IIT Delhi
Review - 1
Rukmini Bhaya Nair, one of India's most renowned poets and linguists, erstwhile HOD of Humanities Department, Visiting Faculty at Stanford University, Lexicographer. Ph.D from Cambridge.
Well, Ma'am's impeccable credentials and her inimitable charisma don't make her the best professor; but her wit, amiability and humility, which never allowed us to realize that the person teaching us was an international public figure, being good friends with the likes of Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Gulzar.
I was fortunate to undertake the course titled 'Workshop in Creative Writing' by her and it was the only lecture, which was held at 8 o' clock in the morning, where I never missed a class.
For me, the most important virtue of any teacher is that the teacher should take keen interest in one's students' thinking process and should not consider them inferior to them. Nair Ma'am has been one such exceptional teacher, who listened to our thoughts with a non-judgmental stance, read all our writings with immense interest as well as acceptance, and was considerate enough to acknowledge writings/arguments that were even moderately good. Despite the fact that she began the course with the first sentence, 'writing cannot be taught, but caught', she taught us writing better than whatever we had caught from all our past readings.
Some unique experiences:
I remember the most unique exam that I had ever taken: where we were handed wooden elephant toys, all distinct, which we had to describe in words - so detailed that Ma'am should be able to identify which elephant out of those 60 we were talking about.
Madam was very open to class participation, in truly international feel. While discussing poetry, a student suggested her to dissect a rock song. The next day, she brings forth and discusses a heavy metal song in the class.
Our class projects, the assignment, that had 35% weightage had to be a long creative writing piece delving into a genre chosen from among 60 different kind of emotions like jealousy, love, anger, greed etc. that she had enlisted. It was one of the best exercises to polish writing skills, as it forced us to observe a particular emotion very keenly and bring that observation in practice.
She made me understand the difference between sadism and schadenfreude. If you get robbed and I enjoy, it's not sadistic pleasure. It's schadenfreude. If I rob you and I enjoy, it's sadistic pleasure..
She had called her friends for a special lecture in our class. You know who her friends were: Sir Mark Tully, the eminent journalist; Ritu Menon, award winning publisher and Keki Daruwala, the well-known poet. She was also planning to call Gulzar Saheb into our early morning lecture, but unfortunately dates couldn't be finalized.
I used to send her my stories every now and then, which she used to read and critique. I remember one of her suggestions, when I had sent her two of the love stories that I had written - one humorous (which I considered to be my best one) and another philosophical (which I thought was a little boring). She had liked the philosophical one more, saying that a good story is the one which makes one think, rather than laugh or cry.
IIT Delhi
Review - 2
Professor Vijayraghavan M. Chariar is undoubtedly one of the best professors at IIT Delhi, challenging norms and methodologies of teaching day by day. Each class with him through RDL 730 : Alternative Technologies for Rural Development has been an adventure. As he talks about co-creation in the course, from the very first class, he makes the students open up and express their views and it’s always in a very interesting manner. eg. He asked us to write about what development means to us but the trick was that each sentence could only end with a question mark or exclamation mark.
His classroom is never a regular class setup. Its a free space to encourage learning and happy thoughts and communication. Flexibility in our seating empowers flexibility in our thoughts, imagination and helps our creativity take a run while learning from each other. He is not an ordinary professor with uncountable slides and boring lectures bound to make you sleep. He is not an ordinary professor adding stress to your life with dreaded exams. But Really, each of his Minor and Major Exams were format-free submissions meant to let out a caged imagination with freely flowing thoughts and creativity. Not a single class with Prof Chariar is a usual day at college. He creates a fun atmosphere, knows every student of his by name and talks to us without the air of a teacher to student, engaging us in discussions.
Prof Chariar believes in immersive experiential learning. To solve the problems, you have to know the problems and understand them from its very roots, and so he organized a day trip to rural villages in UP for the whole class. He also took RDL 730 of 2016–2017 to TARA to learn about Development Alternatives from first hand real time experience and SPA Delhi to expose us to the art of Industrial Design, challenging the boundaries of our imagination. He talks about abundance and different traditional knowledge systems of India, emphasizing on a life full of JOY! :)
IIT Delhi
Review - 3
I had a hard time picking between a whole array of Humanities & Social Sciences professors but I'm finally going to go with Prof. Ambuj Sagar. I've taken two of his courses and had several discussions outside of the classroom with him. My reasons for this choice are as follows:
In class:
He never imposes his views on a student. Instead, he lets you come to your own conclusions and form your own opinions on issues. However, he asks you to form these opinions on the basis of logical thinking and factual data. If you don't have the data, he'll ask you to obtain it.
He taught me that nothing in the world is black or white. Everything is a shade of grey and the only question is to identify which shade of grey it is. This learning, coupled with his attention to detail, helped me understand that there are multiple sides to an issue, all of which are justifiable and it is not necessary that there be a single correct answer to a question. Both of his courses stress very heavily on this.
His papers make you think! They usually pose simple questions of immense practical significance, which put you in the shoes of a decision maker. The allocation of resources is explored beautifully.
He encourages research and his term papers teach students to read a lot and to think before writing.
IIT Delhi
Review - 4
Many students have answered based on how good the lectures delivered by the person in question are, and this is a very important metric, but I would also like to bring in another point - their attentiveness during the project presentations.
Of all the professors who have evaluated my project presentations, I found Shouri Chatterjee to be the best. Unlike many other departments, the EE department is used to having 2–3 fixed committees for evaluating the undergraduate project, the point being that the committee that you present to need not have professors working in your area if you are picking up a less conventional and emerging field as your area of research. But Shouri sir has the ability to listen to your presentation and understand (even if broadly) what you are talking about - the questions that he asks are clearly for improving his own understanding of your project and not to embarrass you or just for the sake of asking questions. His ability to understand research not related to his own area is a proof of his sharp thinking and analytical skills.
