Every faculty member is allowed to attend Annual Refresher Courses in their respective field, says Dean

In a conversation with Shiksha.com, Dr P Vijayalakshmi, Associate Professor, Dean FHSM at, Periyar Maniammai Institute of Science and Technology talks at length about the institute’s unique teaching pedagogy. She goes into detail talking about the value-added courses, hackathons, industry visits and live projects that are facilitated to students for practical exposure.

Dr Vijayalakshmi is a PhD graduate and has expertise in the Category of Fuzzy Groups. She has over 25 years of rich academic experience.

Read the complete interview below.

Q: What are the three things that your university is doing that will enable it to differentiate itself from the competition?

A: Our motto is to Think, Innovate and Transform. Innovative courses are introduced in the programmes and inculcate research culture among the students. Our first-year students participated in the grand finale of Smart India Hackathon-2019 for developing a solar cell-powered hydrogen production prototype. This team also published a chapter entitled, ‘Application of Nanocarbon Based Aerogels in Purifying Industrial Wastewater’ in the book titled, ‘Advances in Aerogel composite for environment Remediation’ published by Elsevier.

Continuous feedback on curriculum, teaching, infrastructure to keep pace with external trends in the field.

Mentoring system is followed. Every faculty is allotted 20 wards for mentoring. The faculty members counsel their wards periodically to give guidance on academic and non-academic activities.

Motivate the students to register for online courses in Swayam, NPTEL etc.

Q: What are the top three initiatives undertaken by you that are helping your students become more industry ready?

A: Industry-Institute Interaction Cell arranges various workshops, training programmes, internship programmes which helps the students to gain practical knowledge. Besides this, the Memorandum of Understanding with industries enhances the students to carry on internship, In-Plant training, mini-project, and main projects.

Every faculty member is allowed to attend Annual Refresher Courses in their respective field to update their knowledge in recent trends and technology. It enables modification of the curriculum to meet recent trends.

Q: What are the key attributes that a student should have in order to qualify for your institution and get good grades?

A: Students should be ready to take up challenges in bringing changes in the traditional methods and approaches for the benefit of society. Not only facing challenges themselves but also persevere to set goals and achieve them.

Students should be self-discipline, diligent, punctual, team players, confident and, have good communication skills and critical thinking skills.

To perform well in curriculum, they must have an understanding of the societal needs and industry problems and must inculcate innovative and research culture.

Q: Which programme/s would you say is/are your best? What is it that helps your institution differentiate itself for this programme?

A: Every programme has its own merits and is designed to meet a certain purpose. The curriculum design, course content, student’s interest and teaching-learning process are determined the best programme.  So all the programmes in PMIST are the best and unique having universal value.

Because PMIST is having experienced faculty members with academic qualifications and research potentials and good infrastructure facilities.

Q: What are you doing to improve/drive better campus placements for your current students and alumni? What kind of jobs routinely come to campus? What would you say are the key recruitment trends for your college (observed over the past five years)?

A: In the regular timetable, soft skill hours is allotted, where the faculty members teach skills required for placement.   In-plant Training is made mandatory for all the students. It paves the way for placement when they are in their final year. PMIST is having a separate Industry Institute Interaction Cell.  They have organised various programmes related to placement.  They have contacted through HirrMee portal where our student’s database is registered and exposed to more than 100 companies.  We have linked with company HR through an alumni network, HR conduct meetings like ICTACT etc.

Many companies across the core IT, ITES and marketing are visiting our campus regularly throughout the year.

For the past five years, we have a good track of placement percentage.  The highest package of Rs 21 lakhs per annum is remarkable of all.

We encourage our students to appear for wheebox test (national level potential assessment

test) conducted through AICTE, the students' marks are shared with companies across the country.

Another salient feature is most of the students grab more than one offer.