Academic & Research Scholarships Alumna-Interaction Ms Lavanya Dalal (Class of 2018)

The Department of English organized the second in its series of Alumna-Interaction Sessions on May 16, 2020. The alumna - Ms. Lavanya Dalal of the class of 2018 - was invited to talk to the students on ‘Academic & Research Scholarships'. 

Currently a student of the University of Mumbai in the final year of postgraduate studies in English Literature, Ms. Dalal began the session by first talking about the two kinds of scholarships; the basic difference between them; how to go about shortlisting from those; and the application procedure. 

She then shared her own experience of having availed an academic scholarship last year and being selected for a research-based one for later this year. While the former was to attend the SUISS (Scottish Universities' International Summer School) programme at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the latter is the Shastri Student Research Fellowship (SRSF) for pursuing research at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Ms. Dalal put much emphasis on writing strong SOPs for bagging scholarships which can be both short-term (ranging from 2-3 weeks upto 6 months) and long-term (for Doctoral studies, etc.); and, part or full in nature. She went on to advise the students on choosing the academic course for future study wisely as also the research area for those interested in availing research scholarships.

Towards the end of the session, Ms. Dalal took up students' queries and concluded the interaction by sharing some more about her own proposed research work, especially dwelling on the importance of going in for a comparative study that facilitates a cross-cultural understanding and/ or uses an intrer-sectional approach.