Grow Up! You Ain't In School No More!!!
Its been a long time, almost four months since my last post! A mistake on my part, certainly. But I'm just human, why should I take the blame. Its the complete fault of Karnataka Power Corporation Limited, with some inputs from Microsoft, some inputs from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mozilla Firefox, and some more inputs from my inverter manufacturer :P
I would say so, but then I remember what this is all about. Growing up! Well, not a sense of what in you'd generally expect when someone talks about growing up. No, I'm not talking about the wonderful memories of childhood, the sheer delight and light-headedness of that era gone by, the coming of age of a junior homo-sapien and so on...
That, we all unanimously agree was unforgettable. The past. The glorious past. But here I am, referring to an entirely different form of growing up. The growning up of school going tube-lights to college going citizens, of unmannered, uncivilised youngsters to educated, informed youth.
The first thought that comes to my mind when I think about a University, an engineering college, is... hmmm... Friends? probably. Girls? you bet ;) Messing around with the teachers?more likely than not. But what is it that I really think about when it comes to a University? Innovation. And what is it that is important for innovation? Character.
And here is where I was in for a rude shock. I've been to a dozen colleges a Bangalore. And a couple of nationally reputed colleges. They have the students. They have the brains. They have the resources. Everything that one will ever need to make it large. But where is the innovation? India has almost half a million engineers passing out of engineering colleges each year. Go open a newspaper. Any newspaper. And scan through all the copies of the past one year. How many of innovative ideas did you see coming out of Indian colleges? Ten? Twenty? Alright, at most fifty or lets take it as a hundred. So two million engineering students (Half a million x four semesters = two million students studying engineering at any given point in time) are giving us just about hundred innovative ideas an year.
Why? Just another why you may say. But an answer is not what I ask for. I want response. Maybe this medium isn't really going to make headways on national television. But does that really matter? No. I'm just putting forward, what I think, one semester into my engineering, is the main reason for this lack of innovation.
It is, quite frankly, the ideology of the students, the character of the students.
"Oh! You wanna go to a *TECHNOFEST*! You freaking geek! College is not where you waste time on weird technical festivals! Go out there and enjoy life, go booze man! Who wants to waste time making stupid projects?"
"Whaaat?! *TECHNOFEST*?? We've got exams next month man! I've still got three units remaining! Who wants to waste time making stupid projects?"
And this is not exactly what the problem is. People think studies and fun don't mix.
Guys who slog all night and top (sometimes flunk!) the exams on sheer theoretical knowledge find technical innovation a waste of time, a form of "fun" and "time waste".
And guys who booze all night and may score lower than the sloggers (and sometimes top!), again find technical innovation a waste of time, but this time, as a form of "geekiness" and too much "hardwork".
Its just two sides of the same coin, where neither heads nor tails works to our profit as a nation. Only the select few, neither heads nor tails, where the coin stands upright on its edge, are the ones who contemplate innovation.
So what stand am I taking? All I am putting forward is that we have to stop competing for life and death within ourselves. There is an entire world out there. And we are the representatives of our nation! The second most populous nation in the world has no indigenously built fighter aircraft, express train (India - 150kmph say, World - 500kmph +), super car, ultra tall skyscraper, in short, any indigenous engineering marvel. How is that possible?
Well, we do have weirdo governments hit by multi-crore scams, widespread corruption, spending crores on statues and fulfilling personal whims. Hmmm, so very advantageous to the advancement of the country!
But just blaming the government will not take the blame off us and give us a clean chit.
We need a demanding education system, with non-volatile funds, whose utility is at the sole discretion of universities.
And universities which promote innovation rather than GPAs and marks.
And companies that hire people based on not just their marks, but overall capabilities.
And organisations that have scope for widespread research and development.
Where creating an engineering marvel is not a once-in-a-blue-moon affair, but a daily way of life.
That is what I envisage for India.
