Staying Sane Amidst the Insane Madness
Alright, since my last post ( where I described 1 year of my life as an IITR freshman), a lot has happened. The online semester started, I submitted my first paper to a Top Tier Conference, and….basically, that’s it 😛.
If you are an IITian (or one of the IITR junta more specifically), you might have got the impression about this post’s theme. Yes indeed! This article describes the wreckage caused by the online semester and the evil professors or the system in our lives and how to cope with that. I will try to keep it short. Although there is just so much wrong with the online system, it would be damn hard. 🙈
Disclaimer: The following content is based on my observations. I do not intend to be offensive in any way.
The High Flyer
As I said before, I recently submitted my first research paper in Deep Learning to a Conference. The 3ʳᵈ semester started on 24ᵗʰ August 2020, and the submission was made on 18ᵗʰ September 2020. For around 3 weeks, I spent most of my time working on the research paper, implementing the idea, resolving the frustrating errors, debugging the code, writing the research paper parts sometimes, and running experiments 16 hours a day. 😛Honestly, I was surprised about how easy it was to entirely devote my time to working on the paper, not worrying about the academic activities. So, it was a high flying start to the online semester. I was convinced that except for the pain of not meeting friends and engaging in the many fun activities, this semester would be a success for working on our interests. Little did I know that the professors and system had different ideas 🙈
Killing Me Softly
Right, so the beginning was smooth with not many assignments and quizzes, but soon all this was to change. In no time, I saw myself burdened with 6–7 assignments and 2 quizzes each week.
Now, let me not be mistaken as whining, complaining boy here. I have no problem with solving multiple assignments in a short period. The wrongful practice is to make students work for nothing. We are asked to solve assignments that are more based on a dumb page filling process than applying our skills or intelligence to the right task.
Letting Einstein Down
Disgracing the central value of education
The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.
The above quote by Albert Einstein, arguably the most intelligent man in the history of humankind, has been arrogantly overlooked by the current academic system at IITR. 😛
At IITR, where we are expected to develop our ability to solve contemporary real-world problems, we are forced to carry out mindless calculations with no real utility than tiring our minds, eyes, and most importantly, hands :P
Why does this happen?
Well…because the professors have too much authority over the academic system. So, all they do is search a few questions online, copy-paste them into assignments, and expect us to write lengthy solutions for the simple problems 🤷♂️.
Life is complicated. We get it! But why to make simple things complicated?
This is something that has disappointed me a lot this semester. There are a few courses where the questions are simple to solve, and we have solved them. Then, come the mastermind of some of the profs who ask us to change many things and mold the solution into a convoluted mess to match their will. (If you belong to CSE’23 at IITR, you know who I am referring to here 😉)
Another instance was when one of our profs asked us to record a presentation for an assignment. Now you might be thinking: “How can a person make this activity complex? It is simple! Just record the screen with your face inside a box like the many YouTubers!” right? Well, bear with me on this. The prof asked us to record the presentation with another camera where we should be seen sitting near the laptop. I fail to understand how someone can be so dumb to not understand that not everyone can ask another person to record oneself presenting the ridiculous slides, leaving out the many trials that happen. It took me around 3 hours (1 hour to make the perfect setup) to get one good 15 minutes recording. Guys, Please keep it simple!
Making the Lives of Students Harder
This section contains some practices that seem aimed at making the lives of students a living hell.
ScreenShots over Slides
Now people would think if the teaching is going online, professors would provide us with the slides they prepare. Well, all of them are wrong! There are a few inhuman professors who make us take snapshots for the slides. Here, I would like to ask a few questions:
First, if the professors realize that we can take screenshots and still doesn’t give us the slides, he/she doesn’t deserve to be called a human.
Second, if he/she doesn’t even realize this, then his this justice to the society for him to teach?
I hope you can answer them :)
Ask me for coffee; I shall give you poison.
Some professors give us pdfs of the book chapters, which are readily available online when requested to share the slides. I mean, what the freckles!? Can’t you understand a simple request?
Enjoy life!
Right, so this one instance threw all of us off. Due to personal reasons, if a professor can’t take the class, he/she should cancel the class. Instead, what happens is a surprise quiz. It is not bad if the syllabus has been taught well, but if you teach the topic two days ago in the worst way possible and take the quiz, how can you expect us to give you answers, dumbhead!
Now, I think I have given enough instances that prove the professors teaching the students as anything but robots. ( I didn’t include the section describing the stiff deadlines)
The Robots Arrive
There is this breed of people at IITR; we call ghissus, who, no matter what, keep on doing what the professors demand without question. Now, let me not be mistaken here. These brilliant people can achieve a lot, but they end up in the profs’ slimy, dirty mess. They make the professor believe that we can all do things anytime possible, which increases the exploitation performed by the profs on students’ lives.
The ghissus are smart people, but they should also think a little before putting in their whole futile activities. It doesn’t make sense to work for a week on an assignment that is irrelevant to our field of interest and carries only 10 marks.
The relief
Now, the title says Staying Sane Amidst the Insane Madness. As you must have felt, I have only described the madness that goes on in our lives until now. Let’s talk some sanity now:
- Talk with Friends: This is an essential part of staying calm and stable during this pandemic. Sharing the common hate for the profs, recent achievements, cheating in quizzes or assignments, calming the worried ones down helps a long way to stay safe from these beast profs’ onslaught.
- Do what you like: Some people leave the field that interests them only to focus on academics. Only academics won’t take you anywhere. You need to learn and practice new things in your interested area to stay motivated. For instance, I never left reading about new DL concepts because that provides me with a soothing effect.
- Don't worry: Don't worry too much about the many quizzes and assignments. Everything shall happen at the proper time. Have faith in the ghissus if not yourselves :P
- Burn the profs (not in real :P): This the most relieving activity one can perform. People say that we shouldn’t curse our teachers. Well, the current situation has proved that saying obsolete. We can’t respect the profs without any cursing anymore.
A few Suggestions
Right, so throughout this blog, I have been very critical about the current academic system followed at IITR, and I believe it is the same with everyone. I mean none of my friends are happy with the system either.
If the administration is truly worried about the health and well being of students, then they need to keep a few things in mind:
- With great power comes great responsibility: The administration needs to keep a check on the amount of authority the profs have over students’ lives. The profs think they own the students which is a hell of a lot of power but they have been handling it pretty irresponsibly.
- Mind over Muscles: The assignments need to promote deep thinking skills rather than just fill pages and promoting futile activities (remember the presentation? 😛)
Conclusion
Now that I could write a blog describing the wreckage caused by the profs in the students’ lives is more than enough to infer that the current “online” system sucks!
The professors need to understand that we, as students, can’t keep on completing their wishes. At the same time, they sit and devour food (happens during lectures even 🙈) at their homes. They need to introspect and realize that practical knowledge matters more than some theoretical assignments just to fill pages. We are no longer JEE aspirants, we deserve some enjoyment in our lives, and the profs have no authority to take that away.
So to all professors out there:
Please treat us like humans and not robots!
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