Budding engineers should be ready to face the ups and downs of life. One should be ready to face the problems and bounce back with vigour as well. This was the advice given by Chairman of Institution of Engineers (India), Vijayawada chapter P. Ravindra Babu at a seminar organised by The Hindu in association with NRI Institute of Technology, Pothavarappadu, on the occasion of Engineer’s Day here on Tuesday. The seminar was organised on the college premises where over 300 students benefited from the talks given by the experts.
The chairman of the Institution of Engineers urged the students to garner social skills during the four years of engineering study and develop a positive and optimistic outlook towards life. He advised the students to stay in tune with the latest developments in their respective fields of study.
Quoting Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, the founder of Vikasa Vidya Vanam S.R. Parimi, in his address said engineers played a vital role in the development of a nation and society and were the ones whose works had a great impact on the lives of the common man.
He urged the students to keep up with the change and advised them to go beyond textbooks. “Teaching can be monotonous and learning can happen only when you want to learn. Interact with your peers and teachers and do not get bogged down with terminologies and formulae,” he advised.
Taking a dig at the mushrooming corporate culture in education, he said, “Education is supposed to prepare you for life and do not allow education to take you away from life.” Chairman of NRI Institute of Technology R. Venkat Rao in his address urged aspiring engineers to take up an idea and live to realise that idea. Remembering eminent engineers of yesteryears such as K.L. Rao, Mokshagundam and Sir Arthur Cotton, he said, because of their vision and ideas, we had safe drinking water and modern irrigation facilities to irrigate our fields.
Principal of the college C. Naga Bhaskar said there were two types of skills that an engineers needed to develop: domain skill and soft skills. He advised the students to plan the four years of study. “Do not have any backlog and start preparing for competitive examinations such as GATE, Civils, GRE or CAT from the third year itself,” he said.
