Koorapati Yamuna
In today’s world, learning is everywhere and easier than ever. Yet, one finds enthusiastic learners to be few and far between, as in the case of Ms Koorapati Yamuna. Juggling multiple roles – an Assistant Professor, a Research Scholar, and an NPTEL Learner – Ms Yamuna’s strategy has always been a simple breakdown of complex problems: approach a thing at a time, but do everything that challenges you.
Ms. Yamuna is a faculty member at Siddharth Institute of Engineering & Technology in Puttur, Andhra Pradesh. She recently began her research journey too, as a PhD scholar at Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam, Tirupati. Learning has been a continuous process for her, facilitated by the 18 NPTEL courses she took in the span of three semesters, earning 6 star certifications in the process! The courses she took have helped her in qualifying UGC-NET (June 2026), while also aiding her in her current research. Striving for professional development and academic excellence, NPTEL remains the place she looks to, in order to achieve these goals for herself and her students. Balancing her workplace responsibilities and teaching schedule with weekly assignments became the primary task she had to focus on. This pushed her to plan extensively, and soon she was armed with discipline, consistency, and a schedule to tackle hurdles. This led to a profound realisation:
no matter how ambitious the goal is, it is the regularity of efforts that count, despite how unimportant they might seem at first.
Ms. Yamuna had chipped in the pennies which would go on to become her treasure hoard in the future.
According to Ms Yamuna, the future lies in AI integration. Her research is primarily in the sphere of FinTech, which she states to be a booming ground for AI and ML integration, something which has managed to catch on like wildfire. She suggests releasing more NPTEL courses so as to educate people about the same, with more courses on subjects such as Financial Analytics to keep up with this trend. However, she also loves the classic ones she has taken in the past, naming ‘Entrepreneurship’ and ‘Economic Environment and Business Strategy’ as some of her favourites. Again, she emphasises the need to challenge oneself while learning, for NPTEL was there to help her: doubts are cleared both by real-life professors and newly introduced AI-chatbots, combining older, trusted modes of acquiring knowledge with recent technological developments.
Developing a regular learning habit becomes important in the face of an ever-changing world, keeping one grounded while also helping everyone to keep up. Ms. Yamuna expressed immense gratitude towards her institute of employment, which encouraged an extended process of learning, making provisions for all its members to engage with a platform like NPTEL. She might have started out alone, but is currently accompanied by several of her colleagues and students, who shall be appearing for exams this semester.
Both inspiration and encouragement are thus valuable if one is to learn without boundaries;
Ms Yamuna testifies to its importance and its workings, through her ongoing journey with NPTEL.
~written by Eshani Bhattacharjee
