Choosing your Guide and Topic

IEEE Education Society (EdSoc) Kerala Chapter in collaboration with the Hyderabad Chapter organized the first webinar on the tri-webinar series, on the topic ‘How to Select Your Research Topic, Supervisor & Fixing the Timelines’ on August 28, 2021, from 7.30 pm to 8.30 pm IST. Dr. Manoj BS, Chair of IEEE EMB Society Kerala Chapter and Professor in the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology was the speaker of the day. 

The event began with the welcome note of Mr. Varughese CM, Chair of IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter. In his address, he welcomed the respected speaker and all the delegates into the session. Followed by that, Dr. KC Raveendranath, Research Activities Chair of IEEE EdSoc Kerala Chapter came forward to provide an introduction about the esteemed speaker, Dr. Manoj BS. 

In response to the invitation, Dr. Manoj came forward and thanked everyone for the welcome note. Followed by that, he began the session by explaining a strategic approach for choosing research topics addressing numerous factors like relevance, timeline, future growth prospects, technical strengths, available guidance, and passion. 

Further, he moved on to the next section of the webinar, which is how to find open research problems in a topic.  In this section, he gave a note of the resources that can be used to identify research problems in an area, namely literature surveys,  journals, and top-class conferences. After that, he further moved to the final section, which is selecting a guide. During his note in this section, he addressed the various qualities that need to be considered while choosing a guide, like technical knowledge, mentoring caliber, ethics, professional affiliations, and many more. 

Thanking Dr. Manoj for hisk valuable words, the session was then opened for Q&A. In response to that, a couple of questions regarding the publication of research and the selection of guide were put forward by the attendees. Dr. Manoj addressed all the questions with detailed explanations. 

Following that, Mr. Saikumar Tara, Secretary of IEEE Education Society Hyderabad Chapter, came forward for the vote of thanks. In his note, Mr. Saikumar thanked Dr. Manoj for his presence and engaging session. In addition to that, he expressed his gratitude to all the delegates and attendees for their active participation. The webinar ended with that thanking note.