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Hindustan Times wrote:Anjali Doshi
Mumbai, November 21, 2005
About a week before he committed suicide last Wednesday, Vijay Nukala (22) got the worst news of his life: he would have to repeat a year at IIT. It wasn’t because the final year engineering physics student wasn’t good enough academically — it was because of the letters XX marked against his name.
Last year, the authorities at IIT, Powai, became extremely strict about enforcing a rule that meant final year students with less than 80 per cent attendance would be failed regardless of how they fared at the examinations at the end of a 16-week semester. In fact, they are not allowed to sit for the exams if there is a shortfall in attendance. And their names carry the XX appendage: two seemingly innocuous letters that translate to one lost year in a student’s life.
But for Nukala, that wasn’t all. Although he majored in engineering physics, computers were always his first love: he was recognised as the presiding geek at Powai, inventor of the campus’ most widely used intranet system, ‘Umang’. But the computer science project he had to present last Wednesday as part of his BTech coursework wasn’t up to scratch, according to his professor, say Vijay’s friends.
Burdened already with the prospect of another year on campus, this proved to be the final straw for Nukala. He never turned up for the presentation. He was found hanging from the fan in his hostel room in the evening, clutching his cellphone. Nobody is sure whom he made the final phone call to.
Most students HT spoke to are highly critical of the XX system, which came into being, according to faculty members, because IIT-ians were “spending too much time on the internet and the intranet.” Faculty members say that attendance is often poor at lectures, which begin at 8.30 am, because students are up all night surfing the net in their rooms.
It was Nukala who had a year ago devised ‘Umang,’ the intranet service that practically all students on campus use to share software. Although a low rank in the joint entrance exam forced him into engineering physics, even computer science students acknowledged his talent in their field.
But faculty advisors repeatedly told Nukala that he should focus on his academic subject rather than his subject of interest. “Once he graduated, he could have easily have pursued information technology,” said a faculty member.

JustaLittleUnwell wrote:Johnny, I think they deserve the headstart etc. but one grievance I have is that their education is highly subsidized and in most cases ...
wht, the students committing suicide or the news not coming out of the campus?spamtaneous wrote:sad!
but its no bodys fault...

Mayavi Morpheus wrote:Sorry, didnt realize that. Are you in the engineering stream?
<br>Apart from the few NRI IIT's and few reservation category IITians, all IITians IMO are a eons ahead of the typical engineering graduate of India.
Mayavi Morpheus wrote:<br>Best minds + Best facilities = Best students. IITians are the only people who get to do actual research while in college.
Mayavi Morpheus wrote:<br>But that doesnt mean that others are not good, it only means that IITians have more exposure to the latest and greatest in their field.
akhilis2cool wrote:Dug this up coz didnt want to strt a new topic.
Does the IIT system need an overhaul?

During my YM discussion with FL, i asked him whether he wld not miss the campus life once his studies are over. he said he just wanted to finish the course and leave the campus ASAP (something on this line). the problem is that the students have no voice. thats wht i was refering to...i agree that the system as a whole is world class.Pondering HP wrote:akhilis2cool wrote:Dug this up coz didnt want to strt a new topic.
Does the IIT system need an overhaul?
The news item you quoted was unfortunate. And though I do agree that the IIT system does need a tweaking of sorts, I wouldn't use a strong word like overhauling.
In cases such as the one mentioned in the news item, the powers that be in the IIT's should have a look into the merits of the case and then come to a judgement rather than generalising all such issues based on a rule. But overall, if you look at it, the IIT system has proven to be a world class system that brings out world class engineers. So, I don't think they really merit an overhaul.

Pondering HP wrote:RK - what you said about the level of PG education in IIT's is nowhere close to what you see in ivy league institutions etc. is true. I guess a higher stress on research would be the answer to this shortcoming. Moreover, IIT alumni should take an active part in revamping the curriculum at the PG level. Once they are out in the corporate world, they get exposed to a whole lot of new ideas brought in by alumni of other institutions. Maybe if the IIT's can create a forum for such ideas to be discussed and then channellised towards improvement in curruculum, it'll be great.

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