Telephone behind a glass partition

Engineering Students

March 8th, 2008 Roshan Posted in People |

For years I have endured the incessant grumbling of engineering students, and while I listened to them patiently, it always amazed me how little effort they put in, when necessary, to change their lot. To make it worse, an engineering student’s problems are almost always caused by someone else, either parents, their teachers, their college or incredibly, Anna University. Unsurprisingly, these same students will either not protest - in an organised fashion, or at all - or they will riot like a bunch of mindless bulls damaging the property of their college, yelling like those retarded political supporters, and losing any credibility they had.

Of course, it is also incredibly surprising that engineering students in general are like this, because the large majority of them fall into the following categories: (omitting those who actually wanted to do engineering, because if they did they got into either the IITs, NITs, or any other top institute)

• Didn’t know what to do. Chose what friends did.
• Didn’t know what to do. Parents chose.
• Knew what to do. Chose what friends did anyway.
• Knew what to do. Couldn’t tell parents.
• Knew what to do. Overridden by parents.

Of these, those who didn’t know what to do have little right to complain. If they had the balls to do anything more than complain, they’d have dropped out as soon as they knew they didn’t want that course. Oh, but of course, the multi-lakh fee necessary wouldn’t make that possible. Sorry, but that is such incredible lack of sense I do not know where to begin. Lock yourself in, then complain. I could almost laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Those who knew what to do but either chose to do what their friends did or couldn’t tell their parents they wanted to are a sad lot, because they are unable to express what they want in a coherent manner. It is unlikely these would complain, unless part of a larger group of complaining engineers, because they’d be unable to make a statement outside a crowd. Other people call these people cowards. I don’t, I think they’re remarkable aware of the truth, that it is their own fault.

The largest group of grumblers, however, is the group of engineers whose choice wasn’t their own, but their parents. In every case but two, I have noticed that these are people who are incapable of leaving their comfort zone. They would rather live a life of suffering, grumbling every now and then, than sacrifice temporary lack of discomfort for a hope of later joy. If our independence movement had had leaders like these people, then it wouldn’t have been an independence movement. However, they are the most creative of the lot, and consequently, the most interesting. They will blame everything, I’ve heard of:

• Evil Parents - Okay, this is obvious. It is in the list for the sake of completeness.
• The Education System - Ooh, nice try. We all know the system sucks, but there are loads of us who got through unscathed, a hundred thousand counter-examples if you wish.
• Society - Wait, what?! This one is hilarious, society forced them to become engineers. They wanted to be pilots, artists, philosophers but when society didn’t like that they caved in like a Chinese coal mine.
• Parents - Yes, again! Because that’s what it comes down to, a weak attempt at rebellion, like a blog post about how “there will be revolution in the United States if they infringe on our freedom!” which is followed up with no such revolution. Talk is cheap, kids.

Since parents figure in the list twice, I thought it fair to talk a little more about them. With such draconian parents, people unwilling to accept that their children must be latent geniuses at something other than engineering, these people must be having a hard time going home and handing in their semester mark sheets showing a few miscellaneous arrears. Strangely, they don’t. They also don’t have any trouble bunking the occasional class, waking up at 2 in the afternoon, playing video games all the time or watching TV for long periods of time. So their parents aren’t foaming-at-the-mouth disciplinarians, or ex-army colonels, so it’s obvious where the problem is. Yes, brilliant! You guessed it, it’s not your brother, it’s not your sister, it’s you! Congratulations! Please come up to the podium.

Jesus, show some backbone. Whiners.