About Us

Student Mentor Programme (SMP), is a program within IIT Bombay, with the primary objective of enabling constructive and positive interaction, guidance and mentorship of junior students by senior students. We aim at providing a reliable and comprehensive support system to the student community to motivate them to excel in both academic and non-academic fields, and to make the most of their life at IIT Bombay.

Mentoring is a particular form of relationship designed to provide personal and professional support to an individual. The mentor is more experienced than the mentee and makes use of that experience in a facilitative way to support the development of the mentee. The mentoring relationship provides a developmental opportunity for both parties and is of mutual benefit. In a nutshell, a student mentor's role may be perceived to be facilitative, supportive and developmental for the student community in general. The SMP has two mentorship-related wings: ISMP and DAMP.

Institute Student Mentorship Program

The Institute Student Mentorship Program (ISMP) aims at developing a smooth transition to campus life for every new entrant to an academic program at IIT Bombay. It is an initiative of the SMP within the student community which primarily deals with mentorship for the first-year undergraduate students. Selected senior students, called Institute Student Mentors (ISMs), are responsible for helping a group of first-year students adjust to the new environment. They subsequently monitor their progress throughout the year. Mentors help solve students' academic and personal problems while on campus, and guide them through the first year of college life away from home.

Department Academic Mentorship Program

DAMP or Department Academic Mentorship Program, is a student-run support program primarily for students at the sophomores level and above. Apart from mentorship for sophomores, the DAMP program hosts many sessions and has compiled various resources to guide you through all your years at the institute. All of this is handled by the DAMP Coordinators at the department level and by the Academic and DAMP Cabinet Heads at the Institute level.

The primary language for instruction at IIT Bombay is English, critical for global opportunities and social integration. Understanding this language is crucial, The English Learning Program (ELP), another vertical of the Student Mentor Program, aims to help students who wish to improve their English by facilitating learning through their initiatives, classes and activities. The entire program is free of cost and it is for everyone!
ELP runs its classes throughout the semester- known as English Language Improvement Training (ELIT) classes. The classes are majorly activity driven. Some of the broad modules we cover :-

1. 1-on-1 - Here, we provide personlized help to students and address the specific issues faced by them including- reading, writing, speaking and listening.
2. Conversations club - The aim is to improve the communication skills of the students by involving in a bunch of activities like debating, presentations and impromptu.
3. Grammar & Writing module - Here, the main objective is to improve equip the students with the basic grammar concepts that is useful in everyday life and help them write emails, letters, SoPs and other things.
4. Book club - This club helps students inculcate a habit of reading books and gives them an essence of how to read and understand a book

ELP’s other initiatives include-

1. Demystifying Interviews- an series of internship and placement preparatory webinars by seniors from relevent fields and experts from industry covering topics to help the students prepare better for the recruitement drive.
2. Session on GRE & TOEFL- This session is taken by an expert from ETS (the body that conducts GRE & TOEFL) covering the the key concepts of these exams and sharing tips and tricks.

The Counseling, Training, and Outreach (CTO) Cabinet of IIT Bombay's Student Mentorship Programme (SMP) is dedicated to enhancing student well-being and development. It actively engages with the institute's counseling and wellness support structures, plans and executes comprehensive training of SMP mentor along with SMPCs and DAMP cabinet. It also curates the mentorship handbooks in collaboration with the SMP Team. The CTO Cabinet also develops initiatives to promote mental well-being awareness and maintains SMP's social media presence to effectively communicate its core values through its new content. These efforts ensure a supportive and well-informed environment for all students.

The Student Mentor Program is a wide institute body comprising various verticals and has an extensive team. It is headed by the overall coordinators at the institute level and the cabinet heads are responsible for heading and coordinating activities of their respective verticals like DAMP, ELP and CTO. The DAMP is headed by 20 DAMP Coordinators at the departmental level and by the DAMP cabinet heads at the institute level. 144 Institute Student Mentors and 316 Department Academic Mentors make up the Mentorship team of the Student Mentor Program.