Her son’s IIT Madras course became her own: a mother’s degree at 45

When Aditya Kapadia enrolled in IIT Madras’s online Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Applications in 2021, at age 18, he was not planning to eventually share a graduation stage with his mother. But by their recent convocation, Jigisha Tailor, 45, and Aditya, 21, walked up together to collect their degrees from the same programme.

Aditya’s enrollment came as the Covid-19 pandemic had shut down campuses across the country, making an online IIT Madras degree carry the same practical weight as any other option available to him at the time. He also pursued a diploma at a college in Ahmedabad alongside it, since online students then needed in-person enrollment too, dropping it once the IIT Madras senate declared the online BS degree equivalent to a regular four-year course.

Jigisha, who had spent 16 years teaching electronics at an engineering college in Bharuch, Gujarat, before family responsibilities pulled her out of the classroom in 2019, watched her son’s progress from the sidelines before he encouraged her to sign up herself. She enrolled toward the end of 2022, then spent time relearning mathematics and statistics before the coursework became manageable, relying on the institute’s live doubt-clearing sessions and a WhatsApp group formed with her batchmates.

She kept her course load light, one or two subjects a semester against Aditya’s four, and built her day around a 4:30 am start, finishing study by seven before moving to household chores and further coursework. Extended family members questioned the decision, but her husband, also a college professor, supported her, and her father-in-law and wheelchair-using mother-in-law both stayed involved in tracking her progress.

As the coursework advanced, mother and son found themselves competing for the programme’s ‘S’ grade, its top distinction, with Aditya — ahead in the course — guiding her through later stages such as viva examinations and online proctored exams. Aditya finished his degree in 2024 and moved into a full-time role at Syngenta after interning there as a data science intern.

Jigisha completed her programme around the same time but paused before searching for work, wanting to remain available while her younger son finishes Class 12; she has not ruled out a return to teaching, including guest lectures at her husband’s college. At the convocation itself, the two sat in separate sections for BS and diploma students, and their joint stage appearance came together only after a batchmate raised their story at a pre-convocation dinner.

Wikimedia Commons/by Tester051005