Since his early childhood, Associate Professor Abhijit Date has been obsessed with finding out how and why things move, from the drop of rain falling from the sky to a moving vehicle, which led him into a career in mechanical engineering and teaching
“Studying and working in the field of mechanical engineering over the past 23 years satisfied the curiosity about things that move,” says Abhijit.
After completing his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, Abhijit worked in industry as a mechanical engineer in manufacturing and design, where he learnt about the importance of industry experience.
“Working in the industry has strongly shaped my belief that university training is incomplete without opportunities to practise problem-based learning and work-integrated learning,” says Abhijit.
This brought him to RMIT, where he first worked as a TAFE teacher while completing a PhD, before moving into the higher education sector at the School of Engineering.
“I am a strong believer of learning from practice, and RMIT provides the best environment and opportunities for practical hands-on learning,” says Abhijit.
“Throughout my career at RMIT, I had opportunity to work with a very diverse group of educators and students, this has taught me the importance of diversity, inclusion, and sense of belonging.”
As the Program Manager of the undergraduate mechanical engineering courses, Abhijit has a strong passion for teaching in a very personal and individualised manner.
“I take every opportunity to interact with individual students to help understand their personal learning issues and expectations and encourage a spirit of inquiry,” says Abhijit.
Abhijit has a passion for teaching and uses practical teaching methods in his classes.
“I use the flipped classroom approach, where I provide students with learning materials before class. This way students’ participation in class is more focused.”
"I take every opportunity to interact with individual students to help understand their learning issues and expectations and encourage a spirit of enquiry."
The best part of his career was developing and coordinating professional research project courses in engineering undergraduate honours degrees at RMIT, which incorporates research into the engineering honours degrees.
“This activity has helped me grow as an academic and a researcher,” says Abhijit. “I felt very satisfied about the work I did during the development and delivery of the professional research project courses to strengthen the honour degree programs at RMIT.”
What’s next?
Abhijit has recently developed a course that combines engineering, economics and ethics through system design context called Thermal-Fluids System Design.
“I hope to build on this course and write a book about practising engineering and economic principles through system design activities in context of real-world examples, to develop appreciation for, and understanding of, the importance of ethics in engineering practices,” says Abhijit.
