So this is obviously a continuation of the last post. When I signed off last time, my courses list looked like this:
______
1.Electromagnetic Theory and its Applications
(Compulsory ECE Core Course)
Speech Signal Processing Design for Testability
(I switched to the latter because it was a BS course; plus no one was doing SSP this year)
3.Mobile Robotics
(Coz I'm doing Honors in Robotics. Plus, it's an interesting course. :))
4.Problems of Indian Intellectual History
(Seemed pretty good. Although more of a safety option, thus the last on my preference list)
5.NO COURSE ALLOTED
6. Honors Project
______
Now the obvious worry was for course #5, the slot in which I had initially planned to take up a science course. Now I had 2 science options for this:
Advanced Biomolecular Architecture
Principles and Techniques of Instrumental Analysis
The former was supposed to be a busy but excellent course gradewise, so much so that the professor himself only accepted students with a low CGPA! XD
The latter was the one that had "No limit" for student intake (if only that were true) -_- On the night of my post, the limit was set to 60. Oh, the shortsighted fools. The result that was we all clamoured outside the professor's office, who, not having a problem with unlimited students, and claiming that it was the administration's fault, signed a sheet with our names on it and said we were part of the course now.
The next day, the random selection of students for ABA was out. Lucky as I am, I didn't get it. My only hope was the sheet that had been signed by the PTIA prof.
Now the morning after my rant/post, I ran to college as early as 8:00 AM. It turned out that Appaji's office (Appaji is the centre of the world, the go-to guy, the answer to life, etc.) would only open at 10 AM. So I cleaned my room again, and fell happily asleep (mornings are not really my thing). I woke up at 10:30 and rushed to the office, where I found a HUGE queue of unsatisfied students, and only Appaji handling them. Needless to say, horribly inefficient. Also, tempers were running high, frustrated fourth years with graduation requirements were yanking out their hair, third years being the last preference for anything were desperate for any course.. it was a sweaty madhouse.
When we finally got to the office, me and Aanchal (my friend who was in the same situation as I was) and Meenal (who hadn't been allotted even a single course) discovered, to our horror, that the sheet the PTIA prof had signed was not being considered. Leaving us courseless again.
We were slowly tending towards madness. We decided to run to the next block to beg professors for courses. Here we chanced upon an engineering elective, Green Buildings. In retrospect, a boring as heck course, but we were desperate -- who wanted to have a backlog of credits to complete in 4th year?
The Green Buildings guy said he could offer a few more seats in his course. But he said first preference those who had been given no course (here Meenal danced with joy) and then to fourth years. Still, we thought we'd try our luck. The prof put a call to Appaji, letting him know about us. We ran back to Appaji's office, stood in the serpentine line again, until we were looking at his irritated face again.
He said he couldn't give us the seats for sure, and kicked us out again. By now we had turned into monsters. We ran back to the other block again, and split up. Aanchal decided to beg her honors guide to do something about it. I, having no such trust on my own guide in these worldly matters, headed to the Humanities centre, and resigned myself to doing 2 humanities electives this semester (which I really didn't mind). But most of them were completely full, and the only way I could get one (other than the one I already had) was by special permission from the head of department himself.
Along the way of these amazing travels I'd met many fellow students in the same state as us: hungry, desperate, knocking on every door. I met a few more at the Humanities place, we tried our luck, then drew back, lost in thought of what we should do next.
At this point I had a vague feeling of something slipping away from me. I decided I'd try and find the guy offering the course Tech Entrepreneurship and beg for it.
As luck would have it, I walked in all worried and looking like crap, and found the guy. The TA and him exchanged glances, and finally he said, "Congrats, you got the last seat for the course!"
I nearly jumped on him in gratitude. Instead I fished out the Add/Drop Course form I'd been holding since morning and got him to sign it. I tracked down Aanchal to find that she too, had been able to secure a spot in the same course, with the same sinking feeling after her unsuccessful meet with her honors guide.
We marched happily to the office block again, to find that Appaji in his frustration had shut the door to everyone. People swarmed around it, angry, discontent, and yelling. Eventually the Dean of Academics arrived and opened the door, and asked us all to submit our forms to a peon and leave. We did so and cleared out, breathing a sigh of relief.
4 hours. That's how long we were running from block to block, professor to Appaji, to secure one damn elective. We got back to our hostel and bitched about the inefficiency, the useless (randomized) Preference Portal algorithm, and how over rated our college was, and no different from a government college in terms of red tape.
In the evening we (me, Nikki, Lavanya, and Aanchal) decided to treat ourselves and headed to The Chocolate Room, where I blew up all my money and happily ate, ate and ate all my worries away. Comfort eating FTW. :P
The moment I was at the hostel gate, Ria called with some sort of worrying news. I headed upstairs, where Appaji had sent a consolidated list of every elective of every student in 3rd and 4th year.