Maybe you're wondering if I'm prodding dangerously close to the Aamir Khan-3 Idiots message or the Chetan Bhagat book and columns. And with due respect to these gentlemen, all I can ask of you is -Grow up! You ain't in school no more!
The nation awaits you!
Bring about the revolution!
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I would say so, but then I remember what this is all about. Growing up! Well, not a sense of what in you'd generally expect when someone talks about growing up. No, I'm not talking about the wonderful memories of childhood, the sheer delight and light-headedness of that era gone by, the coming of age of a junior homo-sapien and so on...
That, we all unanimously agree was unforgettable. The past. The glorious past. But here I am, referring to an entirely different form of growing up. The growning up of school going tube-lights to college going citizens, of unmannered, uncivilised youngsters to educated, informed youth.
The first thought that comes to my mind when I think about a University, an engineering college, is... hmmm... Friends? probably. Girls? you bet ;) Messing around with the teachers?more likely than not. But what is it that I really think about when it comes to a University? Innovation. And what is it that is important for innovation? Character.
And here is where I was in for a rude shock. I've been to a dozen colleges a Bangalore. And a couple of nationally reputed colleges. They have the students. They have the brains. They have the resources. Everything that one will ever need to make it large. But where is the innovation? India has almost half a million engineers passing out of engineering colleges each year. Go open a newspaper. Any newspaper. And scan through all the copies of the past one year. How many of innovative ideas did you see coming out of Indian colleges? Ten? Twenty? Alright, at most fifty or lets take it as a hundred. So two million engineering students (Half a million x four semesters = two million students studying engineering at any given point in time) are giving us just about hundred innovative ideas an year.
Why? Just another why you may say. But an answer is not what I ask for. I want response. Maybe this medium isn't really going to make headways on national television. But does that really matter? No. I'm just putting forward, what I think, one semester into my engineering, is the main reason for this lack of innovation.
It is, quite frankly, the ideology of the students, the character of the students.
"Oh! You wanna go to a *TECHNOFEST*! You freaking geek! College is not where you waste time on weird technical festivals! Go out there and enjoy life, go booze man! Who wants to waste time making stupid projects?"
"Whaaat?! *TECHNOFEST*?? We've got exams next month man! I've still got three units remaining! Who wants to waste time making stupid projects?"
And this is not exactly what the problem is. People think studies and fun don't mix.
Guys who slog all night and top (sometimes flunk!) the exams on sheer theoretical knowledge find technical innovation a waste of time, a form of "fun" and "time waste".
And guys who booze all night and may score lower than the sloggers (and sometimes top!), again find technical innovation a waste of time, but this time, as a form of "geekiness" and too much "hardwork".
Its just two sides of the same coin, where neither heads nor tails works to our profit as a nation. Only the select few, neither heads nor tails, where the coin stands upright on its edge, are the ones who contemplate innovation.
So what stand am I taking? All I am putting forward is that we have to stop competing for life and death within ourselves. There is an entire world out there. And we are the representatives of our nation! The second most populous nation in the world has no indigenously built fighter aircraft, express train (India - 150kmph say, World - 500kmph +), super car, ultra tall skyscraper, in short, any indigenous engineering marvel. How is that possible?
Well, we do have weirdo governments hit by multi-crore scams, widespread corruption, spending crores on statues and fulfilling personal whims. Hmmm, so very advantageous to the advancement of the country!
But just blaming the government will not take the blame off us and give us a clean chit.
We need a demanding education system, with non-volatile funds, whose utility is at the sole discretion of universities.
And universities which promote innovation rather than GPAs and marks.
And companies that hire people based on not just their marks, but overall capabilities.
And organisations that have scope for widespread research and development.
Where creating an engineering marvel is not a once-in-a-blue-moon affair, but a daily way of life.
That is what I envisage for India.
Maybe you're wondering if I'm prodding dangerously close to the Aamir Khan-3 Idiots message or the Chetan Bhagat book and columns. And with due respect to these gentlemen, all I can ask of you is -Grow up! You ain't in school no more!
The nation awaits you!
Bring about the revolution!
