Engineering Woes

One thing that I noticed in my 3 years in an engineering college is that the standard of the pass outs is extremely low. The fact of the matter is that the students are systematically converted into idiots over a course of four years. Especially here in CUSAT. Its more or less true for the colleges in the entire state of Kerala.

My choesn branch of Naval Architecture witness the inflow of very bright students, especially the ones from North India. These students are hard working and brilliant. In fact, my batchmates were very worried in the first month that they were not getting time to study daily topics due to interference by seniors. How things have changed since then! Three years later, hardly anybody studies more than a week earlier for the exams. Though we pride ourselves in this take-life-easy mentality, in the long run this results in the convesion of the aforementioned brilliant students into nothing more than average engineers.

I was thinking about the possible reasons for this effect when lo and behold, the answer came today afternoon, in the form of 4th sem results. This was an exam that we had written more than 7 months ago. We dont even remember which exams we worked hard for, which ones we lazed aound for, or even which ones we found tough.

As an unfortunate alumni of the PC Thomas entrance classes, I know that one of the major uses of having exams is the feedback we get. The results of the weekly tests arrive within a day and we can analyse our mistakes, our hardwork (or it's lack) and take appropriate steps to improve the results for the next test.

But this feedback is not possible if the results arrive 7 months late. But one factor is that nobody here in CUSAT gives a damn, not even me. I mean, as far as we are concerned, the later the results come, the later we have to worry about facing the demons of supply.