IIIT-Hyderabad : Institute with a Class

My brother joined IIIT-H leaving many IIT branches. Many of my friends asked me to reconsider this decision. But fate took my brother to IIIT-H. We were happy that he got into good institute but was IIT better option???

My parents went for my brother’s admission. IIIT-H provided personal mobile numbers of two or three persons whom you could contact in case of any problem in reaching the institute. But the institution was known to everyone and there was no problem reaching the institute. On reaching the institute every candidate was given a room on the spot.

Later in the evening Director was to address candidate’s parents. Meeting was kept in a yoga room. Probably because they were lack of room or may be because of simplicity. God knows but as it is a private institute, no one expected a conference hall. Obviously in a yoga room you would not get seats. So staff placed a neat carpet on the marble floor. One table was put in front with three - four chairs. When the Director came, anyone would expect him to be seated on chair. But like any other person in the hall, Director of best private institute was sitting on the carpet with parents. He was very casual in the talk. Following conversation points I could still remember about the talk. Though there were many good points

Parent : Which company took the maximum number of students?
Director : We do not bring bulk recruiters. Every child develops his / her interest and we bring specialized companies according to the need of students.

Parent : Should my son do M-TECH or MBA after B-TECH?
Director : Don’t worry we will groom you’re your son in a way that even he will tell you what he will do after degree along with valid reasons.

Parent : How you control the web browsing time of students as it may waste much time?
Director : We don’t control the students, we just monitor them. In case he crosses limit we send a general notification to all students. Still if there is no improve we consult him.

This meeting went for few hours. I our Principal addressed us? After thinking for so long I thought NEVER. But I was wrong as she addressed us in fresher’s party for 2 minutes with a very famous dialogue

Every first class student is not a first class engineer, but every first class engineer is a first class student.

Anyways thank you Madam for your 2 minute speech in my 4 year engineering. It was very useful for me as I implemented your formula and managing just first class.

Again I am coming to my point of IIIT-H. Then I thought that these were one day event or probably the only occasion when parents would be in the institute. This is a good marketing strategy.

BUT,

I was wrong and I am happy about it. As my brother started his first semester, I came across many things about the institute. These are the feeling which developed in a few months. Still I would try to remember some points for you all to prove the excellence of the institute

Curriculum :
Just to prove my superiority I told him to read Yasvant Kanetkar for C thinking atleast hearing a reference book name he will study with a local book and not the notes. Few days later I got his call saying

Bhaiya, Kanetkar ki jagah Blah Blah Blah books try karo. These books are better in blah blah blah topics and ……. books for these topics ….. and start using C in linux because of ……. advantages

And he gave names ok many foreign authors. And I realized that even though I am in Final Year, my brother have grown more than me in C. And come on LINUX. Except for that black console in first semester I have not seen it.

But again this institution gave me head shot. He was online in later part of first semester when I asked him
Kya kar rha hai?

And I was shocked with the reply
JavaScript ka assignment

Wow, they have HTML and JavaScript in the first semester. When I asked him in which subject are you studying this? The reply was
We completed Python, so sir started with Web

Abe ye kya hai???? I was lost in programming by a first semester student in programming. But I was happy that the winner is my brother. And from that point onwards I never ask him what subject / topic is going on because I will not understand anything.

Assignment :
They don’t have theoretical assignments which even teachers know we copy and then give us. If teacher know that it is of no use then why don’t remove it. Anyways that is university decision. May be I will attack it in another post. Coming to assignments, they have only programming assignments. They have portal where they will have to upload their assignment and if you program is correct it will be accepted otherwise not.

Students of all years develop this portal. The portal now consists of your academic details, assignment details, mess booking. They can book a mess from intra-net. They have four messes each with different qualities like south Indian, north Indian, non-vegetarian and next I forgot. Think of the complexity of website and you are working on such a website in first semester.

Practical :
There practical are taken by Sir. So what’s great about it??? This was my response. Again a shock was waiting….. Sir is used to address seniors.
Can you believe that A practical class being taken by seniors with one senior for 2 or 3 students.

We spent our lot of time in understanding what to do. I think if all of us knew basics of C or Java we must have been in better option. And if a person who was in your place a year back is explaining to you I think you would understand the concept or atleast the problem.

Even in final semester or I must say in final month of engineering we are not comfortable with Java. And we are joining the companies. What do you think? Is Java or C or any other language difficult?
If you can believe me, I would say NO. I tried C, Java, .NET, PHP, VB, VBA and what not and realized that the problem is to start. If you could take-off nicely, you would not have any problem in flying the skies of any technology. And with seniors taking practical I believe we can start with any technology nicely.

One thing I forgot. Why would seniors take the practical nicely???
Again the masterpiece institute policy. If you take practical you will get some credits which were mostly equivalent to credits of a subject. And your credit depends on the improvement of the students under you.

Practical Exam :
You have to program using your resources.
Again what’s so great even we have open book test where we can open our note-book but not others. Only difference being we have it in test and they have it in practical exam.

And great I got another and most powerful HEAD-SHOT. The definition of Resources was elaborated. Their resources meant any resource which they would get in industries like books, notes and even my friends INTERNET.

This was really a good practical exam. Write code or get modules from net and assemble or even download whole program. Get the invigilator the program and you get marks. After all searching and assembling is also an art.

I can go on but don’t want to bore you. I just wanted to show you that those institutes getting packages of students in lacks don’t get that just because they get good lot of students. There are differences in those institutes and normal colleges. But there not nothing that cannot be implemented in our universities. For implementation just UNIVERSITIES should break their sleep and see what is going on in surrounding.

I AM HAPPY THAT THERE IS ATLEAST ONE INSTITUTE THAT IS GENERATING ENGINEERS AND NOT JUST STUDENTS WITH ENGINEERING DEGREE.