Jaipur: Experts from Olin College, USA are working with JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur (JKLU) to transform engineering education at the University bringing their cutting-edge and highly successful project-based experiential learning pedagogy to JKLU’s B.Tech programme, starting this year. Experiential learning is the process of ‘learning by doing’ through projects and real experiences. Research has consistently shown that ‘learning by doing’ is the best method for teaching adults – it accelerates learning and enhances retention significantly up to 75 percent.
JKLU’s team of faculty worked over the last week with Dr. Siddhartan Govindasamy, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and course architect at Olin, at the JKLU campus in Jaipur to construct a first-in-India program that will incorporate the best of Olin’s experience and adapt it to the Indian context and students. Speaking about JKLU’s work with Olin College, Prof. Asheesh Gupta, Pro Vice-Chancellor of JKLU, said, “We found Olin’s approach to be extremely relevant and powerful in making our students attain skills and competencies needed for students to succeed in tomorrow’s work place. Students joining the B.Tech programme at JKLU in 2018 shall have the unique opportunity to learn in a world class environment with world-leading pedagogy right here in India for the first time.”
Olin College was established with a vision ‘to be an important and constant contributor to the advancement of engineering education in America and throughout the world’. Olin instills passion and ignites innovation by focusing engineering students on the needs of people in the real world. This broad perspective in the hands of creative and motivated students inspires technical mastery for a purpose. Olin ‘engineer-innovators’ envision and deliver products, services and systems that transform the way people live on this planet.
Dr. Siddhartan Govindasamy was born in Malaysia where he completed his high school education. He obtained B.S. and M-Eng degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1999 and 2000 respectively. From 2000 to 2003, he was a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) engineer and then Senior DSP engineer at Aware Inc. in Bedford, MA where he designed and developed broadband modem technology. He returned to MIT in 2003, and obtained a Ph. D. in wireless communications in 2008. His thesis research was on ad-hoc wireless communications using multi-antenna systems. He has been a member of the faculty at Olin College since August 2008.
