Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Modern(?) Education

Friends,


I never thought I will write something in life. Recently, few of my friends inspired me to write something and showed how easy it is through blogs. So, I start here with a hope that I shall write something good in life. So, here is something about me and my life and the education that has made me like me.

I don't remember when my education started. Parents got me admitted to school. I studied and studied and studied and completed std 10. Then, I was given an option whether I want to become an engineer or a doctor. I chose engineering and passed std 12 too. After whole lot of entrance exams, I got selected for one of the engineering colleges - REC Warangal. I was so happy, that I still remember my roll no for the entrance exam: 109608.

30-Nov-1994
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So far, I was just following instructions of parents/teachers or the crowd so that I can be part of one of them. Now, I came to Warangal and started looking at life and tried to learn what is it. Life wasn't same as I knew earlier. It required talking to other people, withstanding hardships (sometimes very harsh too!), having fun, doing nonsense sometimes, reading novels (!) and lot of other things that people have been telling me not to do so far. I never knew talking to girls is so interesting and fun (I was not so fortunate to be in co-education). I never knew one should read novels too. I was always told that reading novels is not a good habit. I should only read the text books. I never knew studies can be without text books too and one can go without any limit in any direction as long as the objective is same. 3 years got over. Now.... fight for a job. think about it. Everyone scared that I wouldn't get any job in manufacturing sector and I must take s/w stream for easy jobs. ok.. I managed to get a s/w job w/o knowing how to hold the mouse also. Here-on life takes a turn.

05-Oct-1998
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I came to world of s/w and joined one of the IT organization - Mahindra British Telecom Limited (MBT). All I knew was a bit of Pascal and C as I had two courses during college days. I worked on only dumb terminals where I needed to login as "b4145" and password and start writing the program. Compile it, Run it and take output and if you get a print, take it. Other than this, I was literally an "Angutha Chhaap". I started taking training - whole lot of training. Everyone would do something in the computers and I would watch them. I felt scared too while touching the computer as people will laugh at me. I was scared. I didn't know this world and seemed pretty alien. One fine morning, the instructor comes and says there is a test. I didn't know what to do. Test is on JCL, MVA etc etc ( I am not sure if I remember the terms also correctly). Question was given an I didn't know what to answer. All I knew that answers are there in the notebook. I thought it is cheating I shouldn't go for it. But, I would be thrown out if I fail. Others are answering the questions so easily and jumping around. I felt so helpless and .....I looked into the notebook and answered the questions and passed too. Later I felt so guilty. Then on, more tests, projects and I could clear them with little difficulty. Finally, training got over and project allocation day came. Everyone was scared as this day will decide their career. Many were assigned projects on mainframes, on open systems like c/c++ , VB, Oracle/D2K etc etc. Fortunately (or otherwise, I am not sure) I, along with a group of people, was also assigned to a project on Oracle/D2K. We were sent to another specialized training on these things. I came back from training. By now, I was expecting some thrilling experience about live projects. I was asked to continue working on my mini project. I was not given any live project. I worked on it. People came to me asking what am I doing. And I kept showing them my tool 'CRAT' (what a funky name !). It stands for Change Request Automation Tool. Tool was thrown, and I was assigned to some other project and group and s/w life started. I kept taking instructions and acted accordingly. Later, I started passing on instructions to people also. Life has been going like this only. If I look back today, I can't believe that I have spent 8 years here in this world. Thanks to the education I received earlier in life.

I have been thinking about the modern education system for a while. Is it really modern? Am I the only one who thinks it doesn't add any value to life? Instead, it degrades our lives. it doesn't leave us fit for anything else other than becoming servants. Are we born to become servants? Then who are the masters? What do they do? Do they also go through the same education system? If not, what do they go through? Which is better - ours or theirs?


Here is some of the information I have been reading:

Division of Labour:
http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/division_of_labor.html

The Johari Window:
http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/division_of_labor.html

Hope you liked it.