Dr. B. Arundhathi has been working as the Principal of Vignan's Institute of Engineering for Women, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. She has done BE University college of Engineering - Burla of Orissa followed by M.Tech in Electrical Power Engineering and PhD in Tech from JNT College of Engineering - JNTU of Hyderabad. She also holds a rich 18 years of teaching and 7 years of industrial experience.

Her areas of Specialization and Research Interests are Real Time Implementations and Control System Applications to Machine Drives. She started her professional journey in May 1993 as a Lecturer with Institute of Engineering & Management of Jeypore and later on worked with Institute of Paper Technology as an External Faculty, Star Paper Mills Ltd of Duncan Goenka Group as an Electrical Engineer, HBL Nife Power System as an In-charge for Central Test Facility, GMR Institutes of Technology - Rajam as an Assistant Professor.

Other than this, Dr. B. Arundhathi has published 14 research papers in International Journals and presented 10 in International and 4 in National Conferences. Throughout her career, she has attended numerous seminars, workshops and Faculty Development Programs and has organized them too as and when needed. She has also worked on a research project of AICTE, which was worth INR 14.9 Lakhs and has received numerous awards and accolades including Visista Seva Puraskar Award for a decade long association with VIT in 2016, Best Engineering Teacher Award for overall Academic Performance during Engineers Day celebration in 2013, Sastra Award for R&D and paper publishing at VIIT of Duvvada, Pratibha Award (State) for Academic excellence achiever and Best Engineering Teachers Award at VIIT in 2010-11.

Vignan Institute of Engineering for Women

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

Because I strongly believe that education has the ability to change the lives of a family and society too. So I would say the biggest driving force behind my so long association with the education sector is my passion towards it and commitment to ensure students growth and development. And as many people assume, being associated with the education sector doesn't only mean teaching, but counseling too. And I truly like the process of counseling and motivating the students and inspiring them to reach their goals. 

Being the Principal of the Vignan Institute, what is your philosophy of leadership? 

As a Principal of the Vignan College, my philosophy of leadership revolves around students and their overall personal and professional growth. Because, I personally believe that education not only means completing the curriculum, but it is much more than that as we have to take care of students academic and personal development, health and emotional balance and all. Hence I always ensure that our students get the finest quality and practical knowledge and can grab a good job in reputed companies, because we have a diversity of students, some belong from a wealthy family but many come from economically poor backgrounds.

How do you strategize the key programs for the marketing and administration of your college?

Being an educator, I personally believe that along with quality education, timely academic monitoring and counseling is very crucial for students. And it is the result of everyone's consistent efforts, which has made our college number one in the university academic results. 

Also, 90% of our students get passed in first attempt and 85% of them get placed in good companies. This outcome is the main key point for our marketing. Because when a student pursues their dream courses with us and becomes successful, everyone associated with them, be it their parents or relatives, they come for reference. So, I would say there is no need of employing very cheesy marketing strategies, if you provide employment oriented education and required practical exposure, students results do the most work for you.

In your experience, what benefits can students gain from studying here in your institute?

In today's time, many people are attracted towards overseas universities and are rapidly fleeing the country to pursue it, but if you clearly observe the big MNCs, most of the top leaders are Indians and they studied in India only. And I believe that the Indian Education System has taught a lot of values to both teachers as well as students.

And it might be possible that we lag behind in terms of world-class infrastructure, but our education system is far better as per my knowledge. And the very first factor that makes Indian Education System unique is that it is easily affordable as even children of Grade 3 and Grade 4 employees can pursue their courses

Also, if I talk about the benefits students can get from studying in our college is that along with having state-of-the-art infrastructure and highly experienced faculty members, we do provide access to Coursera courses to them, where world-renowned professors teach them. Apart from this, students have the option to complete their elective courses through MOOCs.

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How does the curriculum of your institute ensure the best practices of industry?

Our college received its autonomous status this year only and the fact that makes it even more special I'd that we are the first engineering college of Andhra to receive it. And if I talk about the curriculum, we design it after rigorous analysis and consultation with industry experts and to inculcate placement related skills in students, we have even collaborated with various companies, institutes and industries and have signed formal MOUs as well. 

Students are also provided training in government organizations like APSSDC, NRDC, and MSME. This in return makes them industry ready before they step into one. Along with academics, we have given equal focus to the health of students by making Yoga and Sports activities an integral part of the curriculum. Because nowadays students might be physically fit but mentally weak, so through sports and yoga, we can make them more healthier, dedicated and focused towards their goals.

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

Students are admitted to our courses based on their EAMCET results. Also, some of them write the MSAT exam for B.Tech Engineering and ISAT exam for MBA and MCA. 

And to make education accessible to everyone, we do offer fee reimbursement as per guidelines of Andhra Pradesh government to needy and edible ones. And we have a JVD called Jagan Vidya Devan, through which 60-65% of our students got enrolled in our courses. Scholarship is also available to academically bright and unprivileged children's

What are your key roles and responsibilities towards the institute and students?

As a Principal, my prime objective is to teach life skills to students so that they can earn well in future and make it more bright. Also, goal of our institution is to provide global learning and networking opportunities to students, and simultaneously inculcating good ethical values, communication skills and competency in them.

Hence organizing societal and community service-based activities also comes under my scope to make students ready for the outer competitive domestic and overseas world. Also, I focus more on real-time projects because only through it students can exhibit their learning skills. Last but not the least, supervising and monitoring college day-to-day working and organizing technical and youth fest is also a part of my job.

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

Being an educator, I can clearly say that the coming 10 years would be revolutionary for the education sector and focus will be more on innovation and emerging technologies. In other words, IoT and AI are going to rule the world. Keeping this in mind, we have introduced more disciplinary subjects and courses and it has been made mandatory for every student to study computer-related subjects including C programming, data structure and DBMS as it is a bare minimum requirement.

Our focus is also on making students capable enough to compete on global levels, and hence we have signed 50 MOUs with leading industries, institutes and experts to train students and help them learn better.

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When you joined the Institute, what was your vision for it and how far have you come in implementing that vision?

My vision when I joined the institution was to make our institution one of the leading one of Andhra Pradesh and make our students compete globally, while having best ethical values.

And to make this happen, we design our curriculum after very rigours research and analysis so that programs can be conducted efficiently. Another aim is to aware students about emerging tech and happenings around the world. So we conduct sessions with the Ram Krishna Mission and other organizations we have signed MOUs with. Last but not the least, we regularly encourage our students to actively participate in societal community-based projects.

What would you like people to know about your Institute that makes it different from others?

Our Vignan's Institute of Engineering for Women is a 15-years old institution and we have received NBA accreditation for our Engineering specializations including Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Computer Science Engineering and Information Technology. Other than this, NAAC has accredited us with A+ grade. We also received the autonomous status recently. Hence, based on these achievements, I can proudly say that ours is the first Engineering college, which has received this much recognition in the short span of time. And all the credits goes to none other than the quality education we provide to students and highly trained and experienced faculty members we do have.

What do you see as the greatest strengths of your institution?

Our chairman sir, who is a visionary leader and who always motivates our teachers to empower students with good education, so that they can live a dignified life, become financially stable, is the biggest strength of institution. 

We also have a wonderful team of faculty members highly qualified, committed and responsible faculty members. Lastly , our strength is our disciplined and sincere students.