Izz all well?

Three idiots may or may not be a rip off to chetan bhagat’s original novel, it may have been a real fun to sit through those two and half hours but one line in the movie got me thinking.

In one of the scenes of 3 Idiots, Aamir Khan says, “kabhi aap log class main ye soch kar aaye ho ki aaj kuch naya sikhne ko milega, aaj maza aayega”.

I hope I got the hindi English typing right. When you think back to your college days, you have a lot of fond memories. You think of pulling pranks, failing tests, falling in love, getting drunk. But for once have you thought of a memorable class you sat through?

Most regrettably, students never feel that way. Attending the class is rather an ordeal which they have to face in their quest to get a degree. This is the reason why students loath to attend the classes and the only ‘weapon’ that’s capable enough to shove them into the class is the “Terror of attendance”.

In most of the classes students are welcomed with the horror of the powerpoint slides; extremely monotonous, verbose and theoretical. Lecturers and professors just copy paste from e copys of books and just read out in class. There is a saying “example is better than precept”. Until and unless we don’t know how a particular funda is being applied in the lab or in the industry, why the hell should we care to understand it?

I teach a cell biology 101 class. In our college 101 classes are those which deal with the basics. In order to make students understand the models of the plasma membrane I likened the structure to a subway sandwich. Believe it or not when the question was asked in the exam paper every single student got it right.. Sure some of them included the analogy, but what matters is most of them got the concept rather than just commit it to memory.

Another thing that really bothers me is the focus on campus interviews. Don’t get me wrong am all for 100% placement and all that. But what matters seems to be the final salary p.a rather than the job the person gets. People ask me why I teach. Even my own profs “you are top of your class. You shouldn’t be teaching. Yada yada. ” . The first thing people ask me when I tell them I teach is how much do you earn? That really drives me crazy. Why should it matter to you? My uncle advised me” If today you join a biotech or a pharma firm, in three years you may be earning 3 to 5 times of what you would earn as a lecturer” Thank you Einstein I didn’t know that. I do what I do coz its fun. It’s a challenge everyday.

I hope the Indian education system will one day change so that students can learn what they like rather than what others think is good for them. I believe in looking for excellence rather than success. If one is excellent at what one does success is definite to follow. Success should not be because of serendipity but because of conscious and calculated efforts.