So, there they were - hoardes of anxious students with the JEE counselling brochure.
What really struck me today was a fact that I had always known - the Indian higher education system, though extremely competitive and rigorous, does not equip you with decision-making tools. I could identify two very clear reasons. Firstly, parents are too protective of their children and essentially take all the decisions for their 'kids' even when they are 16, including important decisions pertaining to their careers. Secondly, the education environment does not encourage risk-taking, which implies that I would hesitate to take up an unchartered path.
Ofcourse, the students are not to be blamed. Atleast, not entirely. It has been going on for a good two decades that I have been orbitting the sun. Specifically, talking of the JEE - the system has been treated to be such a big monster to tame that once you clear JEE, most people think of it as an end. I did too, in all probability. Now here comes what I have believed to be the biggest drawback of the current JEE phenomenon:
The students slog their days away in their coaching institutes and burn the proverbial oil during the nights. For two long years. At 16, what you should really be doing is explore the world, meet new people, have newer experiences, learn the shortcuts of overcoming the vicissitudes, read books, play cricket, watch porn, ATTEND HIGH SCHOOL... these experiences equip you with tools to decide what your life holds out for you. They put you in a much better position to gauge yourself and take that extra step in the direction that your dad (and your neighbour and your distant cousin) would never approve of.
Unfortunately, we spend those precious two years - when our personalities shape up and our true character is formed - mugging derivations and solving the JEE 2001 10-mark questions. And that does manifest in rather unfortunate ways: your social behaviour patters tend to become obscure and in reality, you are ill-equipped to face the true world, outside IIT. (Ofcourse, the four years at IIT does offer umpteen opportunities to make amends).
Another striking realisation, rather re-realisation that happened today: there just is not enough information out there for people to take informed decisions. It is a very peculiar situation: you have to take probably the most important decision of your life and there just is not a guy you can speak to about it at length. Yes, the counselling is meant to dislodge this information asymmetry, but as a parent told me today "We have never heard of anything apart from Computer Science, Electrical and Mechanical, how can we then decide between Metallurgy and Naval Architecture." And ten minutes of talk with a prof or a student is just not enough! This leads to making the best of the situation - look at last year's rankings and decide. And because you hardly explore options, you fail to ask the right questions. Most questions tend to be: "Which is better, Mechanical or Electrical?" "What is the pay package?" and so on.
But. That is the stark reality. I do not see the status-quo changing any soon. So, while it is still possible, let me trip a little bit:
Highlights of the day:
- A parent hinting to me if it is possible to get a seat 'through other means' - on the day of admission, if someone does not join, can you help me to get that seat.
- A boy pops out from the blue with the Question of the Day: "Is Aerospace Nice?" Speechless at the amazing depth of the question, I stumble to my senses and ask "Nice? As in?".. then, he breaks all rules of logical argument and beats his own Question of the Day: "Is it easy?"
- "Is IIT safe.. I mean.. security is good?" This was the point when my heart said "Ofcourse not, there are landmines all over the place; I just saw three people dying when I was coming from the hostel. And Al-qaeda is recruiting from IITM this year." but I ended up saying "Ofcourse Sir, not to worry" with a polite, plastic smile.
- Most asked question of the day "New IITs or NITs?". Perhaps, the most difficult question to answer and I really do feel for the students - IT IS a tough one. I think they should give it as part of JEE. Too much choice has really spoilt the meal for these new guys. I posed the same question to a faculty member from IIT Madras who was representing IIT Hyderabad, his answer was "In four-five years, everything will become old".
PS: Saturday is the first day of counselling for General Category students and I am really looking forward to hard-sell IIT Madras! Will post soon.
31 comments:
I remember the day when we had been to Madras for your Counselling. How excited we were! You were kid then and NOW IIT has totally transformed you. I am PROUD of you.
Nice post!
Hey Lays, nice post out there.
I would like to comment on one of the points that you raised - that point about what kids should be doing when they are 16 instead of slogging for the two years that they slog for, for JEE. You made the entire stuff sound like that those two years are the only years when kids grow. I think its good enough for someone to do all the things that you talked about (including watching porn and all that) till Xth. Then for the next two years, a little more time could be given to JEE preparations. It's not that bad an idea to play a little less cricket, watch a little less porn, read fewer books for just two years. All that can be taken up after you are in!
To think about it - IIT is good for everyone - even those who were never made to be engineers - folks like me. I will tell you why - it brings you in touch with a lot of bright folks who live together. Irrespective of what you want to become in life - cricketer, movie star, artist, novelist, businees-analyst, IAS officer etc. etc. - it's not a bad deal to go through the grindings of an IITian life just for the fun of it because there are very few places (at least in India) where you get to grow up with that kind of bright company - and at such a low monetory cost!
