I'm doing 3rd year of engineering in NIT Trichy. This is one of the best in India and the best of around 20 NITs. Anyone, say more than 15 yrs old, who wants to do engineering in a good college will know how to get in here.AIEEE. Out of nearly seven lakh students who take this exam, only around 500 students get into each institution (which includes people entering through a lot of other criteria) When you try to analyze this more you realize the wide variation in the rank of students who enter in. For instance, the person with the all India rank(air) of 127 , belonging to Andra Pradesh, gets computer science in NIT Trichy whereas a person from Karnataka who had a rank of 21367 could get the same. This is because like IIT people don't get in here with the AIR but with the state ranks. Someone in Tamilnadu can get into NIT T much more easily than one from Andra Pradesh though his rank may be 20 times more. This is the case for so many other states like Rajasthan, UP and Delhi where people have much better ranks but still cant get branches of their choice and sometimes cant even get into NITs.
Well.. this is not exactly what i wanted to talk about, though the title seems pretty appropriate even for this.What i wanted to say was about how guys change once they enter the college. They struggle so much. Many give a break of a year and prepare just for this entrance exam and finally they land here. What comes over them after they come here is so outlandish. If you take a look at all those people, from these states, who struggled so much, gave a break of one and even two years, who slogged to get here, not even ten percent of them are toppers in college. Everything goes upside down in a span of months and in the second year they are so far away from it. These same people who were way ahead of us, who were so hard working, to whom it mattered so much, are so casual and careless. You hardly see them attending any classes, they hardly work. Here i should appreciate them for the fact that though they don't study all that much they still muster up something good in the exam.
What gets me wondering is how good they will be if they study a bit. We will all be nowhere near them if they get back all the enthusiasm and the drive they had when they were preparing for aieee. So, what happened to them? Where did it all vanish is such a short duration!! There are these problems which crop up once they enter college and are so far away from any serious control.They get into a lot of habits. But that is not what i want to talk about either. This is different.
When i talk to so many of these smart friends of mine, they give me many astonishing answers. One of the very common answers being that they studied so hard to get in here and once they enter they want to relax, slow down. The reason being whatever their scores are they are sure to get a job and of course they have very decent grades, and once they get a job they will have to work again. This is the time they want to enjoy, after all they do not know if they will get anything like this again. After 20 years when they look back, they want to have loads of lighter moments to remember not books all the time. They want to have had all the fun. They feel this is the reward they get for their hard work, this job security. This may be reason enough but don't they realize even with a bit of work they will be achieving great heights, a better job with a better pay and a lot more to enjoy.
Another of the answers which you hear is the difference in what is expected out of us. In aieee we had to solve 100 odd problems in 3 hours in varied subjects and levels of difficulty. We had to be really smart, had to be sure of the concepts, had to keep track of the time and above all we should have practiced a lot. But what is required of us in college is to cram a lot of theory. We must be able to memorize a lot and reproduce them, sometimes verbatim. Very few subjects need understanding and problem solving skills. Even then the problems are so expected and does not involve any thinking, just refer the standard books and you are sure to know nine out of ten problems which will be in the question paper. Getting to think about it even now my friends know the concepts, they just don't want to memorize or they are just not used to it. Whereas people here had to memorize loads to clear the school and board exams and so tend to score in college.
Now, i don't have a conclusion for this. Do i say the criteria for entering NITs should be changed, or should it be that the system of education in the colleges should be changed. I've no idea. But the fact remains that guys who gave dazzling results and performed remarkable feat before entering this college have come down to be mediocre students here.
Well.. this is not exactly what i wanted to talk about, though the title seems pretty appropriate even for this.What i wanted to say was about how guys change once they enter the college. They struggle so much. Many give a break of a year and prepare just for this entrance exam and finally they land here. What comes over them after they come here is so outlandish. If you take a look at all those people, from these states, who struggled so much, gave a break of one and even two years, who slogged to get here, not even ten percent of them are toppers in college. Everything goes upside down in a span of months and in the second year they are so far away from it. These same people who were way ahead of us, who were so hard working, to whom it mattered so much, are so casual and careless. You hardly see them attending any classes, they hardly work. Here i should appreciate them for the fact that though they don't study all that much they still muster up something good in the exam.
What gets me wondering is how good they will be if they study a bit. We will all be nowhere near them if they get back all the enthusiasm and the drive they had when they were preparing for aieee. So, what happened to them? Where did it all vanish is such a short duration!! There are these problems which crop up once they enter college and are so far away from any serious control.They get into a lot of habits. But that is not what i want to talk about either. This is different.
When i talk to so many of these smart friends of mine, they give me many astonishing answers. One of the very common answers being that they studied so hard to get in here and once they enter they want to relax, slow down. The reason being whatever their scores are they are sure to get a job and of course they have very decent grades, and once they get a job they will have to work again. This is the time they want to enjoy, after all they do not know if they will get anything like this again. After 20 years when they look back, they want to have loads of lighter moments to remember not books all the time. They want to have had all the fun. They feel this is the reward they get for their hard work, this job security. This may be reason enough but don't they realize even with a bit of work they will be achieving great heights, a better job with a better pay and a lot more to enjoy.
Another of the answers which you hear is the difference in what is expected out of us. In aieee we had to solve 100 odd problems in 3 hours in varied subjects and levels of difficulty. We had to be really smart, had to be sure of the concepts, had to keep track of the time and above all we should have practiced a lot. But what is required of us in college is to cram a lot of theory. We must be able to memorize a lot and reproduce them, sometimes verbatim. Very few subjects need understanding and problem solving skills. Even then the problems are so expected and does not involve any thinking, just refer the standard books and you are sure to know nine out of ten problems which will be in the question paper. Getting to think about it even now my friends know the concepts, they just don't want to memorize or they are just not used to it. Whereas people here had to memorize loads to clear the school and board exams and so tend to score in college.
Now, i don't have a conclusion for this. Do i say the criteria for entering NITs should be changed, or should it be that the system of education in the colleges should be changed. I've no idea. But the fact remains that guys who gave dazzling results and performed remarkable feat before entering this college have come down to be mediocre students here.
