Students, professors offer a peek at their New Year resolutions for 2020

Including plans to be more fearless, double down on college work, and embrace Mondays.

What are your New Year resolutions as students, teachers, parents? We spoke to people on campuses across the city, and found that some are looking forward to breakthroughs in research, others are determined to be more fearless, more self-dependent, more involved in issues on campus and off. One is also looking to turn her Monday frowns upside-down. Take a look…

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’I will reach out, try more group study’

Tania Mukhopadhyay, 20, is now in her final year of a bachelors course in mass communication. “The big struggle for me in the past two years has been adjusting to the university style of education. School was all about theory and learning what you were taught. College patterns are very different. Test scores are given a lot of importance. Suddenly, you’re told to apply theory to practical tasks,” she says. “I want to leave behind some notions that I developed earlier in this decade and start anew. I was used to studying at a stretch and I’ve now realised that I need to engage with the world, think, and minimise stress. I have learned that I have keep myself updated with what’s going on in the world, because unlike in school, everything out there now counts in the classroom too. I want to take part in group studies because I’ve discovered that when it’s about real-world application and analysis, the more perspectives you have, the better.”

‘I’ll stop cribbing about mondays’

Siddhi Pawar, 24, an MBBS student now in her final year at MIMER college, Pune, says she wants to change her attitude to Mondays. “I’ve been cribbing about them throughout the decade — right from school,” she says. “My mindset about starting a week is something I want to change. I want to start every new week with energy. It might seem like a trivial thing, but it does have an impact on how you perform the entire day or week. So I’ll be renaming my mood from Monday blues to Monday blooms,” she says.

‘I plan to get a job and support myself’

Ishika Poojari, 18, a first-year Arts student at Sophia College, moved into the college hostel six months ago. “I’ll leave behind the thought that I will never be able to live on my own. Now that I have experienced it, it looks possible,” she says. She also aims to get a part-time job this year, so she can be financially independent. “I am going to double my efforts in academics and aim for a rising graph in my grades,” she adds.

‘I will teach students about solar power’

For Chetan Solanki, a professor in the department of energy science and engineering at IIT-Bombay, 2020 will be about making students more aware about the climate crisis and ways in which they can reduce their carbon footprint. “Last year my team and I toured Asia and spoke to tens of thousands of students about how to make a solar lamp that meets ISO standards and can be used on their study tables or to light up homes. My target for the next 10 years is to teach more students, around the world, about harnessing solar power. I would also like to develop simple cost-effective cooking solutions that are eco-friendly.”

‘I’m eager to set up more maker spaces’

Aditya Vishwanath, 23, a PhD researcher at Stanford University, a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and founder of MakerGhat, a makerspace for underprivileged students, is all set to amplify the maker movement in India. “Rote learning is something I want to leave behind. Especially in the areas of STEM and arts education, we need students to experiment with the concepts they are taught,” says Vishwanath. “We need to create room for failure. In the new year, I’m looking to rope in local role models to inspire and guide youngsters.” With classmate and co-founder Azra Ismail, Vishwanath says he also plans to set up more maker spaces in Mumbai.