Report - Guest Lecture on Career Opportunities in Aquaculture & Fisheries

Department of Life Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) organized a virtual guest lecture on “Career opportunities in Aquaculture & Fisheries” on 21st of October 2020 (Wednesday). Students from the various Institution participated in this event. Dr. Karthick Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, Vetbiotics Animal Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Mumbai has delivered his talk on “Career opportunities in Aquaculture & Fisheries”. The welcome address was given by Dr. A. Paari (Assistant Professor, Department of Life Sciences) followed by introducing of the speaker by Dr. Ganesh (Professor, , Department of Life Sciences).

Dr. Karthick explained about the increasing careers opportunities for science students and jobs available with a various companies and employers, including state and federal government agencies, academic institutions, and fish farms. He enlightened the audience with the available career opportunities in aquaculture that merely require a high school diploma and some hands on-the-job training. Moreover, in his talk, he described how an increasing number of employers in this industry prefer job candidates with undergraduate education, and certain aquaculture careers, including high-level management and government positions, require graduate-level education.

Dr. P. Manikantan (Assistant Professor, Department of Life Sciences) moderated this event. The session concluded with the vote thanks delivered by Mr. John Britto (MSc Zoology).

Report - Academic Lecture on Immunity in The Human Neonate

A formal informative academic lecture on "Immunity in the Human Neonate" was organized by the Department of Life Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, in association with King's College London (KCL) for the students of UG and PG courses of Life-Sciences on 20^th of October, 2020. The event was jointly convened by Dr. Biljo V Joseph and Ms. Dolan Mitra, Country Adviser-India, KCL, and was hosted online on Microsoft Teams. The virtual programme began with an introductory welcome address by Ms. Dolan Mitra, followed by the Keynote Speaker's academic lecture delivery.

The orator of the academic lecture was Dr. Deena Gibbons, Lecturer in Immunology & MSc Immunology Programme lead, School of Immunology and Microbial Sciences, KCL. The lecture covered various aspects of infection and infection-related complications as significant causes of death and morbidity following preterm birth in human neonates. The speaker addressed what is known about the immune system of babies born prematurely over their first few weeks of life and adult humans. It was demonstrated that preterm babies, including those born extremely prematurely, can rapidly acquire some adult immune functionality levels. The session concluded with a question-answer session and a vote of thanks delivered by Ms. Dolan Mitra.

The event provided in-depth knowledge to the students of the Department of Life Sciences about the identifiable differences in immune profiles of neonates and adult humans, which may allow us to predict the mechanism of immunity of neonates with impaired immune function. Furthermore, various applications of this study, such as the effect of the SARS-CoV-2 maternal infection on the neonatal immune system's status, were discussed.

Placements in IT sector

 

The Department of Computer Science at Christ (Deemed to be University) and the Placement Office has facilitated some of the best placement opportunities for students in the Information Technology (IT) sector. This year has been no different as we had some of the top Information Technology firms visiting the campus to recruit some of the exceptional talents from the existing pool of students. Fortune 500 firms like Walmart, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Amazon and top Information Technology firms like Wipro, Accenture, Dell, Cognizant, Infosys, DE Shaw are a part of the distinguished list. The top packages offered were in the range of Rs 5.00 lakhs to Rs 9.50 lakhs, Cost To Company (CTC).

 The Department of Computer Science, by incorporating a mix of industry internships and a course curriculum with latest technical skills like Java, C, C++, Python, R and subjects like Data Structures and Design, Analysis of Algorithms ensure that the students are a notch above the others when it comes to employability skills. The mandatory five-month internship for the final year postgraduate students, also help the students with industry working experience. Most of these internships are converted to full-time job opportunities on completion of the academic calendar.

 The Department has come up with various innovative initiatives to bridge the academia-industry gap and enhance the employability skills of the students. Labyrinth, a club for the UG students, organises coding competitions and encourages students to participate in hackathons.

Corporate Connect is another event where business leaders and professionals from the industry address the students regarding latest tools and technology in the IT sector. The following guest lectures were conducted by the Department of Computer Science, Christ (Deemed to be University), by Industry Experts. “Step into Artifical Intelligence (AI) Era” by Mr Vaira Selvam, Capgemini; “Cloud on Scale” by Mr Tripun Goel, Samsung Research Institute and “Machine Learning using TensorFlow” by Dr Siddarth Nair, Founder, XFINITO Biodesigns

 Apart from technical skills, soft-skills training programme for the final year UG and PG students were conducted by the Placement Office, which also covers key areas like resume writing, personal interview skills, mock group discussions and digital literacy. Few digital skills that students are required to learn are Word, PowerPoint, Excel, how to save data on cloud platforms, how to use google forms and respond to emails etc. The Soft-Skills training programme helped to instil confidence in the students to face different rounds of the campus recruitment process.

REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL WEBINAR ON FLOWER POLLINATOR INTERACTIONS ORGANIZED BY GREEN ARMY, DEPARTMENT OF LIFESCIENCES ON 26 SEPTEMBER 2020

 The Department of Life Sciences, along with the Green Army organized an international webinar on flower pollinator interactions. The event was held on 26th September 2020 at 6 PM through Google Meet platform and streamed on YouTube. The speaker was Dr. Annemarie Heiduk a postdoctoral scientist from the School of Life sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She is an expert on the chemistry and fly-pollination mechanism in the genus Ceropegia (Asclepiadoideae, Apocynaceae). She spoke about the specialization of floral scents that attract fly pollinators using unique chemical mimicry strategies. In one of the species of Ceropegia, Ceropegia sandersonii, which grows in Kwazulu-Natal area in South Africa, the pollinators are kleptoparasites, i.e., they steal the food from other arthropods like spiders. Therefore, Ceropegia sandersonii has evolved chemical compounds that mimic the compound emitted by the dead insects to attract its pollinators. This method of pollination is termed as kleptomyophily. This talk was fascinating and introduced the students to the world of pollination ecology. This virtual event was attended by about 150 participants and there was an intense discussion with the speaker.

REPORT ON INVITED TALK ON RECENT TRENDS IN WILDLIFE CRIME HELD ON 7 OCTOBER, 2020 ORGANIZED BY DEPT OF LIFE SCIENCES

 The Department of Life Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) organized an invited talk on “Recent trends in Wildlife crime” on 7 October, 2020. Students from various departments of CHRIST (Deemed to be University) participated in this event. Pragatheesh.A, Wildlife Inspector, Enforcement Officer, CITES, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Govt. of India, New Delhi was the resource person. The welcome address was given by Dr.P. Manikantan, Assistant Professor, Dept of Life Sciences. Dr.Ganesh introduced the speaker. The resource person explained the role of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and shed insights on the increasing incidences of poaching in India in recent years. He also  told facts about pangolin  trade. Pangolin is in high demand in China for its aphrodisiac and medicinal value. It is a threatened species, with over 100,000 pangolins captured illegally every year. He also described the worrying trend on the internet fuelling the illegal trade of wildlife. He also pointed out that the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change has identified 106 websites  which are being used for illegal wildlife trade in India through various web portals like Amazon, Quikr, Snapdeal, Ebay, and even YouTube. The vote of thanks was given by MSc Zoology student, John Britto.

REPORT ON INVITED TALK ON VACCINE PRODUCTION – GENERAL PROCESS FLOW HELD ON 29 AUGUST 2020

A general informative talk on “Vaccine Production – General Process Flow” was organized by the Department of Life Sciences on 29^th August 2020. The event was was hosted on Microsoft Teams for I MSc Life sciences and Final year BSc Students. The webinar began with a welcome address by Rohan R Krishnan (1MSc. Botany). The guest speaker was Dr. Nellaiah, Head of Department – Training, and R&D of Biozeen, Bangalore. Dr. Nellaiah has attained his Ph.D. in Microbiology, and he has an experience of 26 years in the field of Quality Control of Blood Plasma, enzymes, and sterile dosages. He has previously worked with Reliance Life Sciences, and Wockhart. The talk provided insights into the biopharmaceutical industry on various levels of vaccine production, purification, and quality control. In-depth knowledge was conveyed especially on the industrial aspects of purification and quality control. Talk also briefed the opportunities available for students in the field of vaccine production. Synthesis and downstream recovery process was explained in detail.  The talk concluded with an interactive Q&A session and a vote of thanks delivered by Bhadrapriya Sivakumar (1MSc. Biotechnology).

