Dr Surakasi Raviteja
Everyone who is caught up in the hustle and bustle of today’s world will agree that time is money. Students are forever nagging about semesters which always fall too short. Amidst all this din, a professor’s insights shine an unexpected ray of hope: time can bend for you, if only you are willing to learn.
This will to learn was what drove Dr. Surakasi Raviteja to NPTEL. Currently an Associate Professor at the Vignan’s Institute of Information Technology, Dr. Raviteja has been steering the journeys of learners for more than ten years now. Simultaneously, he has also been engaged in learning with NPTEL since 2019. Till date, he has completed 16 NPTEL courses, and is currently enrolled in 8 more. He has also engaged with multiple domains, including Data Science, Faculty and Energy Systems. It was his dual role as a teacher and a learner that helped him understand the unique challenges that his students have been facing, offering a simple solution: learn according to your own pace. NPTEL provided him a platform where he was able to do just that, with courses ranging from professional skills to domain-specific knowledge. His expertise in thermal engineering is complemented by courses he is taking up in the domain, which he believes will assist him in the coming semesters when facing his students in the classroom. The courses have also moulded a crucial part of his research projects and writing, allowing him the application of concepts from machine learning and deep learning in his own field.
Apart from specialised knowledge, these courses help establish a channel of communication with his students; the skills to articulate his already vast knowledge comes from them. Meanwhile, he is eagerly picking up interdisciplinary skills too, educating himself in Computer Science and Data Science – two very essential tools in one’s hand, in accordance with the needs of today’s professional sphere.
Practical skills, beyond textbook knowledge and certification, are what he holds most dear in the platform.
It offers a leap beyond the regular academic curriculum, which he actively encourages everyone to take.
Dr. Raviteja has also immersed himself in learning about outcome-based education, having taken quite a few courses on the topic, such as ‘Accreditation and Outcome-based Learning’. This particular course, he says, has helped him better navigate the academic scenario which prevails today. He plans to keep on taking at least one course on the same in the semesters to come.
His role as a mentor also motivates him to explore courses which aid him in such interactions; recently, he completed the course ‘Teaching and Learning in General Programs’, securing the NPTEL Elite tag. His experience with students leads him to the conclusion that students today are unable to immerse themselves in their regular college coursework, due to time-compressed semesters.
To these restless minds, he offers NPTEL as an alternative: if one values depth of learning, across multiple topics, this would be his prescribed path.
He also encourages students preparing for competitive exams, such as GATE and UPSC, to turn to NPTEL, emphasising on how invaluable the lecture notes are.
Not only that; for the new generation of professionals to emerge, he suggests an expansion of the available catalogue to include courses on Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Fluid Mechanics as electives in the domains of Thermodynamics and Mechanical Engineering. These additions, he believes, would benefit students hungry for concepts beyond the standard curriculum.
Short semesters with a list of textbooks, then, don’t have to inhibit students, teachers or anyone at all. For those who are haunted by the ticking of a clock or the flying pages of a calendar may just log into NPTEL, as Dr. Raviteja did, and explore this world of knowledge beyond the shackles of time.
~written by Eshani Bhattacharjee