I hit Ctrl+F and searched for my roll number in the document.
I got not one elective, nor two..
BUT FOUR.
Green Buildings
Tech Entrepreneurship
PTIA
Problems of Indian Intellectual History
Two engineering courses, one science, and one humanities. I wasn't the only one-- Meenal had gone from having no electives to FIVE.
Now the problem with dropping courses after Add/Drop day was that you would get a W grade on your permanent record ("withdrawn"). So most of the night was spent worrying which course I would drop, and spamming Appaji with mails about the W grade.
The whole night went by, me changing my courses every 5 minutes, until I slept on it and with the sun, clarity dawned. Almost everyone had PTIA, and we could ride on the wave of relative grading to get by. Green Buildings was boring and the prof moody in his grading; Tech Entrepreneurship and Intellectual History were new courses. Which should I pick??
I had a 10AM class and so did Aanchal, so Meenal went to Appaji's office and waited, until he (sick and exasperated with us, no doubt) said we should mail him and he'll drop us out of the courses we didn't want, no W grade anywhere. Meanwhile I attended the Intellectual History class, and it was pretty great. I knew I had to take it and save myself from other boring subjects.
So the 3 of us turned our backs on PTIA together (like a boss!), and I ended up taking Tech Entrepreneurship (thus completing my one compulsory engineering elective) and Indian Intellectual History, a Humanities elective.
The next day I went to class.
Last link in the chain: I've downloaded a new app, Studious, that puts my phone on silent automatically when I'm in class. It also has the regular HW/test planner/calendar stuff. Dead useful. :D
______
1.Electromagnetic Theory and its Applications
(Compulsory ECE Core Course)
(I switched to the latter because it was a BS course; plus no one was doing SSP this year)
3.Mobile Robotics
(Coz I'm doing Honors in Robotics. Plus, it's an interesting course. :))
4.Problems of Indian Intellectual History
(Seemed pretty good. Although more of a safety option, thus the last on my preference list)
5.NO COURSE ALLOTED
6. Honors Project
______
Now the obvious worry was for course #5, the slot in which I had initially planned to take up a science course. Now I had 2 science options for this:
Advanced Biomolecular Architecture
Principles and Techniques of Instrumental Analysis
The former was supposed to be a busy but excellent course gradewise, so much so that the professor himself only accepted students with a low CGPA! XD
The latter was the one that had "No limit" for student intake (if only that were true) -_- On the night of my post, the limit was set to 60. Oh, the shortsighted fools. The result that was we all clamoured outside the professor's office, who, not having a problem with unlimited students, and claiming that it was the administration's fault, signed a sheet with our names on it and said we were part of the course now.
The next day, the random selection of students for ABA was out. Lucky as I am, I didn't get it. My only hope was the sheet that had been signed by the PTIA prof.
Now the morning after my rant/post, I ran to college as early as 8:00 AM. It turned out that Appaji's office (Appaji is the centre of the world, the go-to guy, the answer to life, etc.) would only open at 10 AM. So I cleaned my room again, and fell happily asleep (mornings are not really my thing). I woke up at 10:30 and rushed to the office, where I found a HUGE queue of unsatisfied students, and only Appaji handling them. Needless to say, horribly inefficient. Also, tempers were running high, frustrated fourth years with graduation requirements were yanking out their hair, third years being the last preference for anything were desperate for any course.. it was a sweaty madhouse.
When we finally got to the office, me and Aanchal (my friend who was in the same situation as I was) and Meenal (who hadn't been allotted even a single course) discovered, to our horror, that the sheet the PTIA prof had signed was not being considered. Leaving us courseless again.
We were slowly tending towards madness. We decided to run to the next block to beg professors for courses. Here we chanced upon an engineering elective, Green Buildings. In retrospect, a boring as heck course, but we were desperate -- who wanted to have a backlog of credits to complete in 4th year?
The Green Buildings guy said he could offer a few more seats in his course. But he said first preference those who had been given no course (here Meenal danced with joy) and then to fourth years. Still, we thought we'd try our luck. The prof put a call to Appaji, letting him know about us. We ran back to Appaji's office, stood in the serpentine line again, until we were looking at his irritated face again.
He said he couldn't give us the seats for sure, and kicked us out again. By now we had turned into monsters. We ran back to the other block again, and split up. Aanchal decided to beg her honors guide to do something about it. I, having no such trust on my own guide in these worldly matters, headed to the Humanities centre, and resigned myself to doing 2 humanities electives this semester (which I really didn't mind). But most of them were completely full, and the only way I could get one (other than the one I already had) was by special permission from the head of department himself.
Along the way of these amazing travels I'd met many fellow students in the same state as us: hungry, desperate, knocking on every door. I met a few more at the Humanities place, we tried our luck, then drew back, lost in thought of what we should do next.
At this point I had a vague feeling of something slipping away from me. I decided I'd try and find the guy offering the course Tech Entrepreneurship and beg for it.
