The Higher Education Review

Thadomal Shahani Engineering College: Bridging The Industry-Academia Gap Through Innovative Teaching Pedagogies

The Indian engineering education space has seen multiple paradigm shifts over the last couple of decades, and while the number of institutes operating in the segment is increasing, the industry-academia gap is still growing. In this crowded space, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College is one of the very few that has been able to constantly stay ahead of the curve and offer industry-centric education consistently. The institute never compromises on their four core pillars of: Contributing to evolving supply chain of human capital for National Economy, Creating entrepreneurs and ‘game changers’ to support heightened level of economic activities underpinning ever increasing human aspiration, Helping the Nation evolve as a total solution provider, and Value and wealth creation for the mankind. And this pursuit of excellence that transcends conventional education norms is what drives Thadomal Shahani Engineering College to greater heights.

Committed to Achieving Excellence

Thadomal Shahani Engineering College operates with the mission to focus and practice Product and processes innovation, Leveraging human cognitive and behavioral science for creating instructional content, Migrating from teaching paradigm to learning paradigm, Understand various markets and cultures, Collaborative learning and emotional integrity, Extensively promoting computer aided design, analysis and manufacturing procedures, Modeling and design of experiments to inculcate culture of investigation, and Interdisciplinary studies and exposure to functional areas. In order to cater to the academic aspirations of a wider student audience, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College offers courses on different streams including, AI and Data Science, Computer Engineering, IT,

Electronics and Communications, and Chemical Engineering to name a few. And through their education, the institute aspires to create inspired learners who can be a part of the nation building process.

In order to achieve this, they aspire to create an inclusive learning environment where the students can hone their skills under top-notch mentors and realize their true potential. Also, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College constantly promotes hackathons conducted by AICTE and Ministry of Education to expose their students to bleedingedge technologies so that they gain valuable insights and nurture a coding culture within the campus.

Adding more about the uniqueness of their education, Dr. G T Thampi who is the Principal of the College says “We ensure that our curriculum is industry-centric and this enables us to equip our students with the needed skills required to thrive in the modern world. Also, aside from our best-in-class curriculum, we incorporate unique teaching pedagogies so that our students are capable of succeeding regardless the industry they opt for. Through all this, we want to create a platform which the students can use to leverage their career growth.

"Through its education, the institute aspires to create inspired learners who ca be a part of the nation building process"

And, in order to offer the best opportunity for our students to succeed, we constantly keep track of the market, the changes and trends happening in the space and incorporate those changes into our curriculum through workshops as well as seminars to keep our students up to date with the latest changes in the industry. Also, we don’t go behind the latest trends and technologies just because others do, we will evaluate it, see if and how it will help our students and only then will we incorporate it into our curriculum”.

Driven by their Passion to Achieve Perfection
In early 2015 itself, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College identified the growing impact of AI and data analytics and encouraged their faculty to take courses on these emerging technologiesThe MOU that the institute has with Coursera enables their faculty to use this

platform and learn about new topics and subjects constantly. Also, the college regularly conducts faculty development programs so that their teachers can always stay on top of their game.

On top of that, most of our faculties have nearly close to two decades of teaching experience. Owing to all this, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College has become one of the most sought-after recruitment destinations by recruiters and they constantly have impressive placement percentages as well as lucrative salary packages offered to their students. Even amidst the pandemic, they recorded high placements as well and this just goes to show the quality of their students and the reputation of the institute. When asked more about how they inculcate the culture of research and innovation, Dr. G T Thampi adds, “We have 40 seats for PhD programs and many of our faculties are working as guides for research scholars. We also encourage, our students to take part in lots of project works, publishing papers and other research-oriented activities so that they get exposed to a culture of research and innovation within the campus itself”.

Evolving with the changing times, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College is gearing up for a brighter future and is working on signing MOUs with reputed business organizations, and national as well as international training agencies. Also, the institute wants to keep on tracking the changes and trends of the market so that they can continue formulating programs that can help their students to keep up with the latest trends happening in the industry. Apart from that, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College will continue to introduce more value-added activities in the institute in order to create a more job-oriented and studentcentric learning environment.

Dr. G T Thampi,Principal
Dr. G T Thampi, Principal: He has more than three decades of teaching experience in the University of Mumbai. He did his PhD on the topic business process reengineering of engineering education and as of now, he has successfully guided 20 PhD students. Apart from this, Dr. G T Thampi has also authored five extbooks focusing on the topic of programing.