Comments on: Class notes, Assignments and Stupidity

By: Nasrajan

Nasrajan — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:50:08 +0000

If the lecturer really knows what he is doing, assignments will be a lot more useful for an engineer’s future. We had our professor, made us write an assignment in the format of a technical paper in our semester 3. That gave us the exposure that, there are serious papers are out there, unlike the “xerox” assignment

In Kerala, the challenge we face is, almost all the lecturers join for the job, just after their studies (I too had done the same and I know how immature I was). They don’t get any orientation (every teacher in schools go through training, but college lecturers don’t).

It is something every college needs to work on.

By: Athul Raj

Athul Raj — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:31:28 +0000

LOL… Just one correction, “This is how classes are conducted in a very very famous and reputed private engineering college in Kerala.” Please read this as “This is how classes are conducted in almost all engineering college in Kerala.” The reason:: The staff. I am not trying to put the blame on any1. Consider the facts.. 90% or more of all the teaching staff in these engineering colleges are aged between 23-27. These guys are just out of college, attend some interview, fail to clear them, finally end up at some colleges, as there is no other option left for them. Yeh!! You have a degree and if you can fool some old guys into believing you…. congrats you have landed on a job, with CTC at around 168000. Given the current scenario, i dont think our future *engineers will be saved from this trauma…. It will always remain the same.

By: The Nomad

The Nomad — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:38:12 +0000

Precisely. So that should give the students an opportunity to think on their own. They don’t teach you enough that you pass exams let alone teach you to think! Its just that such a situation works out in the favor of free thinking.

By: Kenney Jacob

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:28:51 +0000

Its not that government colleges allow independent thinking… its just that they dont care… what you think…

By: The Nomad

The Nomad — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:11:43 +0000

Don’t mistake me when I say private colleges hardly encourage independent thinking. I would urge you to compare the students of pvt and govt colleges and most often than not, one would notice stark differences, often idealogical in nature. The strict oversight imposed in pvt colleges may trick the public into believing that govt colleges lack any proper guidance systems in place for students. But the truth is that such a lack of oversight also provides for a much more open and free thinking and often it is the alumni of such institutions that go on to do some very innovative things. Although pvt colleges see to it that their students perform splendidly well n exams, they do not ensure any development or foster free thinking. Independence found in govt colleges where nobody cares is precisely the breeding ground for such multi dimensional thinking. That could be one of the reasons why so many entrepreneurs rise from such colleges (just my observation here).

By: Tony Jose

Tony Jose — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:51:40 +0000

Yeah, The assignments are not at all productive. We follow a system which is completely un scientifical. The assignments are assessed based on the readability and not the content. And about the content, it is purely Xerox of someone elses work.

I urge students not to write the notes given by teachers. Better save time reading some other books in the class. In my class, our teacher often fight with me for not taking the notes. And i used to be engaged with some other works. I think that is more productive to save time.

By: Aravind

Aravind — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:47:09 +0000

“how many productive hours does an engineering student waste in his 4 years of professional education writing stupid, nonsense assignments” productive hours ?? except for the hours just before the d day no hour is productive for majority of us (from the engineering education perspective)
Regarding the assignment ya i too feel that it in current form is not productive it is only xerox(Hand written) of the text books.