| |
The importance of a conscious academic culture
By Rishi Sinha ('95 CSE)
Every college campus
has a unique student culture of tackling the curriculum and approaching
career prospects. Common wisdom, rules of thumb, and survival
strategies are passed down through generations of students and alumni.
This culture, though loosely defined, strongly influences every
student's work ethic, approach to academia and career choices. (This
academic culture is distinct from the culture of extra-curricular and
social activities, though there are mutual interactions.)
Most culture is unconsciously developed. A high level of
self-fulfillment among all students can be achieved when they
consciously guide and cultivate the academic culture on their campus.
When academic activities are guided by a culture rooted in a
well-chosen philosophy, those activities will be well-informed and
well-directed.
I suggest that each BITS campus adopt this conscious approach to its
academic culture: realize that every bit of inter-student communication
about education and careers constitutes the campus' academic culture,
and guide all of that communication with a few simple principles.
Below, I propose these "few simple principles," but the all-important
essence of my message has been stated above: consciously guide academic
culture. This means when students talk amongst themselves about courses
and careers, they ensure they say things that agree with the "few
simple principles" they have chosen to adopt. Principles guide
communication; communication creates culture; culture affects actions.
The three simple principles that I think BITSians' academic culture
should be based on: context-awareness, retention of learning, and
excellence.
CONTEXT-AWARENESS
This is the principle that the student should seek answers to the
following questions. Why am I doing this? What role(s) am I being
prepared for? What can I do next? What are my predecessors doing?
Following this principle means relentlessly seeking information from
your predecessors—even those just one step ahead of you. If you
wonder what people do after BITS, gather as many alumni profiles as you
can find and note the paths taken. If you wonder what electrical
engineers really do, get in touch with a dozen of them at various
stages in their careers. If you wonder what technological pursuits are
currently important, visit the websites of journals and technology
companies. Find publications in your discipline that are tailored for
the Bachelor's level of knowledge. The idea is to seek context rather
than just tips. Finding out what alumni have done and what they plan to
do is more important than asking them how to do something. Ask
open-ended questions rather than pointed tactical questions that limit
the information you receive. Every graduating BISTian should have a
good understanding of the technologist’s role, and the only way
to do this is by continuously absorbing details of what other
technologists are doing.
RETENTION OF LEARNING
This is the principle that the student should retain what he learnt in
BITS at least till the end of BITS. I don't intend this to be the
gargantuan task that it sounds like. The key is to imagine you are a
plumber, an assertion that no doubt requires some explanation.
An intensive, immersive education such that provided by BITS is
chaotic, and I don't say that disparagingly. Most test preparation is a
race against time, some tests are cleared by the skin of the teeth, and
facts memorized for one test are soon lost in the jumble of other
tests. That is the nature of a demanding professional education. It is
no wonder that graduating BITSians often wonder how they could be
regarded as trained and qualified engineers against the background of
the extended chaos that they call their formal education: the 4 a.m.
ghoting, purging the brain after each compre, all the randomness
involved in getting test answers right. In contrast, our confidence in
other tool-wielders like plumbers and mechanics is much higher,
regardless of their level of experience. We believe in the clean mental
equation Plumbing Problem + Plumber = Plumbing Solution. While we do
not need this clarity of our own ability to succeed, it does make it
easier for us to excel.
The key to successful retention of learning (and clarity of ability) is
to extract order from the chaotic college experience. This changes a
course from being a dim memory of many complicated little things to a
clear list of a few essential skills. Furthermore, you don't even have
to carry these few skills in your head. Successful retention consists
of identifying the key concepts and techniques taught in a course,
learning them in the classroom, documenting them in a cheat sheet, and
retaining the books and notes pertaining to those particular topics.
Books and your own notes are important to retain, because they will
recreate your mental context later if and when you need to apply those
techniques. As it stands, there are many courses (mostly non-CDCs) that
most of us don't consciously retain anything from. Therefore,
consciously retaining even one non-trivial technique or concept from
each such course would be an improvement. How much is retained from
each course is entirely up to the individual. The essential idea is to
change a course from a chaotic memory to an ordered checklist, and to
be able to resurrect your mental context for the items on the checklist.
EXCELLENCE
The pursuit of excellence is a well-understood principle in BITS. All
students recognize that their CGPA is the externally visible sign of
achievement and try hard to keep their numbers up. Nevertheless, there
are three reasons it is necessary to consciously feed the principle of
excellence into the academic culture. First, it emphasizes actual test
marks. Too often, a course’s reputation as a
“low-average” course turns out to be a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The ideal academic culture prevents such mental barriers from
being reinforced. An emphasis on test marks automatically emphasizes
CGPA, and certainly goes beyond it. Second, a conscious emphasis on
excellence opens students’ eyes to areas of excellence other than
the CGPA—a useful effect, since large numbers of students who are
unable to break through to the high end of the CGPA scale tend to
unconsciously give up on the goal of excellence. Excellence can be
achieved in a particular group of courses, a particular semester or a
single research project. Not every student will graduate with a high
CGPA, but every student must achieve the goal of excellence in one or
two target zones. Third, an emphasis on excellence is useful for the
same reason that inspirational posters are useful—explicitly
stating a goal helps the mind focus on it, though it may be an obvious
goal.
The motivation for urging a conscious cultivation of academic culture
based on these three principles goes beyond the desire to improve on
what we are already doing. The deeper motivation is to do different
things than we have done before, and, of course, to do them well. A
BITS education enables us for diverse careers in natural and social
sciences, technology and business. When we have enough
context-awareness to fully realize our role as trained technologists,
and we have absorbed our training methodically so that we retain it and
confidently bring it to bear on a problem at a moment’s notice,
then we can apply ourselves to diverse fields that we previously did
not consider. If, at the end of BITS, you can pull out a scroll with a
simple and functional summary of the academic knowledge you have
acquired, have a good understanding of what people outside BITS are
doing with that knowledge, and have distinguished yourself in your
chosen test of excellence, you will be ready to fulfill yourself as a
true technologist. A conscious academic culture is essential to support
this process. Incorporating such a culture into a student body and then
perpetuating it is a challenging social exercise that I hope will
stimulate some eager BITSian students.
Rishi
Sinha is a doctoral student in computer science at the University of
Southern California. Prior to this he was a software engineer with IBM
Global Services, Pune. He graduated with a B.E.(Hons) in Computer
Science from BITS in 1999. At BITS, he was Chief Editor of Cactus
Flower (1998) and a member of the English Press Club and the Sandpaper
team. In his spare time he explores sunny Southern California and
obsesses over mid-20th-century Americana.
|
|
