Role ofEngineering Colleges

nowadays, there is a mad rush to get into a reputed engineering college. Why? the most obvious reasons are good career, prestige...and so on. but how many of those coming into our engg. colleges, these bright jewels of indian legacy, really want to be an engineer? What is the difference between an iit or bits and nit's and other colleges?

what makes a good engineer is not only his talent for a particular field, but his thirst for more knowledge, his wonder of nature, his scientific integrity....and so on.( so he's a kind of a practical scientist.) Most students nowadays do not realise how lucky they are to be doing engineering now, rather than 20-30 years earlier. There are very good books now that explain in a simple way all the concepts, the motivation to learn. We have internet. it is certainly much simpler now. so simple, in fact, that everyone wants to do engineering!


Getting straight to the point, i think that the basic difference can be readily seen from the course-structure of these colleges. In bits, our core-courses (viz.courses directly related to our branch) are taught only from the THIRD year. well, this was a very unsettling at first, especially since i have a cousin at NITK (Surathkal) and his core courses start from the beginning of 2nd year itself! so i wondered, what could possibly be the reason for this?

i realised that perhaps they (who set the courses) had in mind to create engineers who had a vast knowledge, who knew a little about every branch. and so we have everyone studying things such as mechanics of solids, which seem to be of very little use. perhaps i will see the whole picture only later, maybe it will help in the future in ways that i cannot foresee yet. i don't know how the students manage to study these things at all, perhaps marks are the only motivation or...whatever.

so anyway, by having a glimpse of each branch, i beleive that they hoped to train leaders, those who could see the whole picture, in whatever they did. and you know what? after studying 3 semesters at bits, i have really come to beleive in this idea,
we have touched upon such diverse subjects, that i beleive would not have been taught anywhere else. i think that if i want to know more about any other branch, the foundation has been laid. this is usually the most difficult (and boring) part, as the foundations cannot be easily developed. it requires a lot of patience and perseverance to really understand. and the best time to do it in when ur doing undergraduate work, when ur still full of youthful enthusiasm. if bits would'nt teach it as a course, perhaps i would have never had the foggiest idea of how other branches are. now, i do know. and i am glad that i do.

so, bits trains future leaders, whereas the NIT's appear to me as trade schools.( by this i mean thay they follow the 'usual' way of teaching, in which u have some rules, then using these rules you go further in solving problems. the question of why these rules are as they are is never raised, because that requires deep scientific understanding, which requires mathematics of every kind......and so on. this is waht is called 'engineering science', where you can understand engineering as a natural continuation of science itself. i'm not saying that u can derive everything from scientific principles, but you can derive most. and the pleasure of understanding how it goes, how the puzzle of nature fits together... is simply delightful.) there are few brilliant people (in NIT's) who will no doubt be leaders of tommorow, but i think that bits helps more.