But I've some real cool things at hand, one is the Civil Enggn course at NIT Surathkal ... a peek into wikimapia delighted me ... the entry to the college is just 600 metres from the Arabian Sea ... I was thrilled!!! And the other side is full of lofty mountains!!! YIPEEE!!!!
And two, I've got Mathematics Integrated MSc at BITS Pilani which is even cooler (I had said in a previous post that pure Science to me was way better than Engineering, and Maths is sort of cooler than Civil ... ain't it?) ... plus BITS is one College I fell in love with, owing to their sheer competence at organising stuff.
So now that my relationship with IIT has screeched to a premature halt ... there's absolutely no harm in grilling the guys right? So, let me speak out my mind, and reveal to you all some lesser known evils of this once genuinely great institute.I know a lot about it because my dad's closely attached to IIT Kharagpur as an alumni , and two, as an adjunct professor at the IIT KGP Management School.However, these are no distorted facts which you might be thinking (owing to some personal vendetta)
Firstly owing to the bright brainwork of Honble. Arjun Singh, we have 11 IITs now ... great job Mr Singh ... kudos to you ... in one year you've started more IITs than what Nehru did in his entire lifetime.
*CLAP CLAP*
A closer look however reveals a gross misunderstanding.
The 6 "new" IITs that have come up (don't ask me where, they are in pretty obscure places), are actually premier Government Institutions that are yet to see a class room or campus. But that won't stop 'em from taking in students NO SIR!!! They'd rather borrow from their good ol' siblings and plug their hostels with their recruits ... LOL. As a result IIT Kharagpur now nurses all the students of IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIT Mandi and IIT Rajasthan encroaches over IIT Delhi, ... the situation is the same in all th new ones ...I don't really remember the exact facts ... So because of this, even the OLD IITs have to face the brunt of their new found bros and ... once known as the ONLY institutes in the country to offer ONE room to each student, are struggling to put up makeshift hostels with asbestos to accomodate them or stuffing in two guys into a single's room!!!
I got feedback from a senior friend of mine who is in IIT Kharagpur, that its no more possible for him and his room mate to stay awake at the same time ... so one does HIS work, while his room mate sleeps and vice-versa.
Two, I got a not-so-good-rank in IITJEE but that cleanly allowed me an MSc in Physics (by last year's closing ranks), and this year with a thousand additional seats, I was prety assured that I would get through, even my dad's prof friends considered me IN, but I didn't. But that is not my problem, it was well possible that I would miss it ... so no tears for that ... what astonished me was an ancient procedure which our "Premier" institutes adopted for counselling. Didn't give it much of thought at first, but after seeing the methods adopted by good old Pilani and AIEEE I realised its backwardness.
I went to IIT KGP on the 15th of June for my counselling, and saw to my greatest amazement, that a name was called one by one, and the candidate had to go up to the "counsellers". There his documents were verified, and he was given a lot of forms to fill up then and there ... all of his preferences had to be finalised then and there (though he had a lot of days with the brochure in hand to think it over in his mind) ... this could actually get pretty nail-biting in font of everybody... then he had to go up to a counsellor and have it signed. Then he would be taken up again, where he had to wait for his finalised preference sheet to come out, and THEN he would leave, AFTER depositing the money WITHOUT any guarantee of a seat. No complaints till now ...
What AIEEE did was something much better in terms of management and organisation. There you had to create an account in their site, where your score/details etc would automatically get recorded, and then you had nearly three weeks to choose your preferences, edit their order, do what you want with them and then finally LOCK them before a deadline. That's it. So you do that without moving an inch from your machine or your home. The next day they tell you CLEARLY what you've got. Then they invite you for the verification of documents at your closest Admission centre. There the process is even smoother. They take you in groups of ten, and first enter your application number into their server to check whether you are bluffing or not. Then they take you to a room where they check your documents, lastly they take you to a room where they accept the fees and update your account info on their machine ... the fact that you've been admitted ... lastly they give you a very user friendly option of whether you would rather slide up into vacancies within your institute or across the country based on your prefernces.
Then it's done! Unlike the IIT method where you to spend painstaking days awaiting a confirmation of acceptance or rejection which is quite ... sort of ... unfriendly ... Then they refund your money.
BITS is hellishly cool, right from their application form to their examination ... no posting letters, no recieving admit cards, no tension in exam hall ... with an AC and a computer up front ... no funny "COUNSELLING" as such ... just clean service ... with good results.
I was shocked, to say the least, upon seeing the IIT method of counselling.
Third, IITs themselves seem to be losing faith in themselves with their newly introduced second listing of seats! Earlier the IITs held their pride of place that those would get IN would DARE NOT leave, and so produced only a single round of seat allocation. Now, with increasing numbers unwilling, they seem forced to do so!
Fouthly, this is important. My dad had applied for a full-time faculty position in their management school, and e was called last week ... he knows nearly everybody there, from the director to the Dean to ... God knows who ... and is much revered too by them. He was completely taken aback when he was offered a room in the BOYS' HOSTEL to stay a night. When I had gone for my counselling we had got a room at the Technology Guest House which is not bad to say the least ... but this made him go through the roof ... he gave the guys a piece of his mind and finally got a room in a guest house, and after that was shocked again to see TWO MORE people sharing his room. He gave them another piece of his mind and the end got an AC room to himself, and lastly ... makes me chuckle ... IIT asked him to pay 100 bucks for the AC ... woould you believe it? After that when a fuming father returned he was like more than happy that I had not got a seat ...
So that's the sorry state of affairs today. I am actaully more keen on BITS bcause I've heard that it's Brand value is above NIT Surathkal ... so am pretty happy with the state of MY affairs ...
PS: Yet another point. Our great educational system,thanks to its great quotas and reservation policies have ensured that 1012 seats in IITs in the SC/ST category go vacant with so many other aspirers unfortunate enough not to be avail of the reservation left disapointed. For them and for me, I proudly say
BOOO IITs ... you DON'T DESERVE US!!!
PPS: I was actually really disheartened when I didn't get Physcics MSc, but was really happy after things worked out as they did.
PPS: I was actually really disheartened when I didn't get Physcics MSc, but was really happy after things worked out as they did.
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