Student mentorship at Lilac Minds is built for the particular intensity of Indian academic life — the years between Class 9 and the first big professional examination, when pressure compounds quietly and most students learn to perform their way through it without ever naming what is happening. Psychologist Prarthana Thaker works with school students, board candidates, and aspirants preparing for NEET, JEE, CUET, and competitive entrance examinations, alongside undergraduates navigating the transition into self-directed academic work.
Sessions focus on the things classroom teaching rarely addresses. Exam anxiety, for one — the physiology of a mind that goes blank in the first ten minutes of a paper despite weeks of revision, and the structured techniques (grounding, controlled breathing, cognitive reframing) that bring performance back in line with preparation. Study skills, for another — the difference between hours spent at a desk and hours spent learning, the science of spaced repetition and active recall, and the time-management patterns that keep a fourteen-month preparation timeline sustainable rather than punishing. And motivation, which most students assume is a personality trait but which behaves more like a depletable resource that responds to specific structural choices around sleep, breaks, peer environment, and the size of daily wins.
The parent-student dynamic gets explicit attention. Most Indian students arrive at mentorship with at least some background noise from home — comparisons with cousins, the long shadow of a parent's own academic story, the assumption that distress is just dramatics. Sessions help students articulate what they actually need, and when useful, include a structured parent conversation to recalibrate expectations. For students struggling with focus, digital distraction, or low motivation, mentorship pairs straightforward behavioural work with the longer view: what kind of life is this preparation in service of, and is the current path the right way to get there? Sessions are available in person in Jamnagar and by secure video across India.