With two Masters, a Doctorate, a Diploma, an MBA degree and an MSc in Psychology in her list of accomplishments already, Dr. Swagata Sarkar insists that it is her good fortune that has given her opportunities to learn more and more. Her passion for delving into subjects and learning in depth and hard work are also the hidden ingredients for her success. She completed her schooling and diploma in West Bengal and has then gone on to pursue other degrees aforementioned, as well.
She currently works at Sri Sairam Engineering College as the HoD of the AI and Data Science Department, in addition to working as consultant for various projects. Equipped with a degree in Psychology, she also mentors and counsels students in her college. She has taken over 20 courses with NPTEL and has become an NPTEL Star – she is the epitome of perseverance and excellence. Her introduction to NPTEL happened through a student she was mentoring at college, who spoke about the course platform. This piqued her curiosity and hence, she decided to navigate the world of NPTEL and found a variety of courses, to her amazement.
These courses have aided her in updating with the various concepts and technologies that have sprung up in the recent years. She finds the presentations and video lectures to be efficient tools for grasping concepts quickly. She adds that a big advantage of the platform is that it caters to both beginners namely students and advanced learners, namely, the faculty. She works on the Bengali translation of content for NPTEL, while aiding transcription in AICTE.
Another point she mentioned was that while the technical expertise of NPTEL is known beyond doubt, the management and value addition based like courses have helped her, as well and she vouches for the same. For instance, the Educational Leadership course has helped her in honing her administrative qualities, which have come in handy in her stint as the HoD of a department, while the Emotional Intelligence course has aided her in moving forward while controlling and diverting emotions and in improving her quality of work.
Her approach towards learning the courses was to go through the slides of the presentations in great detail and note the summary of the slides. She would use the college library for materials to clarify the doubts in the concepts. For the exam, she stuck to revising assignments and presentations along with her notes, on the day before the test. She reveals that she takes 6 courses per semester, which renders a very hectic schedule and she ends up preparing only on the day before the exam.
She mentions that she follows a strategy while picking up courses, wherein she picks up courses based on their duration, exam dates such that they do not clash with each other. She also ensures that the courses are similar, such that the course content of one course is useful for the assignment of another course and vice versa. She is quick to add that motivation and passion to equip herself with knowledge has helped her tide across any kind of adversity. She also reveals that the thirst to learn has driven her to succeed and having got the title of an NPTEL Star has only made her feel happier, as she finds recognition bestowed on her to be motivating her further.
When asked what difference would it have made, had she got access to NPTEL during her college days, she is quick to reply that she would have been able to get her basics stronger in all subjects. She has even loaded links of NPTEL courses on Joy of Computing using Python, Linear Programming and Probability and Statistics in her department portal for students’ reference. When it comes to describing her approach of teaching, Dr. Sarkar says that she follows the FLIP model of teaching and prefers outcome based learning , wherein the knowledge gained can be productively applied in real – world scenarios. Animations and equations are also useful tools for teaching, according to her.
Her favourite courses among the 20 plus courses that she has done are: Biomedical Signal Processing, Educational Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Python for Data Science. She has taken up some courses and chose not to get certified in the same like Internet of Things and the advanced level of the course, VLSI Design, Digital Signal Processing, wherein she chose to refer the materials to clarify doubts and revise concepts.
Her tips to students would be to select and master courses correctly, that is, identifying the correct courses and getting certified in the same. She states that a 1st year or 2nd year student taking up a course like Machine Learning might find it too hard and may end up dropping the course halfway feeling discouraged. She emphasises on the importance of gauging one’s level and registering in courses according to the same and also distinguishing courses according to the difficulty level. When it comes to professors, she says that it would be better if the lecturers are less casual and work on the courses more seriously in order to guide the students with greater clarity.
The major takeaways from her courses are time management and punctuality. She adds that she admires NPTEL’s technique of sticking to a pattern for conducting courses right from launching the courses to conducting the final exam. She admires how NPTEL efficiently monitors assignments and exams and ensures that learners cannot pass the exams without having at least a certain degree of expertise in the subject. She also wishes to see more hands-on courses and virtual labs for students in the future. Her motivation is such an inspiration and she has added many feathers in her cap so far and will continue doing so in the time to come. We wish her all success for her future endeavours and hope that her learning journey with NPTEL goes on and on.