The Atria University is all set to open its doors for the students this October. SHALINI SAKSENA chats up CEO SAHEEM RAHIMAN, Excerpts
How much learning are children getting with online mode?
We all agree that a large amount of learning or effective learning takes place with peer learning and peering each other's opinions and all of these things have actually dried up in the online education model. Even in our own work life what I have noticed when the lockdown started all of us were working virtually and we would have amazing meetings at the beginning, when you want to solve a problem you want everybody to come up with new ideas. As the lockdown progressed, off late nobody wants to have contrary opinion on a call, nobody wants to have an opposing view on the call because they feel that they are not participating as much.
Tell us about Atria University. It is a a year old.
It has been close to two years since we launched the product but we haven't gone live as yet for the first batch. First batch starts in October of this year. This is because Karnataka State Higher Education has announced the next academic year will start in October. We are also in the final phase of getting approvals for the university so all of that will be in place before the academic year starts.
What are some of the courses that are being offered to students?
We have five majors. One of them is mobility. Then we have Life Sciences. Number three is digital transformation. Then we have interactive tech. At No 5 is Energy Sciences. Degrees are BTech then Bachelor of Design (BDes) then BSc and BBA.
How does a student apply?
Just like in the outside world, a student joins the university for an undergrad programme. The student goes through foundation courses irrespective of whether they came from a science or commerce background from school. These foundation courses are for 12 months. Post that there is a six-to-nine-month period where the student gets to sample courses or projects in each of these areas, there are five majors and four degrees. They get to sample each one of this or each one of them over a period of six to months.
What about faculty?
It’s a very industry-led programme where the projects are also from the industry. Most of the courses are actually designed by industry leaders and academics are helping felicitate that. They will will come on campus for a period of four weeks, teach and leave.
What is the fee structure?
We are priced at Rs 7 lakh per annum for academics and then residential is Rs 1.8 lakh.
What’s your vision in next five years?
To be sustainable, I must think 10 years ahead. I am scaling between 5,000 to 7,000 students in 10 years on the campus. By the time the first batch goes out my goal is to make sure that everybody who joins us in this year, will actually be going out as employees and not necessarily searching for a job because the model itself allows for nine months of internship right from second year. The idea is student will be working with big organisations in the industry on these projects and will organically get absorbed in the companies that they've worked with.
