Killing the engineers in us

IIT has induced many qualities in me, and one of the rather bad qualities is Slackness. When one clears JEE, the mind automatically switches off for many. And after almost completing 50% of my life here at IITM, I know this is true for me too. One notion gets set in our mindset, "Ab to life set ho gayi meri". This belief has been infused in us by many people- our coaching institute faculty, our parents, relatives, peers and everyone who has an idea what an IIT is.

The root of the problem is here. We don't take the courses in IIT seriously. "Yaar, ho hi jayega" has become our mentality. The enthusiasm to actually do well has vanished. When one compares the amount of hard work we put during our 12th days, it is alarming to see the results drop so low in internal exams. And this is what I am feeling bad about. My end sems start from 26th April and many would rebuke me saying why the hell am I wasting one hour on this post. But, I would just tell that sometimes you need to write something to prove its importance in retrospection. I may again go back to my lax attitude towards academics and this being most probable going by the success record of my innumerable vows to study.

People who just miss by a hair in JEE and end up in other Engineering colleges don't have this slackness. They know that they haven't reached the zenith and hence though they have access to facilities one-tenth of those available in IITs, they strive to do well in their life. Hence, after 4 years of Engineering, people from other engineering colleges do much better than IITians in GATE. IITians lose their edge in 4 years of their engineering. They learn other things, they learn how to mint money, how to manage things, how to get through CAT, but most of them don't learn engineering. When asked about it, we proudly say, "I was never interested in engineering, it was just the best option to take." Even I say that guys, and to be very true, I sometimes feel ashamed and guilty too.

I don't know whether I would myself try to keep my focus on engineering and not venture into other prospects. But, I would like people to actually do justice to what they have taken. Its your responsibility and not your choice to do well here. IITs are even thinking of dividing B.Tech degree into two : B.Tech and B.Tech (Honours). The latter will be more project oriented and will be for the people who want to take up engineering. One can take this up after 4 years of normal underrated B.Tech degree. The former will be for the people who just want the IIT brand and want to opt for other careers. The brand of IIT is not as golden as it was some 10 years before. Companies now have a bad image of IITians. They complain that we have too much attitude. And seeing the attitude of my fellow mates, I won't deny this allegation. The IIT alumni still has deep reverence for these golden institutions and hence backs it up whenever necessary. But, we are too self-centered to realise this. We just want to have loads of fun in our 4 years, get the degree which we haven't worked for and want to get out of here with a decent enough job. I am not lecturing here about not to have fun, I am just telling that we should optimise everything. These are the best 4 years of our life and I want that we make sure that after 4 years, people don't rebuke us saying that we were just plain lucky to clear JEE and that we didn't deserve to be in IIT.

Everything is not well here in IIT and the earlier one gets this point, the better will be the future of IIT.