Recently, the council of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT –M) has decided to make final year B.Tech. projects optional for the engineering students. In place of projects, now, student will have a choice of taking some optional courses after consulting with faculty members. The argument given is that many times students are not motivated enough to do projects. And, it’s really tough to get something significant without interest. The argument seems to be reasonable as nobody can force motivation. Prof. Idichandy, former deputy director, IIT-M, suggests that state engineering colleges should follow the footsteps of IIT-M and make the projects optional as most of the times, students get the ready-made projects form Ritchie Street, Chennai. Prof.C. Thangaraj, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University of Technology, Chennai admitted the fact but also pointed out that the idea is good for IITs but the students in state engineering colleges need to practice what they learn in theory. So, projects are necessary.
First, the idea seems to be interesting. Let’s leave the IITs out of discussion. They have enough resources to implement the idea. Now, what about other engineering colleges especially state engineering colleges? Every city has its “Ritchie Street” and most of the times; students get projects from there. In B.Tech., I didn't get projects from any "Ritchie Street" but want to share my experience. I had two projects in last two semesters of UG, minor and major project, though; I don’t know why different names were given to the two, perhaps, marks were the reason. In 7th sem., Prof. S. D. Bhattacharya, retired prof. from IIT-Roorkee was my guide; hence, I learned a lot. While in major project, I didn't learn even half of the amount I learned in minor project. Though, topic of major project was more fascinating than the minor. Reason was simple; I didn’t get the expert like Prof. Bhattacharya for guidance. This is no longer a secret that until one is not motivated as well as gets guidelines from a good person for guidance (may be a faculty or industrial person), it's tough to learn something substantial. Most of times, students are guided by faculty members and faculty quality is very well known. Also, I don’t think, situation will change much if students would guided by industry persons. Some engineering colleges have the system of one full semester training for students at industries. Apart from few, majority of students don’t learn much. Reason is again the same; quality of persons who are guiding the students is not at par. Sometimes, people claim that they are too busy and don’t have time for UG people, which, at-least, I am not ready to buy. Even an hour every 2-3 days is sufficient to help students. They are making arguments to hide their incompetence.
First, the idea seems to be interesting. Let’s leave the IITs out of discussion. They have enough resources to implement the idea. Now, what about other engineering colleges especially state engineering colleges? Every city has its “Ritchie Street” and most of the times; students get projects from there. In B.Tech., I didn't get projects from any "Ritchie Street" but want to share my experience. I had two projects in last two semesters of UG, minor and major project, though; I don’t know why different names were given to the two, perhaps, marks were the reason. In 7th sem., Prof. S. D. Bhattacharya, retired prof. from IIT-Roorkee was my guide; hence, I learned a lot. While in major project, I didn't learn even half of the amount I learned in minor project. Though, topic of major project was more fascinating than the minor. Reason was simple; I didn’t get the expert like Prof. Bhattacharya for guidance. This is no longer a secret that until one is not motivated as well as gets guidelines from a good person for guidance (may be a faculty or industrial person), it's tough to learn something substantial. Most of times, students are guided by faculty members and faculty quality is very well known. Also, I don’t think, situation will change much if students would guided by industry persons. Some engineering colleges have the system of one full semester training for students at industries. Apart from few, majority of students don’t learn much. Reason is again the same; quality of persons who are guiding the students is not at par. Sometimes, people claim that they are too busy and don’t have time for UG people, which, at-least, I am not ready to buy. Even an hour every 2-3 days is sufficient to help students. They are making arguments to hide their incompetence.
It is clear that projects and industrial training are not serving the purpose for which these were introduced. So, what’s the way forward? Should the final year projects/training (here I am focusing on 6 months training not on some weeks training) be scraped? Should the idea proposed by IIT-M be implemented? As I said earlier, idea is exciting and good, hence, can be tried provided the colleges have resources like IITs. Let's face the reality. In present scenario, people are not getting sufficient exposure to practical training in the labs at colleges (no need to mention the condition of laboratories especially in state colleges), so, it’s not a good idea to make final year project optional. Along with this, I believe colleges don't have enough quality faculty to run useful elective subjects. Then, what’s the solution. Here, I would like to discuss which I believe can help.
Introduce the projects/training where students are guided by both industrial persons and faculty members. For this, industries and academic institutions have to come together and identify the problems which interest the both. While identifying the problems, a larger goal must be defined which can be targeted over a longer period like 2-3 years. After defining the goal, things can be break up into smaller aims. When an action plan (smaller and bigger aims of the project) is ready, students must be "employed" on the projects. This way, I feel, everybody will be benefitted. Now, we need to take care of other important aspects also. There are double standards in India that if anybody wants to do things in education sector, he/she should not demand money. He/she should do for the sake of the society only not for himself/herself. This is mostly expected from academia people. This is totally unreasonable and non-sensible especially from the one having quality. Today, during the lecture, professor said in the class that, now, he wants to do something revolutionary (device manufacturing or some technological change) in his research field so that he can spend rest of his life lying on a beach. I don’t see anything wrong in his statement. We need to accept that money is the driving force to make people work. People must be paid for their efforts including students. End of the day, students are going to make things happen. Also, one very important thing is that we must welcome the ideas from students because they are the fresh and untrained minds. They can come-up with out of box ideas. Let’s accept that in the growing age of technology, present generation (or so called “facebook” generation :D :D ) is much smarter than the previous generation. Students shouldn’t be forced to walk on a fixed path. The main goal must be explained to them. Then, allow the students to come with their own ideas. Equally important is that their ideas must be discussed on the table. After the discussion, execute the one which seems to best in the project’s interest. This is just a broad idea. Further details can be figured out with discussions. This way, industry academia interaction will get encouragement which is need of the hour. After getting success in this, further steps can be taken to enhance the collaboration of industries with academia like introducing some shared elective courses etc.
