Blueprint: By Civil Engineering Department
Prof Alok Goyal graduated with a doctoral degree in Civil from University of California at Berkeley, specializing in Structural Engineering. Apart from having numerous publications, Prof Goyal has also been a consultant to a large number of firms including Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd, Oil and Natural Gas Commission Ltd and Ministry of Railways. Prof. Goyal is also a member of the review committee for Indian Standards. What was your aim in life as a teenager? He politely smiled at the question “I was already a Thomsonian before I could realize my teenage.” A topper of all time, he cracked the first position in IIT Roorkee (the then University of Roorkee or the Old Thomson College of Civil Engineering) entrance examination at an early age of 16 years. He joined as an Undergraduate student of Electronics and Communication but passed out with a BE Degree in Civil Engineering. Having joined Roorkee, he realized that academic excellence is not the best part of one’s life and this was contingent on his growing interest towards billiards. He now dreamt beyond the identity of a studious geek to become a stalwart at pool, practicing 8 hrs per day on an average, even to the extent of changing his branch from Electronics to Civil, to develop a robust skill set on billiards. He had already mastered games like hockey, cricket and football before Roorkee, and billiards was the next goal. He dreamt of being a professional Billiards player. Well you have a great combination of degrees, name any three of your proudest professional achievements and also your best accomplishments as a student? To this he laughed and replied “I don’t have any!” paused for a few minutes and added “IIT Bombay Excellence in Teaching Awards twice and Winning the Mangal Ram Memorial Trophy- for Billiards in a competition at IIT Roorkee which was open to all.” The latter certainly implies that he was not a failure at billiards, then why the U-turn in his career choice? His reply was that “The State level was the maximum I could play due to problem with my eyes. Though I won the trophy, when I looked back at what I had given up - two and a half years, the happiness could not last long. It is then I decided to get back to my studies.” Can you name any three major influential people in your life? I could notice the difficulty in his mind to pick up three, but having taken some time, he replied with the following three-“ First of all my father. He taught me how not to worry about anything in life. He has been and continues to be a major source of inspiration even today. Next is Professor Alexander C Scordelis from UC Berkeley”, there was a glow in his eyes as he named the professor, and he continued in pride,” he was a great professor and I trace back my teaching skills from him. The entire department of Structural engineering in that era at Berkeley was the best that history ever saw, with experts like Prof Ray W Clough, Prof Robert L Taylor, and Prof E Popov among many others.” These names must definitely be ringing bells in the minds of Civil Engineers of current generation having more than half of the books in their shelves having these names. ” I believe Prof Alexander was the finest amongst his profession cohorts. Study at a US University is very different from here; this very idea of teaching was strongly reinforced in my mind due to him.” He shifted his chair a bit to the right pointing towards the next cabin of Prof Ravi Sinha and said with a finger in that direction, “Ravi is the third person whom I owe my current position to. He is four years junior to me and joined IIT Bombay as a faculty in 1992, and it is he who suggested that both of us should use our knowledge to benefit the people in larger meaning. We thus ended up becoming construction consultants to many government bodies.” We can clearly see your dedication to other activities apart from studies and you were still the topper of your batch throughout. What strategies did you use to be successful in college?
Amused at the word strategies perhaps, he answered “I don’t have any strategies; I only Live On My Strengths and also don’t generally panic about anything. I could bunk majority of the classes and still manage 200-300 pages on the night just before the exams at Roorkee. I passed but I didn’t learn.” Having said that, how closely do you relate to the current generation of Civil Engineers at IIT Bombay with yourself as an undergraduate? He quickly responded” Very close, in-fact we are the same”. He stopped at this and then continued “But still I largely feel that the commitment to a system is very low now-a-days. Even we used to copy assignments, bunk a few classes here and there, etc. I know it all as I have been on the other side of the desk. But we were more
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have put in for his children and the magnitude of hard work he is ready to pitch in for less motivated students. “I always advice all such students and my kids never to loose heart, one can practically recover from anything in life.” That was very well said Professor Goyal. What do you think is the role of a professor in the life of a student at IIT Bombay? He confidently replied “A professor can influence the life of a student to a great extent. This is the age when you get influenced the most as you all have had a very limited exposure till now, your ideas have not frozen yet, you all are yet very flexible in terms of thinking. A great positive as well as negative influence could impact the young minds therefore. Role modeling is not what I am talking about here, if you adopt somebody as a role model, the only condition is that you should dream bigger.” We have all seen the movie three idiots, to what extent do you agree with the portrayed psychology of engineering professors in the movie?
