Diagnosis of Pandemonium

­Last minute studies, photocopying notes, enquiring about the syllabus and pulling off all nighters! Yup, we have all done it. Looking back, it always seems so easy. Chugging down mugs of coffee and gobbling up bowls of maggi seemed to give us all the strength to get through it. Our academic life can roughly be divided into the time we have fun and the times we pay the price for the fun we have had. And for people like me, who spent the bulk of each semester dwindling their time on everything other than studies, there is always that one moment before each semester exam which we can never forget. It's that one moment, late into the night before your exam when you are still far away from covering that syllabus, when it strikes you that the war is nothing but lost. That moment when you turn to your best bud and say, "Dude, this time we are screwed man!". But surprisingly it's not fear that follows. It is peace, a deep understanding which I would audaciously like to compare with holiness. Knowing that your actions can have little or maybe no effect on your life tomorrow, yeah that is pretty deep stuff.

Underneath all the chaos of our college education system lie two pillars. They are the foundation of all the misery and frustration of thousands of students. Of course, the two pillars are but metaphors for two words which brings out nightmares for college goers. Relative grading!


 I find relative grading ironical in today's world. The whole world is so hung up on eradicating discrimination and ensuring that people are not judgmental of others on the basis of their religion, color or caste. And what do we have here? We take a look at all the students in a class and imagine an "ideal student" (Also known as class average) and put this student up on a pedestal. We then call upon every student and size him up next that guy and declare him a failure or as fit to continue. Doesn't seem so nice when you think of it this way eh?  

What is funny is that relative grading is actually a cannibalistic cycle. When someone actually does score way below the class average and flunks, others in the class benefit because his marks also count in the average and eventually brings it down, helping the other students get better grades. The next semester, the average is higher because the poorer students were left behind and now the same students who survived because they were just above the line last time, suffer from poorer grades (Yes, I did use the verb "suffer". If you are a student, you know why!). The system slowly and steadily removes these underlying layers, feeding the bigger cannibals on the top. And eventually after 8 semesters, the ones who are left are the big fat cannibals!  

The biggest fear of a student before an exam, is NOT what he or she hasn't studied or gone through. They only fear what others in their class have studied! It is a cruel and painful torture for one to sleep at night knowing his peers are staying up and studying. People who claim that they can stay up all night before an exam and study, they do it because they don't have another option. They just can't fall sleep and you can't blame them for that!

People are hasty in branding peer pressure as agents which force children to drink, smoke and do what not. We forget how it extends to studies and much more. After around a year and a half in an engineering college, most students get, what I would like to call the "internship epidemic". It suddenly strikes them that working in a company for a month or two and adding that to their resume is much easier than getting a good GPA. A rumor spreads that a good internship almost certainly guarantees a fat pay check and that this practical work you do counts more than your GPA. If you have ever played the game Chinese Whisper, you know the scenario! This takes me back to Dark Knight Rises, when Bane delivers Batman to his own personal prison and says, "There is a reason why this is hell on earth; it gives you hope of escape". Everyone manages to hang on to this glimmer of hope, that the internships will actually save them from the plight caused by their marks.

Calls are made, acquaintances contacted and family friends notified. An all out effort is made to procure an internship in a top notch company. The company offer more of a silent observer job rather than the traditional hands on experience role an internship is supposed to provide, but hey all of us still take it! And after a few weeks the company readily award us a certificate stating we worked for them diligently for months, possibly quite happy to get rid of the responsibility of having interns in their midst.

Every year, lakhs of students join engineering colleges, each of them harboring their own hopes and dreams. A large number of students pass out from colleges every year too. How all of them get employed is mathematical equation I haven't been able to work out. It is a crazy experience, with its share of ups and downs. But I am sure that these moments will become memories worth laughing and sharing a few years down the line. Then, looking back, it would all seem worth it. All the time we worried, would look silly and the good times, too short! Although, it would be nice if all of us had a job then!! So, "may the force be with us all" !