Phew - wrote a lot I guess. :)
hey...
nice post..
i agree with u with almost all the points u made..
we've been thru this system..and have now accepted it.
but again..i believe that the life at the IITs is unpallable with any other..
@ Vandana :P.. sorry @ Mom, thanks. Btw, Ugri thinks you are 'cool' because you comment on my posts!
@ amrit, I agree with you. IIT life is unparalleled. Some of us get back to life here. But I still feel that a significant fraction are not able to appreciate the opportnities available.
Indeed, IIT is good for everyone - even those who were never made to be engineers - folks like you and me. :-)
PS: Don't overlook the tens of thousands of students who don't get thru JEE but do slog their asses off for it - it leaves them with a very bad taste and they won't lead the IIT Life at Ram-baba-ki-jai Engineering College.
@ Viki,
Thanks, agree with you. I can only write a post about how the system is screwed. But I will write a whole book someday about the amazing life at IITs. :-)
Good one!
Quite the same experiences I had here in IIT-B where I'm a volunteer for counselling.
~Cheers
Rahul
'Information asymmetry': What does this mean? If you meant lack of information, you cannot be more correct. Not only in this case; be it in something like general election-the situation repeats: ask all those people that flashed their middle fingers after the election, who were active in jaago-re campaigns, how much do they actually know about the policies of the party they voted for?
On the other hand, if you meant lots of info on a few branches and very few info on the rest- I beg to differ. You should have asked the parent who told you he/she heard only abt Mech/Elec and CS, what he/she actually heard about it.
'look at last year's rankings and decide.'
Monkey see-monkey do, as my good friend Vivek Joy puts it. We all do it! Well, atleast most of us. Precedents set, fortunately or unfortunately, take a major role in decision-making.
This brings me to the last point: decision-making. It is a daunting task. Especially the career decisions. Don't blame the kids alone for that.Ask Sanjay Manjrekar to predict a competitive score for a particular match- he'll take you through an expert analysis except that there will be no answer to your question. Ask an IIT Grad to decide if he wants to app or take CAT. He'll take all the time on this earth and in all probability ends up doing both. Ask a gult who you know, to analyze rigorously and tell you 'should there be a telangana?'. Well, you'll again be disappointed with no answer (this is my experience with the speaking club in my 2nd yr). Especially when there are a pool of options and you need to select, the option with minimal cons and maximum pros is a course by itself- which most of us seem to like!
I was flying over blog-o-sphere and had crash lending to your blog,
And believe me it was such a safe lending,
Enjoyed your post. And your thought process.
Agreed with most your observation and analysis.
@Jimmy: Its the paradox of choice! There is a TED talk and a book on that. The author explains how choices make one feel miserable. He goes on to explain how undecided we are even while selecting a pair of jeans. Its in the human nature. After all, we are humans first and IITians next.
@Lays: In that sense, too much information doesn't help either. Information entropy can, in fact, kill us! Anyway, there is a concept of student counsellor now? I thought I was lucky to have Balki as my counsellor, still think so. But having a student who has "been there done that" would have been more practical and useful.
It's quite cool this student counsellor thing. Didn't know about it back when I was in insti. Btw, neat post, it's good to know someone's there to really hard sell IITM. (The profs can't and won't do it, much to my disappointment!)
I do have a couple of things to say about what you've said regarding how people grow up at 16-17. I completely agree with you about how you should go out, get a girlfriend, a scooter, some friends, more music, lots of sports and some peace of mind. But really, you'd be surprised to know that most of the studs I know in their 40s were of the kind that did a lot of studying and bloomed late.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying, give these kids time and spend some time with them if you can. You never know how they'll surprise you.
@ Rohit: Thanks, and good to hear from you.
@ C’est la vie (that's a tough one to spell/pronounce - what does it mean!): Rahul, thanks. I read the TOI article about IITB. You might want to check it out too: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/IIT-B-students-help-freshers-with-career/articleshow/4637489.cms
@ Abby, Thanks. Do keep flying down often. :-)
@ Jimmy: Information asymmetry - I meant the absolute dearth of information available to make the choices.
Agree with you on the precedents being set - I believe that we are not (being) well equipped to challenge the precedents though.
Too much choice spoils the meal, like I have mentioned. Decision-making is a daunting task, yes. When we apply for an app or CAT or both (as in most choices), it is our own decision - probably four years of IIT gives you confidence to take that decision. It would be heartening to see younger-sters take such decisions. What say?
