details of all teams, events details, etc.
2. Make sure to build long-term relationships of your GDSC Community with other communities or speakers etc. so that it will help the upcoming juniors to run smoothly.
3. You should be aware of all activities happening under GDSC, make sure no restricted activities or against the norms takes place under you as a Lead, because if it found guilty, you will be in trouble more than your core team member.
4. Think of community and team members first rather than making your own brand. If everything grows then you will also grow and if you only work on making your fame, everything will degrade eventually with time.
5. Be nice to everyone and make sure you never speak anything conflicting or abusive whatever the situation is. Be a Good Leader and Human first.

I hope these points will help you to build a great foundation and help you in organizing your team nicely. If you think these will help you make sure to give a clap and share it with your next-generation Leads or team.

Written on behalf of GDSC AIT

Connect with GDSC AIT for your upcoming session or Hackathons, reach out to us at https://dsc.community.dev/army-institute-of-technology/.

If you have any doubts or want to connect with me for some collaborations, connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Keep Contributing. Keep Growing.