Education


25
Jun 10

IIT Craze

When I was young and still in class 8. I would warned by everyone - “If you don’t study well, then you won’t get good marks in Class 10. So you won’t be able to study in good +2 schools and won’t be able to get in a good college (read IIT) and then won’t be able to do an MBA in an elite institute”. In short I was warned that one failure is  cascading and can spoil your life.

Fine, you can say I sensationalized the whole scenario, but I bet every other kid out in the town must have heard some part or the other of the above statement. The catch is that if you don’t study in an elite institute your career is dark. No one ever cared to realize that success depends mostly on the person itself and the institution just provides a common meeting point for like-minded people.

Now after finishing my education, I do look back. I do look back some 10 years when I entered class 8. My initial reaction is “What rubbish were we taught about career those days?”. I never studies in any super elite institutional. I never got any salute from my fellow countrymen for studying in an elite school/college. I don’t the salute for my status, but for my capabilities (if any).

IIT Coaching

Love it or hate it, IIT Coaching is an industry. An industry whose Input is vastly high than it’s output. Keep walking down a lane anywhere in N. India and you would be overwhelmed by the *spam* of IIT Coaching Classes Hoardings. Every pole, wall, tree  or entity under the sun is covered by these “foo coaching classes students set a record. 8/10 top students studies at our center”. No wonder, the first rank is claimed by coaching institutes all over the country even though the student never took any coaching in the first place.

IIT Coaching Centers are nothing less of organized loot. Those who burnt their money in this gamble would surely understand that no coaching center can guarantee you a seat in IIT (unless some scams). It is the student who clears the exam and not the coaching institute. You go there to learn some new concepts, solve doubts. The real study has to be done by *you*.

Mania

IIT has become such a sensitive topic that if a child fails to qualify, it is the parents who feel millions of times more offended than the student. The student is scared, not sad. He fears what will he say to his parents who set their expectations so high that is looks unrealistic for him throughout his preparation. I have seen people dropping years and years in a hope that one fine day they will crack the elite exam. Some are even ready to take any course for the sake of IIT tag even though they have no clue of what course they are taking.

When I took the admission of the college of my choice, the branch of my choice and looked back 2 years, the whole setup looked like a mess. Parents and students have unrealistic high expectations. Unrealistic for the capabilities a student has. Who is the winner in this whole game? The parents? The student? NO - it is the coaching institutes who have their ever expanding bank balance.

Class 12

Now look at class 12 exams. It is the third-grade citizen. Since it does not carry any weight in most exams, it is neglected. In short it increases the load of the students even more since they need to pass with 60% marks to be eligible for IITs. Apart from that it is hardly of any use. The whole setup is so stressful.

Sacrifice

I have even seen parents asking their students to disconnect their TV sets, give up playing XBOX etc since the sacrifice is a good thing.

One logic I hear getting proposed is that “You need to sacrifice something to achieve your goal”. If you can achieve your goal without sacrifice, but you still do sacrifice, are you still a hero? Not for me, I’ll call you  a fool. Humans should always try to be more comfortable as possible and turn to sacrifice when there is no options left. I never respect sacrifice. If you do it intentionally, then you are a fool, if you do because you had no option, then you have to do it, nothing break-through.

Recommendation by Damodar Acharya

When I read this recommendation by Damodar Acharya IIT  KGP Director, my eyes lit up.

Firstly it might reduce the importance of IIT Coaching centers. That open loot can be controlled. Now head down to read the knee-jerk reactions. All you will hear is that “This undermines the prestige of our institutions”. Now one cares to explain how? Some say “IIT will be destroyed”. Again now proof. Some say that “Increasing the value of class 12 exams will destroy the prestige of the institutes”. Again how? how? how?

Looks like there is more importance on keeping the brand value and status of the institution intact rather than improving the pathetic situation of millions of students appearing for IIT. It’s like a Monarch where people are dying of hunger, but the king is more worried about maintaining of the Palace because the quality of the Palace is a  status symbol.  Again you can bring in the logic of sacrifice for candidate students, but as I explained above, sacrifice is nothing short of stupidity. It’s like “What’s the problem is being harassed? Weren’t you harassed for last 10 years?”

If you really want to oppose this recommendation, sit back and think deeply and come up with real opposition points rather than “IT WILL SPOIL THE IITS. THIS IS BAD. NO THEY ARE ALL STUPID”. Sigh.


28
May 10

Applications for your sanity on windows

Even though I work on the OS of my choice, this choice is not always available at my workplace. I am required to use Windows  to develop applications for my employer. I do miss a lot of *nix stuff and the command line awesomeness.  I have striven hard to find replacements for them. Here I present a list of  applications which a non-geeky person should look at after installing Windows. Some of the geeky part is left out.

Firefox

Do I need to explain this? I think unless you are using Internet for Orkut and Gmail, you must have surely heard about it. Do get some awesome addons like Adblock Plus, Sxipper, XMarks, DownThemAll, Firebug etc

Google Chrome

If you want even more speed, then get Google’s browser. Googlers are crazy when it comes to speed. I recommend keeping a second browser as IE doesn’t qualify as  a browser.

Console

You ever tried opening cmd.exe only to say “How stupid ugly it looks”. Even tried looking at terminal emulators of Linux? You’ll start abusing MS. Get Console.

Launchy

Don’t move your hand away from the keyboard. You can launch any application using this Launcher

Notepad++

The TextMate for windows. We hardly need it for Linux. We have Vim/Emacs

Paint.NET / Pinta

Even wanted to do any image manipulation and you were forced to open Photoshop/GIMP?  These two come to rescue.