For eg: A class X boy deciding on his own to take biology so that he _may_ pursue engg OR medical later, rather than doing it out of sheer peer (that rhymed!) pressure, which I believe is the case currently.
@ Raghu - Too much information is harmful, yes. But right now, it is NO information out there. Think of this: there are guys who are vary of choosing Nav. Arch. because they 'have heard' that you get jobs only on the ships and henceit is very dangerous!
Apart, GS (JEE 09 Chairman!) introduced the concept of student counsellors this year for the first time, about four of us (vetti guys). It is amazing fun on my side of the table though :-)
@ Kini: Thanks. As I said, this is happening for the first time in the insti. And you bring an interesting twist to the debate, about the late bloomers. I can visualise what you are saying.
Yes indeed, we should spend some time just understanding our aptitude and passions ... exploring lots of things ... instead of blindly jumping into one thing.
Another thing is that even though there's lot more demand for professionals in one field than for another, the in-demand thing might be so unsuited that choosing to study for that is actually a "more risky" thing.
While the exploding population makes it difficult, I think a greater part of higher education should be done through apprenticeship rather than group (classroom) teaching.
@ Anony: IIT education is a combination of both (class room teching+apprenticeship)[the btp's,ddp's self study's, interns]. It's a great observation though
The system fucks us up royally and then we spend the next 4/5 years fixing ourselves. Sheesh. The point still is that we're pretty awesome guys, so we can always make a good deal of ourselves, but I'm wondering if the journey to rock bottom and then back past normalcy to sky high is really necessary.
(Btw, who designed the blog? Pretty decent. Also btw, arrow keys/home/end/page up/page down don't work while typing out comments :) )
@ Anonymous/Jimmy: I am not too sure the industry is equipped enough to supplement the classroom learning yet. But it'd be heartening to see such a model evolve. The biggest roadblock is fear of mistakes in the industry.
Classroom lets you make mistakes and then learn from them.
@ Sanjeev,
"we're pretty awesome guys" :-D ha ha.. thats ten-on-ten for humility!
The blog was designed by yours truly, after a marathon 10-hour effort. (It is a pain to tweak every single element). Apart, the keys seem to work fine for me. Browser issues enh?
@ Vikas and Jimmy
I meant there should be some kind of apprenticeship a little earlier, around the time we make our choice for graduation too, because that gives the correct taste of what a certain field would take us to. Reading some brochure about some course in some institute really doesn't do that.
@ Sanjeev
They never did work when you typed comments. You should click outside the Comments text box, and then scroll with arrow keys etc., and scroll back to the Comments box, click within it, and type more.
someone, sell ED please!
Hey!
Nice post. . . .The whole system needs a revamp. I know it's easier said than done, but it's high time we did something about it.
@ Anon : totally agree.
@ Tarun: Mad or what? :-P Anyway, I did recruit one guy for ED. :-)
@ gerimox: Thanks!
Hey,
Nice post, man! Just read your blog for the first time - interesting articles, especially this one! :)
But, I had this view about your statement about decision making - There's this big argument about how the objective JEE is terrible compared to how it used to be. But if you think about it, the new JEE - where you have to choose the most appropriate answer from among four seemingly similar ones - is much more likely to bring in people who make better decisions under pressure. I mean, after all the solving and analyzing, you'll have to choose what you think is the best option right?
And about the lack of information - It used to be much, much worse back in the 1970s and 80s. Now you have the internet at your disposal, but back then? You'd solely have to rely on your social network and the advice of a prof (who will almost certainly have a bias towards his branch). And the stereotype about a branch, will almost always be stronger than newly acquired knowledge...For things to change, a LOT more will have to change.. :)
And check out this link -
http://www.india-server.com/news/iit-jee-fails-to-get-the-best-talent-2611.html
Again, Awesome blog, Lays! :)
@ Wineye, thanks for the appreciation! :-)
I would beg to differ with you on decision-making: I don't think JEE is meant to test your decision-making abilities at all. It is more a test of your analytical skills and your fondness for science/technology. Importantly, JEE, speaking broadly, does not want you to decide your answer looking at the options, rather it encourages solving the problem and then picking the answer. Also, JEE problems have one and only one answer - with decreased ambiguity in options compared to say, CAT - hence someone who has his basics in place can suck at decision-making and still get it.
But, you do make a nice observation.
PS: I fail to figure out your identity. :-/
You're bang on about the purpose of JEE. Engineers don't get a bunch of options to choose from when..well, engineering. :P I was merely stating that this JEE would, logically, be better at evaluating decision making skills of a potential candidate. Again, I was just commenting about the new JEE and not talking about what JEE is meant to do. :) But you're right about the difficulty level of this being far inferior compared to CAT.
