Rishita Bansal

I would attribute my success to all the teachers in my life, because every teacher I've had, I have of course learned the course material, but in addition to that, I have always been observant on how they teach. I've always learned and picked up different techniques from different teachers in my life. Ofcourse I build my own techniques, but there are some techniques that I have learned from my teachers. I would attribute my success to all my teachers, and to my parents, and my husband who have supported me. My parents have been my best teachers.

I would say explore all the fields that you're interested in, and follow your heart. Give yourself the time to try out all the fields you're interested in, and also forgive yourself. That's the time to learn the field, because you're not going to excel at any field instantly. You have to put in the work. Follow your heart, no matter what. You need to decide what is it that you like. The society would want you to do certain things, but you need to decide. Especially in my field, people say, why do you want to teach? People think that teaching jobs don't pay enough, so people would always advise you, you should go for an industry job. But this is what I love to do, and I guess when you're doing a job that you enjoy, it doesn't feel so much like work. You just enjoy your work all the time, it's like you're on a huge vacation.

I think currently, the major challenge in teaching for computer science is when students often want to use AI for their assignments. The students always think, okay, I'm not going to write the code myself, when I'm doing the job, and I might as well get AI to do the assignment. But I always make sure my courses have some components, like proctored exams, where they cannot use AI. I also take the time during my lectures from the first day itself to explain it to them, that it's important to know the core concepts before they can even start using AI. AI can just make their work more efficient and faster, but they need to know the foundational concepts well, so that they can make sure they don't make mistakes when the AI makes mistakes. And then you want to come up with a good idea, you need to have strong foundations. So I keep explaining that to them, and I make sure when, even for the assignments, I take demos so that they have to talk about what they do, and I'm pretty good at knowing when they use AI. I can pretty much catch it. Whenever they do, I don't get critical of it, but I just explain it to them that, look, I understand that you used AI, but you need to understand that you're hurting your progress by doing this. You need to make sure you practice. I'm always their friend, trying to assist them grow. I always take time to crack some jokes and make them feel comfortable, so they can ask all the questions they have. I always explain why not to use AI, rather than just making it compulsory not to use AI. But I do teach them responsible use of AI. I teach them when they can use AI to learn extra. I see AI as more like an advanced Google search, so even earlier, when we didn't have AI, students always could find assignments online, and they could copy from there. So it's just that this is a little bit more accessible now. So it's important that we talk to the students and we teach them how to responsibly use AI.

I think being kind and empathetic is something that's the most important to me. I always try to be empathetic to every student and every person. Even if they are misbehaving with us, I try to be more empathetic, that maybe they might be facing something else, so I try to be helpful all the time.