REPORT ON INVITED TALK ON TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF GLASSWARES & GOOD LABORATORY PRACTICES HELD ON 17TH AUGUST 2020

 A general instructional talk on “Technical Aspects of Glasswares & Good Laboratory Practices” was organized by the Department of Life Sciences on 17^th August 2020. The event was virtually hosted on the Cisco WebEx platform. The guest speaker was Karthik Shetty, Senior Business Development Manager at Borosil Glass Works Ltd. Talk was organised for I MSc Life sciences and I year BSc students. Borosil Glass Works Ltd. (BGWL) is an Indian glassware company based in Mumbai. Mr. Shetty spoke about various good laboratory practices to be followed in academia and industries alike. He shed light on the various different errors in measurements caused due to ill-handling instruments. Various types of glasswares and their specific uses were discussed during the talk. A representative of the company provided insights into the different types of novel instruments Borosil has recently launched. The talk concluded with an interactive Q&A session and a vote of thanks delivered by Bhadrapriya Sivakumar (1MSc. Biotechnology).

Hiring for Sales and Marketing Profiles

 Sales and Marketing profession is growing faster than the average for all other occupations. Marketing and promotional campaigns are essential to every company, regardless of industry, as organizations seek to grow and maintain their market share. Marketing jobs are available at all kinds of organizations — large firms, startups, small businesses, and non-profits as well. Some of the major recruiters at Christ (Deemed to be University) for Marketing and Sales profiles include Godrej & Boyce, JLL, ICICI Bank, Zoho Corp, Byju’s, MyGate, Zomato, Impel-sys, Great Learning, Kristal AI, Intellipaat, The Media Ant, Address Advisors, MuSigma, Zolo Stays, Times Internet and Deltax. The Cost To Company (CTC) range is from Rs 3 Lakhs to 7 Lakhs per annum. The job profiles offered are in the areas of Digital / Content Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketer, Product / Event or Brand Marketing, Business Development & Marketing Analysis.

Any profession requires certain skill sets. Same holds true for a career for Sales and Marketing. Skills are broadly classified into three types namely Soft skills, Hard skills and role critical skills. Primarily, a sales/marketing professional requires all three types of skills. Soft skills are informal abilities that are generally learned over a person’s lifetime and usually relate to the person’s aptitude in performing common tasks and connecting with other people. Some of the soft skills required for Sales /Marketing are relationship building, time management, a gathering of information and problem-solving. Hard skills are often formal and technical abilities which could be earned from educational institutions, workplaces, seminars, mentorships, and training courses. Hard skills required for Sales & Marketing are product knowledge, active listening, sales presentations and demonstrations.  Role-critical skills are a subset of hard skills that are specialized for a specific function or role. The role-critical skills required for sales and marketing are Prospecting i.e., identifying potential customers; Referrals, using existing customers as a source to get more leads; and Closing of the Sale, which depicts the essence of selling efforts. The above are certain indicators which are common to many professions, but sales and marketing require that extra effort as these people are the face of the company and their actions reflect on the company.

Apart from the general skills mentioned above, the organisations that recruit from our campus also expect students to possess some of the following skills required for Sales or Marketing profiles i.e., editorial skills and creative ideas, good command over English language, negotiation skills, self-motivator and to motivate teams, part of an event management committee at college and co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, ability to multitask, good at primary and secondary research, proficient in Powerpoint, Excel and Word, ability to work under pressure, excellent written and verbal communication skills, openness to travel, creativity, passion for numbers & curiosity etc.

To facilitate the students to pursue a career in sales/marketing, Christ (Deemed to be University) offers certain general and discipline-specific subjects coupled with activities to give the students a better orientation about this field. The subjects such as marketing management and service management give them a general idea about the nuances in those respective areas. As they progress, the students who are specifically interested in sales and marketing are offered subjects such as Consumer behaviour, Sales and distribution management, Retail management, Brand management etc. These specialized subjects are dealt with in detail to give the students an overall perspective about the functions which contribute to the area of sales and marketing.

Apart from specialized subjects, the students are engaged in activities such as role-plays to simulate the sales experience. Activities such as ‘Retail Mela’ was conducted wherein students put up stalls in the University and sold products featured in their stalls. They were given tasks to promote their products and sell them to the visitors and the same was evaluated. This gave the students a rich experience pertaining to sales, promotion etc.

There is no better education than real-life experience, and internships allow one to learn on the go while still learning in the classroom. Marketing departments are made up of lots of moving parts, and internships help one determine exactly which projects and promotions they would like to join. With some real-life experience, one becomes a highly desirable candidate for employers. Some of the internships can lead to full-time jobs too. Summer internships and projects are a part of the curriculum at Christ (Deemed to be University). Students are encouraged to visit organizations and spend time under the guidance of a company executive to give them hands-on experience in working in the field. Students have been doing internships with Amazon, Oyo rooms, Cafe coffee day etc. where they spent time in field visits and activities. This gives them better learning about the benefits and problems faced by professionals in these fields.