Rishita Das — Lean In Interview Series #8
Rishita Das graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a Dual Degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2016. Currently, a doctoral student at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, she is pursuing research on turbulence. She was selected for the DAAD-WISE scholarship, MITACS internship and SN BOSE scholars program and decided to go with DAAD for her internship in Germany at the University of Stuttgart. She received the best BTP and MTP awards in the Department of Aerospace engineering. She even went on to become the governor of TDS Druheen at KGP.
From winning the Institute Silver Medal to being named one of the 2019 Amelia Earhart Fellows by the Zonta International Foundation, her remarkable story so far is truly an inspiration for all of us.
1) How does it feel reaching where you are? What do you think when you look back at your life so far?
It feels great! Of course, PhD life has its issues like anything else but I am very glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to do a PhD. Growing up I was always very under-confident and quite dependent on my family and friends for emotional and moral support. After graduation from Kgp, I was unsure about starting life so far away from home. But these 3–4 years have made me much stronger and independent. I know now that I can figure things out for myself even in the worst of times and that is very important to have. Of course, I am still learning and there is still a long way to go.
2) How was your stay at IIT Kgp and how did college help you grow as a person? What lessons or experiences you took back from your stay here?
IIT Kgp has taught me a lot. I started as an intimidated fresher, trying my best to learn and score well in every class, while also trying to be part of multiple societies and taking part in competitions. Through the years, I realized the importance of prioritizing and time-management. KGP puts you in situations when you realize that sometimes it’s okay to prepare less for an exam if it means giving your best in the dramatics production. However, there will also be situations, when it’s important to prepare for that internship interview rather than go cheer for your hall in elocution. It is making these decisions and continuously balancing your time amongst academics, extra-curricular, friends and responsibilities, that is my most prized lesson from Kgp.
3) Where do you see yourself in the next 5–7 years? What inspires you to pursue your dreams?
Over the next 5–7 years, I hope to explore new avenues of research in Aerospace engineering, preparing myself for a long term career in academia. What inspires me most is the urge to learn and discover new things in my field, understand them better with time and make my small contribution to the vast expanse of global research.
4) Which phase of life or experience of yours motivated you to pursue the profession you currently are in?
It was mainly the courses I took in my department (Aerospace) at IIT and the projects I got to work on that made me realize just how much I wanted to learn more in my area of interest and pursue a career where I can eventually pick my own research problems and work on them. I was also very inspired by my BTP & MTP advisor. Having learnt from his teaching and research style, I hope to emulate his best ideals to be a professor like him in the longer run.
5) How did your stay and experience at IIT Kharagpur influence and nurture your career goals?
Apart from the academic help at IIT, the extra-academics at KGP really helped nurture my overall personality and gave a strong push to my confidence. The institute also provided me with access to a variety of reputed internships across sectors. It helped me make an informed decision of choosing between industry and academia, as a better fit for me. And of course, most importantly, the biggest source of my support and encouragement in KGP were my friends, who believed in me even when I did not.
6) What kind of hurdles did you face being a female? What are some of the failures you experienced or some challenging situations when you felt like giving up?
As a female in a significantly male-dominated field, my biggest hurdle is speaking up in front of an audience or the fear of being heard with judgement or prejudices. Whether it is presenting my research at an international physics conference or something as ordinary as asking a question in my own department seminar, it can be quite intimidating. Like many other women, I feel more confident in a crowd where the gender-ratio isn’t as skewed.
A message to my younger self has to be — “Don’t worry so much, these little things won’t matter when you grow up. Let it go sometimes and enjoy your life.”
7) What is an opportunity you missed or the thing you regret during your stay in Kgp that given a chance, you’d go back in time and change it?
I wouldn’t say my Kgp life was perfect, but even the little failures and setbacks led me to learn so much more that I can hardly complain. If I am to change a thing, I would change my attitude of always being a safe-player, trying to stay within my comfort zone and too wary to even think of trying something I am not good at. All the best things in my Kgp life happened ‘coz my friends and peers insisted or encouraged me to pursue new things.
