THE MAKING OF AN ENGINEER

It takes me back to those childhood days when I used to help achan (who is an electrician) with his small electrical works in and around my house. Being a small child I knew nothing more than fixing a screw. It was in one of those times that I heard the word engineer at first hopefully from him itself. He explained to me that an engineer is a master of all these works that I even went on to ask him whether an engineer also knows how to fix a tube light.

Engineering of course is the application of laws in physics and chemistry to make and enhance technologies that help to improve conditions of life on earth. Making of an engineer should hence be aimed at making him apply those laws effectively. Unless we learn the basics in these areas we are not going to put these things to make the so called technologies. Being an electrical engineering student here at University of kerala, I find that the three years that I’ve gone through has brought out little out of me or for that matter from any of those colleagues of mine apart from some formulas and theories.

A person with a huge passion for the subject might end up with a robot or a good project at the final year of his B.tech. which is the maximum that I’ve witnessed in my college days. I’ve even felt that certain subjects are there in the syllabus because they have to put eight papers before us in each semester. Instead the system could be redefined in a better way so as to equip the students with the minimum practical knowledge of engineering.

Even today we write exams explaining about rotating machines, transmission systems circuit breakers without even having seen some of them even once. I am sure the same would have happened with my friends in other branches also. The study of theory and proofs should have gone hand in hand with the practical applications of the same. The initiatives that a University could have done in this regard would have brought out a better engineer who is of some use to the society.

The labs in the colleges would have had facilities to make students see and understand those basic laws and machines. Demonstrations of the theories could have been a part of the curriculum. And until it is made so none of the college managements are going to take an initiative. And unless that initiative is taken the engineering degree is going to be a bunch of papers put together to make a degree. These things can’t happen overnight but can happen in a couple of years. But as far as my University is concerned it’s said to have revised the syllabus from 2008, but the papers in the new syllabus are nothing but rearrangement of the old papers without even having changed the contents in it.

The bodies like AICTE and UGC set up by the government have contributed very less to improving the education standards rather it concentrated more on enhancing the perks of teachers. There were two reports regarding technical education reforms of which the last one came two decades ago and haven’t found its way to implementation yet. Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) fellows made an observation in 2002 regarding technical education that none of the graduates entering the industries have an idea of the problems of the industry. Why that is so? It’s because they are not taught any real life problems. They only study the faults like why an equation didn’t end up the way it ought to be. In this context I would like to compare engineering with medicine where a student who comes out after completing his degree is at least able to fix the problem of a patient, whereas we engineers find it difficult to do the same with machines or circuits. The period of internship similar to doctors should be made mandatory for engineers also because any one who wants to excel in this field needs to have some practical experience before he actually goes into it.

I don’t think any colleges other than IITs, NITs and some other colleges, which will have these things as part their making of an engineer. At the final year of electrical engineering I still end up being with achan trying to fix screws back in place and seldom found successful in fixing the problems inside my house.

So I hope the whole technical education system in India will be reoriented to make the students see learn and understand things more effectively.