From the 5th grade probably I wanted to be an engineer, the actual reason being my uncle was an engineer and he has always been my role model (part of it was also because he earned really well).Well…so from there on began my quest for becoming an engineer. Back then, I really didn’t know what being an engineering student meant, especially one from Mumbai University…now when I know, I really curse myself for not knowing it earlier.
An engineering student has to just do the following things:
Work
Work hard
Work harder
work much harder
and work much much harder
After working so hard you would probably expect some Nobel Prize coming your way…but if you get at least 60% marks in the University exams, you should feel blessed and offer treats to your friends because that’s really a feat!! Not that I hate working…but when one works really hard, one expects some good results but if you are an engineering student, ”expecting” is the biggest mistake you could make! As far as I have seen hard work plays only 25% of the role in getting you good percentage…luck does the rest 75% .You just need to be lucky if you are an engineering student…firstly, lucky to get an admission in a good institute (this is verrrryyyyyyyyy….difficult!).Secondly, to get through all the examinations without getting a KT and thirdly, the most important, not getting into a conflict with any teacher (this urge is really difficult to control). During the four years of engineering, you are totally at the mercy of the moderators in the first and the final year and of the college teachers in the second and third year! So behaving well in the class is the mantra! Obviously the University moderators are people you will never know and who are probably in worst of their moods during paper corrections (that shows in the marks they give).
Then comes the submissions. How much time do you think getting a file stamped takes? 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes…well its 45 minutes (or more…for the people who were behind me in the queue!). You got to wait for people to finish their lunch at 10.30 am, then if they aren’t feeling lazy they’ll call the peons to help them in the process… nobody cares about the 2km long queue that awaits the teacher to just check and leave them. I am not a sadist for sure… you see good, when it is around.
If you happen to be in a good college, you’ll get the support of some really good teachers. While at the same time you’ll also come across teachers, who ‘have been there and done nothing’. In such cases one has to depend on him/herself (or “hail coaching classes!”) and leave rest to God (in this case it could also be a moderator or a teacher). But you can’t blame the teachers wholly as they have to complete the syllabus within a short time, so the frustration level is really high w.r.t. students.
As an engineering student the values that I have learnt is patience, working hard even when you know you are going to get average marks and being resilient.Surely,I wouldn’t have assimilated these had I not been an engineering student!
