Feedback Season

From 2nd Year Students

Collected feedback from my UG theory students, compiled and uploaded it in my semi-official website. What I found, except for last 2-3 classes, students were happy. Sudden announcement of an unscheduled holiday and students' disinterest to attend two compensatory classes cramped me for room. I'll take care of such possibility in future. In the last class I got a chance to talk to them and asked to quantify in a scale of 10 considering all aspects like I am conservative in giving grades etc. They gave 8.5 out of 10. One from the teachers they have interacted so far in the dept. gets highest rating 9.5/10. Most of the rest gets 8.5/10. Among all the faculty members at Institute level they find three-four in the highest category i.e. 9.5/10.

Two things come from this. One - I got to work hard to be in the highest league and Second - the teaching quality at IIT Kharagpur is great! Faculty members ka tempo high hai!!!

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From 3rd Year Students

Here after the lab viva were all over we could talk to last (in sequence) two students in the batch Ro... and Ay... More than the lab they gave a 360 degree review of life at IITkgp vis-a-vis academics. According to them IIT-JEE preparation sucks all the energy out of them before they step into the campus. Ro.... mentioned how a students starts preparation as early as clas VI or IX. For example, a student in Hyderabad Ramay.... attends 5:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m IIT-JEE coacing class then attends school and again in the eveing from 5:30 p.m. visits coaching centre. No time to relax, play - parents and seniors always pushing. Once they are in IITkgp, they are on their own in hostels with full freedom, net facility etc. The classroom are having 200+ students so attending class is not necessary as there is no personal interaction. And studying only for last 7-10 days before exam they can get a reasonable grade. So they decide to relax for a semester and then become serious which never happens. In the second year, in senior hall, the seniors preach them many different things except devotion towards study. They are told that the CGPA once in 6-7 or 7-8 bracket, it cannot be further improved and they should concentrate on other things. That's how most of them leaves the campus being simply average.

Prof. R... however said that if there is class, it would be reflected in whatever one does. Probably, IIT-JEE is not able to pick up the class. Or the students are hell bent in trying to spoil themselves. I narrated one of my experience in gardening. A plant was transplanted to another better place but simply died inspite of watering etc. (though I don't claim to be a trained or skilled gardener) I felt bad and was thinking perhaps it would been better left in the previous place which was not as good. But with a guilt feeling I kept watering that dry plant. To my surprise, one day I found new sprouts are heading for room from that space, from that seed. And now there is a healthy, beautiful plant in place.

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From a 2nd year student (virtual)

Yesterday I stumbled upon a blog of a second year student BE lab student V... K... who admits that he has become a blog addict. His first blog was a 'failure'. He writes, "So,in the last days of 2007,I thought of giving one more chance-to move to my new blog,which you are reading now.Over 1 month has passed since then.I have bunked the classes,cut out from all the activities,spent a lot of time on the internet." He continues, "all this time i was involved in this blogging stuff,stumbling upon to get new ideas when I got stuck,ate up the rest of my brain to fuel my blog.And what I got was just a single comment in 1 month.God,am I such a big looser?"

I decided to post a comment to one of his post which he believes none of his Prof.s are reading. As such, abusing Prof.s in the posts is his favourite time pass. Removing all the qualifiers - adjectives, adverbs and interjections, I could find in one post that he is hurt because I refused to sign his registration card in my office when I was discussing something with my research students and not during the appointed lab hour. Of course, he takes pride in bunking classes, faking sickness (he has uploaded a BCRoy prescription in his blog space where he feigned illness and the physician advised him rest), arranging proxies, lying that he was present in previous class, forging signatures of faculty members, cheating in exams. repetitively - even after disciplinary committee hearing and what not. The student considers that he is doing a great job by all these. He even uploaded image of his registration card and encircled four signatures that he claims he has forged.

But if it was exactly what he says in his post as my refusal to sign his registration card was to harass him I think there is a communication gap. My intention definitely was not that. And I thought I should write a comment to his post, in spite of all the filths around, to clear the air. And this is what I wrote -

--QUOTE--

"I am having no fear here,my Professor is not reading this". If not one Prof., may be the other.

I like your blog though you hardly have anything good to say about your Prof.s. You try to portray them in all negatives. Each one of us has both positives and negatives. If what gets reflected from you are only negatives, may be something is wrong with the reflector. I am not sure though how consistent you are in thinking "i am an idiot" as you mentioned in this post.

I like your blog, probably because you are different, admirably so and sincere, sincere to whatever idea, good or bad, you are married to. Only you yourself or time can tell if your lifestyle or thinking is healthy or not. While trying to fool all others (Prof.s, fellow students - how you evaded responsibility in Kshitiz, parents..), if you are fooling yourself or not.

I am sure this comment will invite a new post on your blog calling for my blood, stuffed with your choicest words 'f...' 'a....' etc. I already have one round of abuse in one of your post for not signing your registration card when you came to my office. If what you wrote in that post is the sole reason for not signing then I definitely deserve your ire. And I think it is never too late to say 'sorry' for what I did. But I don't remember the incident and I wonder how could I be so unreasonable! Going through your other posts I wonder if again it is an issue with the reflector surface or not.

That's all for now. I sincerely wish and pray that you understand the value of your life and live to its fullest. Best of luck!

--UNQUOTE--

But from his Jan. 17, 2008 post I find he does not have faith in Prof.s or God but only in friends. I hope his friends read his posts or more particularly the one titled 'Feeling Blue' which is reproduced below for little greater visibility. I request his friends to come forward and address his issues. My best wishes.

"Snoozing late at night,waking up at afternoon,skipping classes,watching bundle of movies,mailing for long hours-are some of the things dominating me for the last few days.I just want to attend classes but my daily pathetic routine doesn’t allow me to do so.I always plan to do things in order to know in which order I’m not going to do so.Digging all the time in laptop will only add one more spectacle to the already loaded nose and ears.I neither like half of the lines of my hand nor can I give my belief in palmistry.Assignments and labs suck badly,classes look haunted.Nescafe has also increased rate,so less time there.Last year I used to love cycling a lot but this year,cycling sucks too.Even playing table tennis doesn’t fascinate me.I have changed a lot-I don’t miss my family and school-friends like others.I don’t have much happy memories of my life-Class IX to Class XII,these four years were the most terrible part of my life-a live nightmare.Even 6 months back,I had few setbacks in my life-God has not always been honest with me.
Students in my class study hard-fighting badly for smart CGPA,I don’t know why?Only reason that I could figure out is to get an excellent placement.This IIT system sucks,don’t give you enough time to be creative.I have begun hating Professors-they have never been good to me. The only best part of my life at IIT is the friends that I have made here."

---- A rejoinder on April 23rd evening ----

The student was polite, by his standard, to react to my message but he was not ready to withdraw those demeaning materials stating that he has freedom to select content on his personal space. Endsem is on, hence I again reminded him gently if he should respect others' freedom and not use those filthy language in public space. Nothing emerged. Then I thought that that it best left to the people of his department (who interact more often with him) and more qualified persons in the administration to counsel him. And now I find those materials are deleted. I requested everybody and request it once more to have a mechanism at student level to address such issues. I hope the boy gets proper support. I wish and pray he gets the strength and courage to overcome this phase and develop healthy habits.