How To Teach Economics & Game Theory (Indian Institute Of Mgmt Ahmedabad Prof POV) - w/ Viswanath

Welcome to the Ready Set Do podcast, where we discuss journeys of not-experts who are just two steps ahead of us. I'm Naman Pandey, and my guest is Professor Viswanath Pingali. He specializes in game theory and microeconomics at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. We begin with his experience getting his PhD at Northwestern University, where he had his first stint as a teacher. Then we discuss becoming an IIM Ahmedabad professor, what surprises students, what business schools do well and what they could do better, and his research around healthcare in India. The goal is to understand what it takes to impart education effectively.

Professor Viswanath, welcome. I'm excited to learn from your teaching experience. What draws you to teaching? What made you realize this was something you wanted to dedicate your career to?

I don't know exactly when it happened, but it goes back to my PhD days. In the US I had to do a teaching assistantship to earn my stipend. I figured out that I was quite good as a teaching assistant, so much so that students reached out to me on their own later as well. I thought this might be a good career for me. At the same time, I wanted to get into industry to understand how it worked. After my PhD I joined consulting, worked there for two years, moved to India, and worked for a year. During that time I taught at a business school part-time.

That was when I discovered that I could hold my own in a class and was quite decent at teaching. In 2010, I think, I made the full plunge back into academia, and 2012 was when I joined IIM Ahmedabad. The challenge in the classroom drives me. You get to read a lot of stuff, including esoteric stuff, and connect the dots in class. You get pushback, then go and read further, take that critique, and reframe an idea so students understand it. I absolutely love the classroom experience. Before IIMA I taught at IFMR, and I loved that experience too. Seeing people understand what I want to convey is probably what gets me going.

I want to step back to your experience at Northwestern, where you got your PhD. I'm based in Chicago, so it's a small world in that way. What was your thesis focused on, and what kind of work were you doing there?