Name: Alok Goyal B.E: IIT Roorkee (Civil Engineering) M.E: IIT Roorkee (Earthquake Engineering) PhD : University of California, Berkley, US
committed to our responsibilities than what we see on an average today. Today I give 20 FR’s to students, and it will hardly bother them as opposed to my generation. We also committed mistakes, but we were ready to bear the penalty and make-up for the same. This very attitude is missing today. When students make a mistake, they do not even recognize it as one and blame the system, or an external source for their failure. There is increasing arrogance in students while the habit of learning has reduced to a great extent. They have a very casual attitude to everything they do and engage with. I don’t mean study when I enforce learning; learning is a much broader concept in itself and includes any genre. Students must have a habit of learning, whatsoever it may be.” What is the best and the worst part about teaching young minds at IIT Bombay? “I love teaching as I get the opportunity to see happy faces”, given that his family members being doctors, have this chance very less often. He continued “Students at the campus are generally genuinely very happy and it is great to be teaching such high happy spirits, happy even on getting an FR grade”, he took a few seconds to smile a bit, “I mean they are very resilient. Teaching itself is a very flexible job and I enjoy living life my own way. More so as here at IIT Bombay, there is no hierarchy whatsoever and the system is adequately flexible to allow or free emergence of teaching styles and mannerisms to enable good teaching. I do not dislike anything about teaching here at IIT Bombay.” Having said that, what according to you is good teaching? And how do you adjust your teaching styles to the less-motivated or under-prepared students? I perceive his body language at the question as if pointing towards him as an answer to the former question. Having adjusted himself a bit, he answered “If I encourage you to learn something and you could learn it successfully, then that is what I call as good teaching.” Without a thought he continued “I have only one Mantra for such students- I treat them like my kids. I never give up; keep chasing them just like my two kids.” Professor Alok Goyal has two kids, elder daughter is currently doing an MS in Computer Science at USC, Los Angeles, USA and the younger son is currently a final year student at the prestigious KEM Medical College in Mumbai. This clearly demonstrates the efforts he must
Before I could complete the entire question, he replied a yes to the first part of the question with amusement. Eagerly waiting for the question to end, he replied “Of course I enjoyed the movie a lot as I have somehow lived all the characters of the movie in part throughout my life till now. I was the Institute photography secretary as I wanted to learn photography” and he laughed aloud, while I could identify the Farhan Quereshi in his eyes. “Now-a-days I essentially play the professors role. But I have been on both the sides of the desk, and I have done all that I was not supposed to do just like the THREE IDIOTS. I understand the various psychologies that collectively go behind the observed behavior of a majority of students on the campus. But, I do agree with the movie in a lot many ways, the perception of the portrayed psychology is a bit different between me and your generation. I believe the intention of the professors was never to hurt, always to get things correctly done with pressure, although they could have avoided a few unfortunate incidences in the movie. How does this profession of teaching fit in to your overall goals? “I always wished to be a professor after the Billiards dreams were partially realized. More after I was a part of the prestigious Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley.” Prof Alok Goyal completed his BE in Civil Engineering from IIT Roorkee at an age of 20 years and further enrolled in…ME in Earthquake Engineering at the same, to pass out with a gold medal two years later. Here after, he went for a Ph.D. at Department of Civil Engineering, University of California at Berkeley. Having completed his Ph.D., he joined IIT Roorkee as a faculty member and shifted to IIT Bombay in 1989. He became full professor in 1998 and continues till date. He has also been involved in professional consultancy since 1994 along with professor Ravi Sinha. He continued, “Shifting to IIT Bombay has been the best decision I took. IIT Bombay is the best place to raise your kids, the environment is simple and competitive and there is a lot of focus on academic career along with ample opportunities to explore other aspects of one’s personality.”
“I have only one Mantra for such students- I treat them like my kids. I never give up; keep chasing them just like my two kids.” There has been a lot of amendment to the Civil Engineering curriculum. How do you think has it impacted the students in terms of their knowledge, sincerity, inclination towards Civil Engineering and also internship and placement opportunities? “Well I would say the course structure is not balanced. The amendments were not done keeping in mind the student interests and the balance of courses. ……. Continued to page 4