And I'm Slicer, 374B (formerly :) ), Alak.
I got r@gged by you. :P lol.
Ha ha. Slicer, welcome to my blog! You can now r@g the incoming slicers for three/four years. :-P
Definitely that's the concern on everyone's mind. But when the argument/fact about the late bloomers comes into the picture, you are forced to think a little ahead.
No, I'm not approving slogging. The thing is, everyone is unique. What's good for one person will definitely not be good for someone else, least of all _everyone else_. The way you pictured slogging is what all of us fear. But then, the alternative, the more "lively picture" is threatening as well. Forget the metros for a second, think about places "where they all know your name" (figuratively). Life after tenth is a vacation. Its no longer year after year of school. You've got 24 months left. In this scenario, what if a person does everything that's _supposed_ to make him grow? He's got so many nice experiences, his academic downfall is not that big a concern. Yeah, they might thwart you about it at home, but when they have always thwarted us for things like "Do you know the value of money?", why would we stop and think about what they say?
And before twelth, there was hardly any time when what you did materred in the long run. I'm talking of screw ups that might cost you.
In such scenarios, what we need is that the person is given something that is different than what was there before in his/her life - a commitment. Commitment to JEE? Slogging? JEE 1997 Question on Moment Of Inertia?
Well, if you talk of the right parents, the right students and the right _attitude_ all of this WILL count. I'm not gonna explain _attitude_, but if a person wants to feel alive, wants to do all those things that one does in highschool, he can do them in college anytime and he can have the last laugh, when others start wondering about the mysteries of life and acknowledging how tough life is when in reality all they are doing is introspecting for the first time in their life. Someone who hasnt been living enough life before tenth can not do this anyways.
So, where does the problem lie? The problem lies when it gets too much. When the attitude on the side of the parents starts getting something like what we had in the "ISC Topper" comments section. When everything, from roaming around on bikes, hanging out, playing cricket or not coming home when you're supposed to is treated as being irresponsible. For some parents it is a tabboo, for some it is a fear.
And then, what can we do about it? I'm totally bamboozled as to why the media hypes up IITians as geeks. Two days before I joined the campus, I read a full page feature in ToI on Porko (from Godav?) and the convocation ceremony. Ofcourse, he graduated from the Insti that year. The article on him started with a paragraph explaining the stereotype IITian and the next line going all "well we went around the world with two dazzling neutron stars to aid our search and we found one guy who's not like that. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting, (*drumroll*) E. Porko (Full NBA/WWE intro ishtyle.)
My question is, if every article about an IITian who's done enough to make it to the news starts with the description of a champu wearing a spectacle, then isn't it the stereotype that's wrong? If the media, especially the shitty career booklets/supplementaries we get in our newspapers start speaking of people like Prateek Mittal who were National Badminton Champions and AIR 6 in JEE 2006, people like Arun Cheganthy/Slinky who gave lectures on FOSS in their second year (Although, in Shaastra), our very own Surdy and all of the heroes on the campus, won't we be appealing to THOSE focussed people who can enjoy and study both at the same time? Won't we be creating a mental inhibition for all those _faggots_ that think clearing JEE is an end in itself and have no intention of talking to people on the campus just cuz their mindset is slog, answer exams, crib on results? More emphasis on talking to people, because that's our prime way of growth.
The question that I ask is, although calling you people for councelling was nice, was there any special program/session which allowed you guys to explain that the IIT tag is a myth? That going to some other engineering college cuz of a low rank in JEE and then coming back to IIT for an M. Tech is what we'd laugh on? If you were students, your advice on courses makes sense, but did we begin charity at home? By allowing people to meet all the high fliers on campus and present them as "Untouchables", so that when they go back, we have planted a seed of thought in the heads of atleast 2000*3 = 6000 people of you're supposed to do in the campus so as to do justice to the tax-payer's money?
Geez! All that was really long... :P
Dharav,
Jesus Christ! I will invite you for a special post on my blog soon, very soon.
Let us discuss this during our GBM next sem. I cannot possibly attempt to answer your question (I remember seeing one!) here.
And I realise, you have a penchant for looooong comments. How much did you score in S.St? :P
:-)
S.St. I scored just 89.
Yeah, but in English Literature, I distinctly remember being unable to finish my 15 marks Essay on "The world of tomorrow". I was stuck on petroleum when the time was up, still had mainstream television on internet and its cultural effects to go :P
BTW, my questions were rhetoric.
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