We believe students have better chance to learn and innovate while practicing concepts learned in class, says Professor

In a conversation with Shiksha.com, Architecture and Professor Diwari at Crescent School of Architecture shares the roadmap of making students industry-ready. She elaborates on all the initiatives that help students prepare for a better tomorrow. It includes a six-month mandatory internship programme, regular live projects, case-based study, workshops and seminars. Crescent School of Architecture follows the concept of Applied Learning which means students practice all concepts that they learn in class to have an ever lasting impact. Diwari has over 15 years of industry experience with three years of academic experience.

Read the complete interview below.

Q: What are the salient features of the teaching methodology adopted by your college? How does this differ from others?

A: Crescent Scool of Architecture is a student-centric institute where not just the curriculum but even the pedagogy is structured in a way to make learning fun for students. To make this happen, we keep experimenting with new initiatives and ways to deliver the content in the most impactful manner, such as:

• Interactive and engaging classroom sessions with the use of audio-visual tools
• And, more focus on practical sessions. We believe students learn better and innovate while doing things that they learn in class. Applied learning is the best strategy to be followed.

Q: How are you preparing your students to be Industry ready?

A: As mentioned earlier, Applied learning is the best strategy. Making students perform practically what they learned in the class and giving them space to experiment and innovate is what makes the half job done. Apart from this, I believe students are industry-ready when they are able to understand the various unpredictable situations and analyse them to figure a way out. To inculcate this skill among students, we:

• Make them do case studies for all projects and make them participated in competition projects both national and international. These real-life case studies put them in the shoes of the decision-maker and let them analyse all possible aspects of the situation.
• Also, we have mandatory six months internship programmes which potentially increase the employability of our students. While they learn under the mentorship of the industry professionals, they also learn what industry expects from them.

Q: What are the qualities you are looking for in student applicants? What qualities do they need to do well in your course?

A: We are an architecture school and we do not expect students to come prepared with the concepts. That is exactly what we are here for. But, what we actually expect out of our students is the zeal and passion towards the domain. They should have the curiosity to know more. Besides that, basic etiquettes such as discipline, time management, being focused on details are expected out of them.

Our curriculum is well updated and designed in a way that we train our students on all technical aspects of the subjects. But, students should be receptive to that.

Q: How do you ensure that your course curriculum is up to date and meets industry requirements?

A: While we are aiming to make students industry-ready, it’s important for us to have a curriculum that suffices industry expectations. Thus, to design such a curriculum we invite industry professionals and practising architects to educate us on the latest trends and practices and how we can incorporate the same. These days the industry expects ready professionals who need not require extensive training when they are graduate. We understand their requirements and hence we structure the curriculum in a way that involves an equal amount of practical exposure as that of classroom training.

Q: Is your college receptive to innovation, technology, science & entrepreneurship? How? Could you cite some examples of these?

A: Yes, we are receptive to innovation, technology, science and entrepreneurship. All these four factors collectively aim at making students independent, creative and a successful professional and to help students become one, we regularly invite industry professionals to conduct guest lectures, facilitate seminars & workshops so they have equal opportunity to be a part of the institutes’ corporate network. They educate students on the latest happenings and innovations in the field of architecture and also share their success stories. Looking at the present situation of the global pandemic, we can definitely say that we would be needing more entrepreneurs in the coming days to generate employment opportunities