Karan Bhalla
In the competitive landscape of Indian academia, Assistant Professor Karan Bhalla stands out for his relentless intellectual curiosity. A professor of Chemistry at Gulana Engineering College, Punjab, he treats NPTEL less like a certification platform and more like an ongoing experiment in how much one person can learn.
It was 2020, campuses had gone silent under lockdown, and a routine college workshop happened to put NPTEL in front of him. What began as a mandatory exercise turned into a habit he never got around to breaking. Over six years, he completed 33 NPTEL MOOCs, becoming a course topper in 12 of them and earning more than 20 gold and silver medals. His mantle now holds 13 NPTEL Star Certifications, including multiple Discipline Star and Believer awards, marking him as a true “NPTEL Superstar.”
For him, the allure lies in the opportunity to learn directly from the nation’s finest minds.
“Learning from an IIT is every student’s dream,”
he notes. This initial spark ignited a personal challenge: to not just pass, but to excel. He scaled his workload from one course per semester to four, driven by the desire to earn elite star recognitions. Colleagues assumed the extra courses would wear him down; instead, he describes the workload itself as sustenance – “food for my brain,” he calls it; the kind of hunger that got sharper the more he fed it.
His methodology is surprisingly traditional. A self-proclaimed “pen and paper learner,” he meticulously takes notes for every course, a habit from his days as a gold medalist at Punjabi University, Patiala. This ensures that the knowledge is deeply ingrained rather than just another certificate on the wall.
“The learning must not be stopped,” he emphasizes. “These numbers should increase not just in terms of certificates, but in terms of knowledge.”
The impact of this journey extends directly into his classroom. By observing IIT professors, he has refined his own pedagogical skills, bringing that same conceptual clarity into his lectures. “I learn those concepts in a better way and communicate them to my students,” he explains. This dedication has turned him into a more effective and inspiring educator.
His enthusiasm is contagious. He has motivated colleagues and students to embark on their own NPTEL paths. Even more rewarding was seeing four of his own students invited to an NPTEL event at IIT Roorkee, sharing the same stage as their mentor. “This is the beauty of NPTEL,” he shares, reflecting on the ripple effect of his passion.
Beyond the certificates, he finds value in the community of “ignited minds.” Attending events at IIT Kanpur and IIT Roorkee allowed him to connect with learners nationwide, dissolving the usual lines between teacher and student, novice and expert. These interactions reinforce his belief in lifelong learning as a necessity in a rapidly changing world.
Looking ahead, he remains an evangelist for education while making the case that knowledge doesn’t have a finish line; there is only ever the next course. Karan Bhalla is not just a professor; he is a lifelong student and a true NPTEL Superstar, proving that with enough dedication, the classroom has no boundaries.
~written by Elsa Prasasd