8) If given administrative powers, one rule you would want to change at IIT Kgp?
I would change the placement process in IITs. I think the hierarchical structure of the day-based recruitment process can be extremely difficult for students. Many of them are unable to put forward their best performance during placements due to the immense pressure. Many do not get the chance to apply to a day-5 core company because it’s too big a risk to wait unplaced for the first four days. Instead, I believe the open career-fair concept, common in the US universities, is more effective. It gives all students an equal opportunity to interact with the representatives of different companies, find out if the company’s ideology and work culture matches with their own and then apply for all the positions they are genuinely interested in.
9) How different does life get once you graduate from Kgp? What difference in attitude towards women did you observe after graduating from Kgp?
After Kgp, you realize how much of a safety-net Kgp has been for you to do anything you want and get away with it. In the outside world, you’re more independent but you’re accountable for every single action of yours and you have to figure things out on your own to learn to live in this world. I think it is fun in its own way!
To be honest, I have myself witnessed sexism both during and after Kgp but that does not represent the entire engineering society. Most of my classmates, colleagues and professors both in Kgp and Texas A&M have been very supportive and encouraging. But I have heard many many accounts of disrespect and gender-bias among my friends. I believe this is an issue that needs to be discussed and fought against until it goes away completely. One difference I felt was in the lack of awareness and discussion about these issues in Kgp compared to my current university. Here, there are numerous societies, conferences and organizations to help women engineers cope with such issues in school and at work.
My message to the present Kgpians — “Kgp is going to make you the person you are going to be for the rest of your life, make the most out of it! Do everything you want to do, but don’t forget to prioritize. Help and support your peers when they need you because believe me you’ll need them too. Try to make the right choices but it’s okay if you don’t, ‘coz then you have learnt something.”
10) How is the outlook of women in professional life different from that of your peers at Kgp? Has your attitude changed because of the place you are living in?
I attended this talk at the Women in Science and Engineering Conference last year which made me realize how much we strive to be considered equal to men in every profession, that we forget that we have so much more to offer than just trying to be equal to men. A woman has a different way of thinking, a different approach of problem-solving and contributes differently to a team. It is these qualities that make us unique and important in any professional environment. This is the core reason why every company or organization in the world has increased its focus on diversity for better productivity. So instead of trying to show that women can do any job as good as men, we need to show that we can do the same job differently.
11) Did you feel being restricted by the choice of your department at IIT Kharagpur?
Not really, I was interested in Aerospace engineering from my high school days.
12) Who is your role model and how has she/he influenced you in your life?
I personally don’t believe in role models. Every person has their best and worst qualities and that’s what makes them special and unique. So, I try to learn from the best in every person. The most important people in my life — my parents, brother and fiancé — have influenced my life in innumerable ways and that has made me who I am. Some of my teachers and professors have inspired me a lot and I hope to be able to incorporate most of what I have learnt from them.
13) What are your opinions on the gender bias that exists in professional life? Do you face discrimination of any sort based on gender?
I think statistically the gender-bias is declining in most organizations as they are starting to appreciate the importance of diversity in the efficient functioning of their organization. But, there are still plenty of cases of gender-discrimination happening around the world. That will change only with the mindset of people. I believe having more women representation in the higher ranks of any organization will help improve the situation tremendously. It will motivate more women to apply, make them more confident at work and help them grow if they see more women in positions of authority.
Fortunately, I haven’t faced any significant discrimination professionally. Although sometimes we are ignorant of a lot of commonly practised gender-based presumptions and stereotypes in our everyday lives and that is something I am trying to be more aware of.
14) What is the one utopian thing that you would wish for in today’s society?
Today, specifically for Indian society, research continues to be massively under-appreciated as a career path. This is partly due to the low availability of funds and investments directed towards cutting-edge research. While there are government initiatives and public sources of financing, private investments from industries into research is quite subpar and India still lags in the global research landscape.
While things are gradually improving, I sincerely hope this accelerates in the near term, so that the aspiring researchers graduating from IITs a few years from now can strongly consider India as the prime choice of destination to build their career in research.
Interviewed by Jasmine Jerry A
