Exam?? Oh !! Is It Today ??

As far as engineering is concerned, 7th semester is going on at full swing, but we've neared our patience level to take studies anymore. The situation is getting worse day by day. We had our first sessionals this week (they got over today, whew!! what a relief) and almost all the people i know started studying for the tests, early morning in the bus. The one n a half hour bus journey was all, that we wanted to devote to the stupid tests. Seriously speaking, we all are tired of it. Everyone, n i mean EVERYONE is least bothered about sessionals now. All are tackling it with the "dekha jayega" attitude.

Three sessionals, every semester is too much of exams for any student. On top of it, the professors and the college authorities try to frighten us by telling that the marks will be counted in the final result. NO, it's not like they don't do it. We do have 30 marks alloted for our performance in internals n 70 marks for Final exam. N besides, we don't even know how those 30 marks are evaluated. Whether it's average of all three, or average of best two of three or simply best out of three, noone knows. But now noone even bothers to find out. When this concept was initially introduced two years ago, the scenario was different. Students used to study with the spirit of scoring and getting good marks in the internal exams as well. But now, after going through four gruelling semesters of the same kinda stuff, almost every student of the 7th sem is fed up.

Now, after getting hands on experience at the industry in the summer training, as well as going thru' few experiences of interviews and aptitude tests for placement, everyone has realized how much does theoretical study count for, in the end. It's all in one's aptitude, and attitude. The marks are just a ticket, for an entry to these interviews. All that the companies look for is whether you've maintained an aggregrate of 67% (ok, 66.66% to be precise!!) or not. Then whether ur aggregrate is 67% or its 72% or anything higher, it really doesn't matter to them. All the students above distinction are same in their eyes. N Many of the companies just want an aggregrate of 60% in the academics.

I mean, then why the hell do colleges stress on scoring very high marks?? How does it really help?? The companies look for practical knowledge, which can be gained only if you have participated in extra curricular activities like the techfests and other technical symposiums. What we've learned so far is that you gotta maintain a balance between both theoretical and practical knowledge. Score decently good enough and at the same time, devote that extra time n energy you spend on getting 4 to 5 percent extra to the extra curricular activities to gain some practical knowledge.

Also most of the students prepare for the entrance tests for their Masters programme at this period of academic session. Even that requires a pretty huge chunk of ur time off from the normal schedule that you've been following so far. So at such a time, such tests don't figure anywhere in the priority list of any student. The file pages, the drawing sheets, the assignments, they all are already calling out to us, saying we're pretty tough and time-consuming, we come with a dead-line and there's no escape.

7 n half hours of college, almost 2 hours of commuting, and when you reach home late evening, there's so much pending work already, n also you gotta take out time for the preparation of P.G. entrance tests. Any wonder why the tests don't really matter now ?? Last minute study is the best study, and that works out every time. I'm sure all the engineering students would agree with it.

One good thing about engineering students is that we have maths at our disposal. Any engineer is expected to utilize all the resources around him in the most constructive way so as to achieve the desirable result. And that is best seen, when calculcative bunks are planned out by each student, using the academic calendar for that particular sem, so as to maintain the required percentage of presence in the class, getting enough marks so as to maintain the pre-requisite for company interviews and tests, calculating the probability of any answer being asked in the exam based on the sir's approach towards the subject or simply by his interaction with the students, and various other deductions that require calculative risk towards any practical problem.

With efficient use of resources in vicinity, time-planning, calculative risk taking, keeping cool till last moments in tense situations and managing to come out of it successfully, no wonder engineers turn out to be extremely good managers later on.

When, inspite of studying at the last moment, most of us manage to score pretty decent marks; outsiders say that its because we're engineering students. (Yup!! Engineering students do carry an image of an intelligent species for the world, and nobody can bicker about that) So we manage to do it even by studying at the last moment.

All we would like to say is that we've got ourselves accustomed to the system and we've formed our own pattern of tackling it. And i'm sure anyone who enters into engineering will get moulded into this pattern. We, engineering students work on the rocket - principle, after all. But only those, who are into engineering know the charms of such gambles and the probability of it, paying off.