DRDO and IIT-Madras are dream places for most people that they hope to work or study at, one day. But for Raghavendra Chowdery, these are already impactful points on his resume. He completed B.Tech in Aeronautical Engineering from Guru Nanak Institute Technical Campus, Telangana and graduated in 2019. After completing his final year project with DRDO, he started working full-time for them as well. His introduction to NPTEL happened through google search for materials on Aerospace Engineering, where he found the NPTEL website and started using it. He has done 2 courses on the platform, namely, Introduction to Airplane Performance and Aircraft Stability and Control and has topped both. He had also taken up Finite Element Methods as a course, but chose not to get certified in the same.
He credits NPTEL for bringing in India’s best professors under an umbrella platform and making their lectures accessible to students across various colleges in the country. He mentions that the professors used visualisation and hands-on methods to teach concepts like types of aircrafts and their functions. Video lectures and assignments are the tools that helped him in grasping concepts better. He adds that NPTEL courses had contributed to an increase in his internals and CGPA, as well. He took his courses during the latter part of his sophomore year and the subsequent semester. His end-term project aimed at designing a Simulation of an autopilot aircraft which should restore stability in a second in three dimensions, namely, latitudinal, longitudinal and directional after a disturbance has been created and had a guide from DRDO who mentored him through the course of the project and he used the Simulink software for working on the idea. The NPTEL courses were of great use in his projects as it was there that he learnt stability, control concepts and mathematical components .
He had approached DRDO for the project using their portal and was then called and asked a few questions after which he joined the organisation for the project. When it came to recruiting him full-time, he had an interview with a panel of 3 scientists asking him about his projects and theoretical concepts, after which he bagged the offer. Since the project had a lot of ideas that were taught in the courses, he believes that NPTEL courses played a pivotal role in getting the job. The experience of working at DRDO proved to be a great one for him, for he got to work with some of the brightest minds of the country. He recalls an instance when he had a doubt in a topic called aerodynamics which was pragmatically explained to him by a scientist from another department.
He appeared for GATE in Aerospace Engineering and secured All India Rank (AIR)- 62 in the same. He feels that most NPTEL assignment questions are similar to the GATE questions, in terms of the difficulty level and opines that it may be due to the fact that it is the same professors who prepare questions for both the assignment and exam. He also mentions that for Aerospace Engineering, GATE is the only exam which is available to be taken and coaching centres for the same are not available in places other than the major cities. He focussed on learning concepts by self-study and getting doubts clarified from a senior who made it to According to him, NPTEL assignment questions gave him practice and knowledge which was more than sufficient for the competitive exam.
His tips to future GATE aspirants are to understand the exam pattern before proceeding to the preparation phase and focus on allot time depending on the weightage accorded to the question in the exam. He emphasises that one must not get stuck in any question and should move on with other questions as sequence is not of any importance whereas time is a critical component in the exam. He also adds that going through the exam papers of previous years would aid in comprehending the type of questions better.
His approach towards learning the courses has been to watch the weekly lectures, work on assignments and solve the problem in Matlab for additional understanding by converting differential equations using numerical methods. With respect to the NPTEL exam, he stuck to revising his own notes that he made during the course lectures and the assignments to give his best in the exam. When asked what was the secret behind being a topper, he says that consistent interest and learning in addition to having no expectations and the wish to test knowledge and get certified are the factors that helped him perform well in the exam. He thinks his knowledge has improved after taking up the NPTEL courses as he was able to program differential equations. He adds that these courses helped in the work at DRDO, as well.
He was able to manage between college lectures and NPTEL courses because there were lesser faculty available for the higher semesters, which was when he took the courses. He has also done a few other courses like Introduction to Aerospace and Therodynamics for which chose not to get certified. He lists out Aircraft Stability and Control as his favourite course, among those that he had done. He has joined IIT Madras for M.Tech in Aerospace Engineering after securing seats in the top IITs namely IIT Madras, Bombay, Kanpur and Kharagpur. His major takeaways from the NPTEL courses are punctuality by way of completing courses and managing deadlines and giving importance to exams for he says that the mid-term exams in colleges used to be attended by students without much preparation, unlike NPTEL exams. He aspires to be a scientist , that is, a permanent employee at DRDO or ISRO, down in the future. We wish him success for all his endavours.