As luck would have it, I walked in all worried and looking like crap, and found the guy. The TA and him exchanged glances, and finally he said, "Congrats, you got the last seat for the course!"
I nearly jumped on him in gratitude. Instead I fished out the Add/Drop Course form I'd been holding since morning and got him to sign it. I tracked down Aanchal to find that she too, had been able to secure a spot in the same course, with the same sinking feeling after her unsuccessful meet with her honors guide.
We marched happily to the office block again, to find that Appaji in his frustration had shut the door to everyone. People swarmed around it, angry, discontent, and yelling. Eventually the Dean of Academics arrived and opened the door, and asked us all to submit our forms to a peon and leave. We did so and cleared out, breathing a sigh of relief.
4 hours. That's how long we were running from block to block, professor to Appaji, to secure one damn elective. We got back to our hostel and bitched about the inefficiency, the useless (randomized) Preference Portal algorithm, and how over rated our college was, and no different from a government college in terms of red tape.
In the evening we (me, Nikki, Lavanya, and Aanchal) decided to treat ourselves and headed to The Chocolate Room, where I blew up all my money and happily ate, ate and ate all my worries away. Comfort eating FTW. :P
The moment I was at the hostel gate, Ria called with some sort of worrying news. I headed upstairs, where Appaji had sent a consolidated list of every elective of every student in 3rd and 4th year.
I hit Ctrl+F and searched for my roll number in the document.
I got not one elective, nor two..
BUT FOUR.
Green Buildings
Tech Entrepreneurship
PTIA
Problems of Indian Intellectual History
Two engineering courses, one science, and one humanities. I wasn't the only one-- Meenal had gone from having no electives to FIVE.
Now the problem with dropping courses after Add/Drop day was that you would get a W grade on your permanent record ("withdrawn"). So most of the night was spent worrying which course I would drop, and spamming Appaji with mails about the W grade.
The whole night went by, me changing my courses every 5 minutes, until I slept on it and with the sun, clarity dawned. Almost everyone had PTIA, and we could ride on the wave of relative grading to get by. Green Buildings was boring and the prof moody in his grading; Tech Entrepreneurship and Intellectual History were new courses. Which should I pick??
I had a 10AM class and so did Aanchal, so Meenal went to Appaji's office and waited, until he (sick and exasperated with us, no doubt) said we should mail him and he'll drop us out of the courses we didn't want, no W grade anywhere. Meanwhile I attended the Intellectual History class, and it was pretty great. I knew I had to take it and save myself from other boring subjects.
So the 3 of us turned our backs on PTIA together (like a boss!), and I ended up taking Tech Entrepreneurship (thus completing my one compulsory engineering elective) and Indian Intellectual History, a Humanities elective.
The next day I went to class.
Last link in the chain: I've downloaded a new app, Studious, that puts my phone on silent automatically when I'm in class. It also has the regular HW/test planner/calendar stuff. Dead useful. :D
8 comments:
It sounds even more horrifying the way you put it here. =S
Glad you came out of it okay.
And your courses really have such intimidating names. I feel like a country bumpkin for not comprehending them. =/
And while I wouldn't go to the Chocolate Room unless dragged by several exceedingly strong individuals, I heartily approve of the way in which it and other fancy food places are brightening up the city's otherwise dull and rocky landscape. Indians are getting fat now. =D
Lol, we don't get the course names too. Just go by gut feeling. XD
So far the "Problems of Indian Intellectual History" guy has proclaimed we're all European inside and products of European history, and something about India's glorifying it's own history. So, so far so good. :P
Hahahahaha. Indeed. :D Especially with the prospect of my own credit card now, spending money for food sounds like the only way to live :D
*its own history
I don't know him, but I like your professor. He bravely defies established wisdom to remove the veil that hides Truth's visage from mankind. He will go far - very far.
Brafrere 23
(That's what captcha said.)
Hahaha. :D Indeed he will.
There are rumors of him not coming to teach the course anymore, since he's a visiting professor and apparently commute is difficult. I certainly hope they're not true.
LOL
135 nuesvs to you, too. I think. XD
It would be thrilling to see "That's what captcha said!" become a meme. It's so much better than that other tired meme that people tend to resort to when they realize that they have no natural ability to make others laugh.
You can tell him to man up, and endure the commute for a semester. Tempt him with food, if you must. At my university, pretty much every invitation that is sent out to events at which the presence of students is desirable is accompanied by the legend, "There will be free food (usually pizza)". I don't know whether it will work that well on an Indian, though, for it is generally people who get enough food who tend to worship it. But, as we observed above in this very thread, Indians are becoming fat now. =D
Oh we do tempt students to march in huge numbers to college events with "snacks". They do come. :P
I do plan to hold pizza meetings for the 'zine this year. :D
Dude, you're up so late. >.>
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