Propagation:- The journey we lived. || MSU FootPrints

Propo: We Invite, They Participate || Baroda || FP'23

By Team FootPrints ||

“FootPrints!” Since last 22 years it has been one of the largest national level technical event held at the Faculty of Technology and Engineering, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and prideful legacy continued by MSU’s engineering students. It is a student organization working for the last 22 years with a new team, new ideas, and new enthusiasm every year. FootPrints is a platform where all engineering students get a chance to showcase their technical knowledge, presentation skills, and any skills they have never explored to the world before. Every year thousands of students come from all over Gujarat and outside states to participate in it and witness this unprecedented heritage.

So, there must be a question here how do all these students know about the FootPrints?

The answer is that every year, two months prior the event, Team FootPrints visits all the universities and colleges of Gujarat and interact with the students directly to convince them to participate in our event and showcase their technical skills to the world. This whole process is known as "Propagation"(PROPO). Any event enhances the beauty of the people who attend it; without people, the event does not look magnificent, thus without participation, what is the point of having competition? As a result, the more participation, the more spectacular event becomes, and because the work of bringing participation is done by propagation, so it is a very important part of the event.

The story of propagation begins with propo training. The majority of propagation is done by first and second-year organizing team members, who are trained by propo ccs. During training, the team members are first given a speech that contains basic information about the FootPrints and the event in it. The team members must prepare this speech in such a way that they can speak continuously without getting sidetracked by anything, and in order to achieve this, every effort is made to include speaking while exercising, dancing, playing cricket, and other activities in training so that they don’t get distracted and to keep them focused. One of the main goals of this speech preparation is to convey all the points to the team members that they might use during propagation, as well as the importance of maintaining consistency in their speaking. The team member has to stand up and speak in front of the entire team during this training, which boosts their self-confidence and helps them overcome their fear of public speaking. Along with the speech, team members are informed about events from all technical and non-technical departments, as well as Kaleidoscope guest lectures and workshops. There are 51 events in total, and team members must remember their every details without making any mistakes. When the team members have properly prepared all these things, training to improve their convincing skills begins, in which one team member considers the other team member to be a student of one college and convinces them to participate in the events. To make matters more difficult, different situations are presented, forcing them to think in new ways in order to communicate. Many of these exercises are carried out during propagation training.

Hearing about this training gives the impression that it is very challenging, which it is. But we can guarantee that you will not be able to learn what this training teaches you even if you take an MBA course. Although it is true that we cannot persuade everyone, but, having the belief that you can persuade everyone will be taught in this training. Our training lasts about a month and a half, and our actual propagation begins in January. We start by going to all the engineering colleges in Vadodara for propagation, and then we move on to colleges of other cities.

One Day Propo-Trips

We have propagation in approximately 200 colleges. The number of teams is sent to each city one by one, based on the number of colleges, with 4 to 5 members. Once these trips have begun, they will continue until every city has been visited. Except for Saturday and Sunday, every day members of our team go to their assigned college to propagate. On any one-day trip, all teams leave Vadodara early in the morning by taking a train or bus to the destination city and arrive before the college begins. After arriving at the college, permission is granted from the staff to conduct propagation and set up the registration desk. The registration desk is set up as soon as the permission is granted. After that, one team member remains at the registration desk while the remaining members visit each class in turn and begins propagation. The team members go to each class and give everyone a basic introduction of the entire event. They tell them all the highlights of the event, what are the benefits of coming to the event, they create hype about the event in front of them and finally, they tell interested people to visit our registration desk. Once all the classes have been covered, the members return to the desk, and from there they do personal propagation by going to each student they see around the college campus. There are two basic rules for our propagation: first, the team members cannot sit until the propagation ends; they must keep propagating; and second, all students who come in front of their eyes must tell them about the event at least once.

Registration Desk

We used to do propagation by going to the college canteen during students' lunch breaks where we try to divert their minds in our event and bring them to our registration desks to fill our forms. Throughout the trip, other students on the bus and train would inform them about the event. We propagated in a rickshaw, we propagated by going to the garden, we propagated by going to the mall, we propagated by standing on the road, we propagated everywhere, it is a different kind of fun. We used to have time after college was over, and we would visit their hostels to spread the word. It is also possible that some colleges would not grant us permission to propagate, in such case we would paste our posters on their notice boards. Due to covid situation when some colleges would remain closed, we would collect students phone numbers and join their WhatsApp groups and conduct online propagation as well. After propagating all day, the teams would return to Vadodara at night and submit their entire day's collection which includes all of the participation forms they filled out throughout the day, as well as the collection of participation fees that was to be handed over to the seniors. This collection period is very interesting because, in one hand, all of the teams are submitting their collections in turn, and on the other hand, there is a debate over which team brought the most collection. Sometimes these collections would run until 2-3 a.m. at night because someone would make a mistake in filling out the form, someone else would make a mistake in final calculation, and someone else would make a mistake in some online transaction, so the entire collection would have to be taken again. All of this is quite hectic, but the fun that we have had in it is something you can’t express in mere words, it's a feeling.

We also take two-day trips to many cities, and it's a lot of fun when the entire team goes for the propagation. We take our own bus from Vadodara the night before the prorogation day. This journey is filled with insanity. We play some games in this that we've been playing in our FP for years. You could also say that it is a tradition that team members participate in every year; such games do not occur anywhere else; we will not be able to explain these games in detail here, but whoever participated in them will never forget them. When everyone falls asleep on the bus, their funny photos and videos are taken out, and the fun continues while the entire journey comes and goes. We stay in some Dharmshalas for these two days and have fun there as well.

Two Day Propo-Trips

The event's most difficult phase is propagation for all team members; we have to travel from city to city on a daily basis, and there is tension to increase participation. The propagation is tiring, both physically and mentally. But I can say with certainty that the majority of the team members have fond memories of the propagation event. Whether or not propagation provides something to the team members, it certainly provides good memories to keep them together for life. Exploring new cities every day, meeting different types of people your age, trying famous food items in whatever city we visit, visiting famous places, and doing all of this with our team members is the most enjoyable thing to do. During the propagation, some participants become our good friends, and some become so good friends that we feel like we've known each other for years. In some places, those people started doing propagation themselves; as long as our desk was there, those people stayed the same; this was also a unique experience for us, previously, the person we didn't even know became a very good friend. But with some of them, we developed such a bond that when we visit their city or they visit ours, they would make an extra effort to meet us. And it wasn't just a one-time friendship; they remained good friends even after the event.

Best Propo CCs!!

When it comes to propagation, the training and experience of propagation have increased my confidence more than anything else in my life up to this point. I did propagation in the 22nd edition, and if I simply tell my propagation experience, I can say that I did not propagate but lived. I've been on all of 22nd Edition's Propo trips, and they've all left me with memories I'll never forget. That SASSIT's exam cancellation Propo, PPSU's record-breaking Propo, Mehsana's legendary trip, MARWADI's Propo by standing at the gate all day, that never-ending scams, those late-night collections, that mosquito pizza, and similarly many more memories are there. Yes, these things will not be understood by everyone, but all the team members of the 22nd edition who are reading it will definitely understand this, and a smile will definitely come on their face after reading this. It is difficult to sum up the propagation in words; here we have made a small effort, and we hope that whenever old FootPrints team members read this, they will be reminded of their Propo times. And I'd like to tell any future team members not to do Propo just for the sake of doing it; instead, try to live it and see what you get out of it.