Dr. T. Nagalakshmi is the Professor and Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Academy of Maritime Education and Training. She is a motivating and talented Petroleum Engineering Professor driven to inspire students to pursue academic and petroleum industry professionals globally. She is credited with transforming the Petroleum Engineering department into a national impact and global recognition by organizing various national and international level conferences, symposiums and webinars with the SPE student chapter. She has taught subjects like petroleum geology, oil and gas evaluation, economics, and evaluation, reservoir rocks and fluid properties, unconventional hydrocarbon resources, reservoir management, enhanced oil recovery, well design and completion, formation evaluation, oil and gas management, field development plan, petroleum exploration, petroleum project management for B.E and M.E Petroleum Engineering students for the past 16 years in Anna University Affiliated Engineering College and at AMET. She was a member of the Board of Management for the past 6 years and a member of the Academic Council for the last 7 years. She was also the conference chair for many national and international level conferences. Few other roles she holds to her credit are of Internal ISO Auditor, member of the Malpractice Committee and Faculty Grievances Cell. She has authored and published many articles in prestigious journals. She has also produced PhD degree holders and also guided Ph.D. full-time and part-time research scholars.

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What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

"This field offers tremendous opportunities to interact with best minds on a global level"

Being the head of the department, I get numerous chances to interact with the university people, industry experts and other college faculties and heads by organizing various national and international level core Petroleum Engineering topics as well as interdisciplinary engineering, science and technology topics. And the Society of Petroleum Engineering is an international-level forum wherein we often collaborate with global-level education sector delegates and also industrial delegates. All this gives me immense learning probabilities and the same knowledge I pass on to my students hence directly contributing to national growth by educating youth and this is what keeps me connected with the education field.

What is your philosophy of leadership?

"I use the approach of open and transparent communication"

Effective delegation and communication are two of my leadership skills as well as assets. I always strive to assign duties to my faculty who are most suited to complete them and I make an effort to express clearly what needs to be done and why. This minimizes back-and-forth communication errors and also the need to redo tasks. My main strategy is to invest more effort at the start of a project by putting things in a very crisp manner as this will save time as the task progresses.

How is your college more welcoming to students of different races or economic backgrounds?

"We promote equality by offering scholarships and schemes like earn while you learn to students"

Our college is providing an earn-while-you-learn scheme to support and encourage students who hail from weak economic backgrounds. We also offer scholarships such as First Graduate Scholarship, Single Parent Scholarship, and Fisherman Community Scholarship to eligible students despite their background or economic status. Students are also trained for competitive exams like GATE. Special attention is given by our faculties to those students who don't have any skills or strong communication background. All this promotes the ambiance of equality and we cherish the diversity of students which we have.

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What benefits are provided by your college to students to make them ready for this competitive world?

"Professional visits, apprenticeship and personality development training are offered to students"

We arrange and assist our students to get opportunities for industrial visits and internships for a period of 3 to 6 months. We also train them to register in accredited membership bodies to help them improve their corporate skills. Lastly, training on soft skills, aptitude and workforce management is given to them along with teaching them how to use different kinds of software.

How do you establish a healthy relationship and environment in your college?

"I ensure to interact with everyone via events like technical and cultural programs"

To maintain a cordial and friendly environment in my college, I ensure to stay connected with everyone on both personal and professional levels. Organizing team skills training, inter-departmental cultural programs and sports meet and open electives or interdisciplinary interaction with students are some of the approaches which I generally follow.

What do you think should be the college's top priority over the next 10 years?

"We should collaborate with more institutes to bring the best learning windows for students"

We should focus towards improving our existing strategies of imparting education and bring some innovative teaching approaches including technology upgrades to college campuses for the betterment of our students. We should also collaborate with reputed research institutes to introduce multidisciplinary programs in our curriculum that could prepare our students for the corporate world.

How do you bring in a practical and industry oriented approach towards subjects? 

"We directly expose our students to the corporate world by organizing internships for them"

The department of petroleum engineering organizes internships from the second year to final year in order to enhance both theoretical as well as practical knowledge of our students. We also conduct simulation experiments in labs and organize seminars by inviting industrial experiences to share their experiences and expectations with us.

How do you strategize and update the curriculum to make it befitting for the students? 

"We take inputs of our students, teachers and industry friends while drafting and updating it"

Our college has adopted the practice of outcome-based education and choice-based credit system from 2015-16. Value-added courses beyond content beyond syllabus are offered to the students. And while designing our curriculum, we take suggestions from both our faculties and industry partners to include the latest industrial requirements in it. Apart from this, we do assign research activities to our students, ask them to publish journals and work for government-funded projects, seed money projects and patents.

How does your college prepare students for placements?

"We train them for the corporate world by arranging different training programs"

We organize a wide variety of training including organizational skills training and soft skills training for the overall personality development and growth of our students. We also invite industry experts through events like seminars to fill the gap between students' skills and industry demands, because students get a chance to directly interact with those who are working in different fields.

What extracurricular activities are organized in college to enhance the skills of the students?

"Mock interviews, GDs and quizzes are organized by various societies of our college"

Our main objective is to provide the best quality education to our students by strengthening their basics and concentrating on core subjects. Few other activities which we organize on a frequent basis are mock interviews, group discussions and quiz competitions.

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When you came to college, what was your vision and how are you trying to achieve the same? 

"To bring best business value for college by upgrading the education quality of institute"

When I came to this college for the very first time, my main aim was to upgrade the quality of the curriculum and bring outstanding research opportunities for both faculties and students in order to achieve the status of one of the top-ranking institutions offering Petroleum Engineering across the globe.