Pidgin

The multi-account instant messenger. Works like a charm on majority of the OSs available

pidgin-facebook

Add facebook buddies on Pidgin. No need to chat from inside the browser window

Thunderbird

The mail client which I really admire (after Outlook 2007). It’s cross-platform

Inkscape

Vector drawing tool. Cross-platform. Works great. It’s not an Illustrator replacement.

7Zip

Stop there. Don’t install Winzip or Winrar and then get annoying messages to register to continue using it. 7zip gives you peace of mind.

PdfCreator

Even want to convert any document to PDF? Use Pdfcreator which adds a virtual printer to your system.

Foxit Reader

Please! For God’s sake, don’t install Adobe Reader and save the mankind. You’ll never use 95% of the features provided in that bloatware.

Process Explorer

The Process Tab of Task Manager isn’t so great. Try this application and have more control over what applications are running.

uTorrent

The first and last torrent client you will ever need for windows

You know, 12/15 applications I suggested are open-source ones. (Including Paint.NET)


6
Oct 09

Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge 2009

The electricity demands of this globe is rising steeply. If adequate care isn’t taken, the power availability would worsen in coming years. So you have some ground-breaking innovative ideas for saving electricity? Here is a chance for you - Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge 2009.

Schneider Electric, one of the world’s power giant announces Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge with the theme Energy Efficiency. Come up with thought-provoking ideas and submit your proposal at the earliest.

Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge 2009 Website

Topics

The topics for this years’s challenge are:

  1. Power Monitoring System for Houses
  2. Constructive re-use of waste energy
  3. Intelligent Sensors
  4. Efficient electrical distribution
  5. Power consumption by computers connected on a network

If you want the exhaustive explanation of the above topics, please check here

Evaluation Criteria

The papers will then be evaluated on the following terms by an internal panel

  • Innovation
  • Practical application of the solution
  • Attention to detail in presenting the concept
  • Backing up the solution with factual details
  • Teamwork

Team and Team Member Eligibility

Student teams can consist of a maximum of 4 members. All team members must be full-time and bonafide active students registered at participating institutions/universities during the entire period of the competition. The contest is open to under-graduates of all engineering streams.

Got more doubts? Check the FAQ Section

Format of the Paper

  • Title
  • Abstract: Brief overview
  • Concept: The idea behind the paper
  • Application: The effectiveness of the solution
  • Innovation: What has not been done before
  • Conclusion: Benefits of the solution
  • Bibliography and Appendix.

Download the format (.doc)

Prize Amount

First Place: Rs. 1,00,000
Second Place: Rs. 75,000
Third Place: Rs. 50,000

Submissions and Contact

Last Date for Submission: 21st October

10 selected teams will be invited for a presentation to Bangalore at our R&D facility

Submissions and contact e-mail:
IN.innovationchallenge@in.schneider-electric.com

Contacts:

Shashwat Khare
+91 80 4198 0000 Extn: 4668

Thara Pathi
+91 80 4198 0000 Extn: 4758


2
Sep 09

The education we missed at college

For the past few days I just wondered why our education system fails to give the real experience whether it be related to Electronics, Computer or any other field. Being a Computer Engineer, I can only say that the education given in college is far from reality and the industry requirement is really far what we have ever thought to be.

I would stop this stupid rant and give some scenarios where it can be improved.

Database Design and Management

I am really unable to understand why they had to teach us PL/SQL when it is specific to Oracle and not a standard like SQL. SQL was part of curriculum, but what just too less for what is exactly required. No one had even a faint idea of Database Security and Authorization concepts. Books had that chapter but was not a part of course material. It isn’t rocket science, but infact one of the easiest topic I have ever seen. The only DB concept which was stressed a lot was Transactions which was really helpful. The hands on experience on SQL was negligible, using the usual legendary “SELECT * FROM customer” query all over the book.

Linux

We had Operating System in fifth semester out of which *nix was only taught in Lab. The book which we were told to refer hardly had any *nix concepts or any other operating system as a sample. It was full theory, theory and more shitloads of theory which sometimes was no more than a torture. 600 pages of pure theory with no real life example is a PAIN!

We had three labs session of OS where we were supposed to use Linux to learn the commands. Whoa! Don’t be so excited. We were asked to use a windows 98 machine and connect to a Red Hat server via telnet. What was the final result? Everyone complained that Linux is just too hard and they can’t use it in day to day life. Linux has no GUI and it was meant for geeks and nerds who spend their life in basement coding all the day(and night). They had no f**king idea that there even exists something called GNOME and KDE. KDE4 can give Windows UI a tough competition. Special thanks to the lab instructor for helping to spread the FUD due to his frog in the well mentality.

This is not enough! Once I asked my lab in-charge that I wanted to take my programs and I do have a flash-drive with me right now. He said -” Fine, take it from your machine“. I was dumbstruck! Even if by some magic, it was really possible, how can I make this flash-drive to work on that stupid Windows98? After a few minutes of dumb explanations he allowed me to use the server, but said that flash-drive doesn’t work on Linux. Eh really? Yes, really! They were using such an old kernel(oldest of 2.4.*) that hardly anything would be working that time. Wait! Was flash-drive in market when that kernel version was released?

VIM

If connecting via telnet wasn’t enough, then vim was at the door knocking. vi/vim is the programmer’s best friend is he/she knows how to use it. Putting in other words someone has to tell that it doesn’t work like nano or a NOTEPAD! People had no idea of vim modes or how to efficiently use it. All they knew was <Esc> :q and <Esc> :wq They didn’t know why sometimes they were able to enter text and sometimes the cursor keeps on moving from one end to another and suddenly the text starts showing on the screen. There had been situations where people had to close the telnet client to exit the editor. Thanks God, atleast they were in a better situation than this guy.