We have a tradition of having a day of the week dedicated entirely to adjunct and guest lecturers, says Vice Chairman

Dr Haree Shankar Meganathan, MBBS, MD, Vice Chairman, Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, talks in length with Shiksha.com about the various initiatives that make the institute stand apart from others offering comparable programmes. He goes into great length regarding the importance of industry-led content in addition to the curriculum and infrastructure.

Dr Shankar is a Radiologist by profession with a passion towards education. Founder of Sentinel Radiology Solutions which is a tele-radiology venture reporting cases with an objective of reaching out to the tier 2 and 3 cities. Serving as the Vice Chairman, he oversees the daily operations in Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, Rajalakshmi School of Business, Rajalakshmi College of Nursing and the service centres of Maruti Suzuki in Rajalakshmi Cars. 

Read the complete interview below.

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

A: Factors that help up differentiate from other institutes offering similar programmes are:

• A heavy focus on Industry led content beyond syllabus. In this rapidly changing world of technology we feel it is vital to look beyond the prescribed syllabus.
• Investing in ambience. We believe ambience is not just multi storied buildings but also a green and serene global campus which stimulates lateral thinking.
• Dedicated cells to guide students inclined to study abroad, pursue civil exams or ace competitive exams.

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

A: Industry readiness is one of the most crucial factors in today's time. To help students become industry ready, we have:

• Have a tradition of having a day of the week dedicated entirely to adjunct and guest lecturers from the industry thus giving our students both an insight to their future employers and understand technology from a different aspect.
• Promote internship significantly and ensuring it is the most meaningful use of their time.
• Encourage students to pick projects from the repository accumulated from different companies

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

A: Be excited to become a technocrat and ready to put in the work to become it. And, to perform well one must develop a holistic sense of engineering

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

A: Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science and Business Systems, I believe are our best offerings. Best practices such as Centres of excellence with industry leaders like Intel, and updated equipment such as Oculus and Unreal software. Tech-related case studies from the Harvard Business School apart from top academicians and industry stalwarts taking sessions for our students in these domains. We leverage our standalone B School’s expertise specially in the CSBS programme

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: Absolutely nothing with the intention of only placements but rather focus on producing the best possible engineers which the industry craves for.

Mostly software product companies related jobs apart from the recent trend of analytics-related jobs come to our campus.

Each year has been setting a new record just to be broken by next year’s performance across metrics like the number of offers, highest CTC, average CTC etc. A lot more tech-related jobs than we have ever seen!