Project, Placements and Torture

From the title, you may have already guessed what I am about to talk about… PICT obviously!

Mid-June, third year exams over, stepped into the last year of my engineering life. Thought life would be cool now, will have more time for myself, but over time I realized, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It all started with a fight to get project sponsorships. Alumni groups, and few companies came with their own respective selection methods to provide us with guides for our projects. I got guidance under one of the prestigious groups and my friends who were not in my project group got into a big-wig company for project, with a heavy stipend to assist in their work. Sometimes, there is this dilemma, money or good project, or if when greedy, both! But going by the Heisenberg’s principle, it is either one, anyone.

All this didn’t constitute the torture that I was to say. The real thing was to follow.

Placements, for which our college is so well-known, started, and with that, so did the actual college semester, from July. Now, we have been in PICT for last three years and have seen a lot of radical changes in the working of the college, and its administration.

In short, First year was chill, but as we were new, and not so accustomed to the ongoings, we didn’t dare challenge anything.

Second year, was by far the best, by means of curriculum too, and other things too.

Third year was when suddenly the admins got wings, and also decided to clip ours at the same time. My attendance in the first sem TE was as much as I had in the whole of the second year! Thanks to the infamous fine system.

Now, the fourth, and the canary has turned into a full-fledged vulture. It’s turned into a school now. Oh, had I joined just one year before :|

So what’s new? We cannot reach college even a min late, which has been relaxed to 5 min, but yeah, like that’s an helluva buffer, ain’t it? And not that we are sent off, which would have been a pleasure, instead, we are dumped into the library reading hall, which implies no attendance. So much for punctuality. I mean, it’s the last year; we want to attend college, and then this. I wonder when a faculty arrives late, what may be the proceedings.

An I-card is necessary in college premises, which is perfectly justified. What doesn’t make sense, is that you cannot have it in your bag, bille ki tarah, you have to tag it along all time. And neither can you wear it and keep the card in your shirt side pocket. No sir. Keep it hanging all day. Yes, woof!

No mobile phones in college premises. The premises outside the classroom! Faculty using phones inside lecture rooms is supposedly okay (!), but, us students aren’t privileged enough to use them even outside classrooms, in the break time.

If attendance is less (less, being a highly relative term), then prepare to be detained, go to the principal and HoD for every other mistake, and many similar threatening has become the norm. There is also the letter from the parents. You arrive late. Late, in the sense, ki you enter the class just behind the faculty, who himself is late technically. Why are you late? Bring a letter from your parents, explaining the reason for this miniscule delay. Ah, discipline!

If any senior is reading this, you may be realizing what the scenario is, as a whole.

College is supposed to be the changeover period, when a certain professional attitude is developed, and not all this. If anything, the students would be deviated off-course, and end up emphasizing on things that are not going to matter, or affect their performance. That would have an indirect effect on projects and quality of students.

Placements are going superb. No two things about it; the college is known for it. We just hope the management gets its things right, coz, right now, students aren’t seen engineering, rather being type-casted into impassive, robotic products.

*Of course, it is an intensely personal view, no hard feelings, or any judgments whatsoever.

Peace :-)

-d3m0n and SK