Post Exam Idealistic Rantings

Posting after a long time. I am just plain lazy. Have a lot to say about a load of things but just don't feel like devoting time to sitting down and writing a post. Anyway, finished off with exams. As is with every semester, the Pl just does not seem to end. Also subscribed for a BSNL dataone connection just before the Pl which has unlimited download till the 30th of June. So basically spent the whole of the Pl downloading stuff; and did just one chapter from a total of 5 huge subjects in the Pl. I had really stretched it a bit too far this time and was really worried about my survival in the exam. Though I noted that this seemed to be a common phenomenon among some of the TE students. It is probably because all of us have done five semesters in the same stupid way and the more intelligent amongst us are pretty bored with the system.(though don't want to speak to early; will wait for the results).
Kunal and Arnold were some of the others who happened to go my way this time. Arnold has this whole theory about geniuses and workhorses. Check it out on his blog. Reminds me of a story from Stephen Hawking's book:"Black Holes and Baby Universes" where he tells us about his days in Oxford, where studying was considered to be a sign of being dumb. So people who studied were thrashed in peer groups, and hence nobody studied at all. Hawking says this is a really bad way to go about it and that he himself suffered in terms of exam performance during his days there. I agree with him on this. What is wrong though in our engineering education system is that it takes very little to pass particular subject. All you need to do is see the past exam papers and look up those answers from a text book. It’s the same formula to score in the exam. I think this is total crap and that the system needs serious revision in the exam pattern. We should have exams that will make us study the subject from an understanding point of view and not just mug it up. It’s the only way we are going to learn something, and become real engineers who can hope to compete with those from the IITs.