I have a Solution that will reduce pressure on IIT aspirants but do not know how to get this across to HRD Minister of India. Suggestions are welcome. - Ram Krishnaswamy

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Thursday, June 2, 2011

17 - 22nd May 2006 - The life of an IIT Kanpur Student - IITK Student Blogspot

MONDAY, MAY 22, 2006
 
The F List
 
It had been a long time since I have been away from this site. But the recent suicide pulled me back to this. Before I dwell upon the suicide issue,I would rise a point about an important point -a point so frequently being raised in many forums ONLY inside IITK-The F List

To those of you who are not aware of what a F list is,here it goes-The F list is the list of the candidates who got an F(fail) grade in the subject. A common list is prepared for all the courses and is displayed near the UG office.Its updated everyday,right from the day the first course's grades get submitted.As such,its a common phenomena of displaying the F-list even before the exams get over in the first place for many.

The issue raised is this-The public display of ones so called "failure" effects ones ego and blah blah blah.............First-Yes, I agree that the display of the F list during the exam time is not a good idea. Do it after all the exams are over.This is feasible,as the exam dates' range is fixed.Now,some poppers who project themselves as the sympathisers of the downtrodden section-namely the F awardees give a solution for this as follows.-Dont display the F list at all and intimate the students through councellers aka sgs(another bunch of assholes,more about this later).This is a complete stupid way of doing thisngs.These poppers need to be chopped off.There are very few things the administration if IITK does right ,and these poppers want to wrong those too.The reason why I oppose this stupid idea is precisely this- Not all students who get an F expect an F beforehand,or atleast fear of one.This is particularly rampant in the IITKanpur ,thanx to the professors who keep changing the weightage of the course contents according to their whimps and fancies at any time without even making a formal announcement.You might popup and say-Hey buddy,where are you-the IITK constitution says that the weightage of different exams and other evalutaions has to be disclosed in the first week of the course.Me-Welcome to IITKanpur.Rules are the tools for manipulating you ,vested in the hands of the profs by profs,not for you to sheild or yield.In such cases,more often than not,its the students friends who happen to see his name in the F list and inform him by some means.This would give time for the student to plan his next semester-which courses to drop and which to take-And beleive me this is not an easy process.This phenomena becomes more severe for the AP(Academic Probation) students and the warning students,who have many things to do.If the guy gets to know that he got an F,he could save his termination by appealing to the human side of the other professor.You could challenge this reason-but I stick to my guns.And in case he is terminated,he has gonna do a lot of things,convince the parents that this is not the end of life and so on and on.....A direct termination letter in the hands of the parents without prior informing them is definitely not a confortable situation for the mental state of the student.
Ask any guy who has ever gotten an F or is under a probation or a warning,and 99 out of 100 will concur with my viewpoint.

So,my appeal to all those self-projected sympathisers of the self-seen F-listers as downtrodders is this- Stop this stupid request of asking the adminstration not to display the F list.It has more harm than good.And if you want to do something for the well being of the F lister,go ask them ,dont just keep farting at will .
posted by IIT Kanpur | 9:40 PM | 0 comments 
MONDAY, DECEMBER 05, 2005
Suicide in IIT Kanpur
@Bloggers -Thanx for your continued support and comments.


Most of you might have heard about the suicide in IIT Kanpur.If you didn't you might want to go through the the search via google.It gives some good enough and some masala links .

http://www.google.co.in/search?q=iit+kanpur+suicide

The student -Swapnil is from Nagpur,studying mechanical 2nd year at IITKanpur

Firstly,Is this a suicide?Facts first and then opinions follow. The boy's body was found near the JEE office(part of the faculty building).The autopsy report indicates that the right rib cage is heavily fractured and so is the left leg.And a few (4 I guess) teeth were broken.No major injuries anywhere else.One of my friends who saw the body reported seeing some blood(very little) near his nose.Blood near nose is quite common,in any case of accident.That he fell from the faculty building is beyond doubt.Thats the only way you can express such multiple fractures.But did he die because of those injuries???? I am forced to doubt.My experience says that a person dies from falling only when there is some injury to the head-The crucial part of the body.If one gets injured at other parts,its unlikely to lead to death(immediate death in this case).
The IIT Kanpur administration rested down the case saying its a suicide but the police refused to eat the cake.They are investigating.Though the logical part of my brain doubts if it is a suicide,my human nature is forcing me to accept it as a suicide.Reasons will follow in the next post,which I am posting immediately
posted by IIT Kanpur | 8:57 AM | 0 comments 
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2005
First Post
May be its not the right time to start a posting,considering that its exam time here.But,then,I thought I might as well put down a few rants.
posted by IIT Kanpur | 11:15 AM | 1 comments 
Life in IIT Kanpur
Fuck IITK.
This place sucked the juice out of my life.I am no more than a mere skeleton+flesh moving with no grace,with depression and humiliation taking the place of confidence and humility in me.
After seeing a recent article on a IIT Bombay student committing suicide,may be most of the outsiders,or even some insiders are surprised by it,but not me.I can imagine the life of torture and humiliation that nukkala(thats his surname) has been living,since my life in iitk is more or less close to him,if not same.
One senseless,but typical proffessor of IIT was commenting -""Every student making it to IIT is good. So when the best start competing with each other the pressure is bound to increase. Some take it in their stride, while a few succumb to it in some way or the other"

This is the best joke I have had in weeks.LOL. First,about competetion in IIT.Sure,some of the best students come to iitk,but they no more remain so.Competetion is none here.All the students are in search for new ways of getting easy grades and plagiarism and cheating rule the iitian life... I dont mean to say that all the students cheat.Yes,there are some sincere and studious students who give their 200% for a work.But they are 1 in 50.Yes,1 in 50. The remaining students can be broadly categorised into two categories -- One group,which learned the tactics of surviving in the iit system,i.e. successfully accomplishing in their acads(Read as "Not necessarily good at acads"),i.e getting good CPI's(Percentages)-The other group which keeps fighting with mud,who haven't learned how to get good grades.Honest and sincere ppl lie in both groups.I ,for one,am a member of the second group. So,in no way is there a competetion in IITK.Every one(almost) tries to get good grades by mean methods(mean to the heart,not necessarily to the law). Where then is the competetion that the professor talked about?

And yes,when you are a member of the elite! second group,you get shunned by every professor.Some keep their fight ,some resign-resign to the pressure to succeed-resign to the pressure of doing something their heart refuses to do-resign to the pressure of showing off something thats not original(plagiarism). Those that resign to the pressure will more or less succeed-in the iitk terms.Those that put the fight will sooner or later realise that they are fighting a loosing battle.They will eventually realise that its too late for them to change their personality and way of life.They will eventually end up with horrible grades,often getting their degrees extended or getting terminated...

Coming back to the case of Vijay Nukkala,the IITB student who committed suicide,he is not the only one who is dissatisfied with the branch that he got . 70 % of the students here dont get the branches that they want.And around 10% of the students dont choose the right branch,eventhough they have the option.I fall in the later category,as i secured a rank which is eligible for any branch in IIT. And the rest 30% " love the branch they get"- That's the phrase used .I would rather replace that phrase by "study that branch,for they dont know how to love-They dont even know what a feeling is-be it love or liking.They just do what they have to,or what they are trained to.They are the machines of the society without thoughts"