Saturday, October 25, 2008

Education!

Arun, I disagree with you! You can tell your cop about it and make him happy!

The Indian education system rocks! The purpose of education is to get one geared up to face the problems of day-to-day life!

I realized this today after I fixed my wardrobe. Since the recent rains, the drawers in them had gone a bit moist (No. My house ain't leaking, it was general moisture in the corner of my room) and the screws came loose. I had to spend more time pushing the drawer back in the right direction than doing what it was opened for! This is when my carpentry skills kicked in!! Thanks to the esteemed Anna University and its prescribed syllabus for the first semester, I could easily wield the hammer, nails, screws and screwdrivers!

The thought that my education had helped me had come afterwards. Immediately after this, I had visual recollections of my first semester Workshop lab viva voce. Mr.Muniraj (name changed for my privacy), gently took the steel ruler from my hands and checked if I had ever bothered reading the backside. He asked me, "How many centimetres to an inch?" "2.54 sir" "sure? 2.54 or 2.5400?" (because that how it was printed on the ruler) "they're the same sir (smile)" "good good. tell me, why are you doing carpentry and welding? you are a computer science student no?" "[er because AU made my dad spend so that I could make a living] because, sir, I am an engineer and an engineer should have knowledge of everything [,even clean drainages perhaps?]" "ver-ry good!! you can go".

Now I regret having had thoughts like that. Atleast I didn't speak them...
Now that carpentry proved useful, how else was education useful?
Back in school, my cousin was taught how to use Star Office. Now, he's using the skills he developed from school, to help his professor type of lectures, documents etc and he's making a living! (I guess many of the MS in US people are doing much the same)

And then, it was at school where we learnt to do C++ program for Fibonacci series program, it helped me clear my job interview!
Happy learning!

PS: Do share any such experiences in the comments!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'd say i wasted money studying engg. Rest of the comments as an sms, please.

Anonymous said...

the job interview part was balderash. the interviewers part was to test what u had learnt anyway

RR

Anonymous said...

the system thought me to copy which helped me to flourish further in the system :P

Akshaya said...

Well... I defi learnt how to handle my digi cam and generally put scene wit it in front of my cousins!!! Thou its not exactly puttin scene when they look at u lik an idiot! "Why wud a normal person wan to know how to handle a camera with lightin etc!!!" But i guess its true... education makes u who u are today!! In some way education and the system here does mould u and affect who u are!

LVS said...

@RR
you don't know about my job interview...

@grumblings!
yes! right to information act :P

@akshaya
which college taught you that? :-o

Anonymous said...

yeah yeah... :P

Kunal said...

The system needs to refine a little..
No Education system is perfect..
People in foreign countries learn specific subjects alone.. But what happens when they are out of jobs? A bankrupt company will leave bankrupt employees.. At least with their jobs.. They have nothing else to do.. i think u get the point..

The Indian system teaches u everything.. The carpentry work could have been dispensed with.. One does not need to learn all this for an engineering degree..
As an ECE student i did have C programming, which actually helps one change jobs if required.. i have the basic skills, now i just need to refine them.. That's about the Indian Education system..

As for people who think History was not required in our schooling.. An Indian should know Indian History..

Kunal

Prakash Paul said...

Indian Education content is very good i would say.. but the fact remains that the way we go about studying it or testing what we've learnt sucks, and sucks big time.. the focus is not on learning at least for the majority of ppl in India.. The focus is somehow getting good marks in that exams so that you can get into the best college so that you can get a good job.. Where the hell is the focus on learning in this whole process..

To sum up i would say What we learn rocks but how we learn it totally sucks..

LVS said...

@kunal
yes, i agree very much!
and yes again, i could've done the carpentry w/o the 'lab'!
but, you don't need to write a blog in my comments! :P

@prakash
thanks for dropping by...you put it very succinctly

Anonymous said...

@LVS
:D
I just cant stop myself in writing small comments.. I dont find the correct words to put my point forward.. Therefore a bigger comment..

TD5M4PP3R said...

@LVS

ROTFL post! Missed it out! I told the cop India rocks da.

I only thought within the mind that India is not as good as he thinks. Thats why it is inside brackets

LVS said...

@tdsmapper

i didn't expect anything less from an 'NRI' who is missing his home :)

SAMIR BHOIR said...

Indian education system is surely not perfect, we are not trained or taught to specialize our selves, many things which we got to learn in school days, in junior college days, are of no use to us, actual learning comes after junior college, were we specialize our selves,

LVS said...

@samir bhoir
so whats special about you?

Anonymous said...

Mr.Muniaraj!?
Hmmmm...
Any experiences with Mr.Nithyanandam?
:D

LVS said...

@narain
well, that name does ring a bell?
was it the mech guy who faked his limp? some of us have seen him strutting around when no one's watching! guess he got in through some quota!