How to evaluate an Engineer?

My semester exams are going on now and I have been (supposedly) spending most of my time studying for it. Not really studying, its more like mugging up. That makes me wonder how good an evaluation system our B.Tech examinations are.

From what I know, an engineer must be someone who applies his knowledge to engineer some ingenious things. Does that mean he needs to remember every theory in the world word-by-word? Hmm. Our University of Kerala seems to think so, unfortunately. The whole model and structure of their examinations makes us not want to apply anything anywhere!

We had this subject called “Information system for managers” this year. It was a rather interesting paper, but somehow the univ guys have managed to spoil it. You ask anyone in my class what the paper was about and I’m sure not one of us would know anything more than you do :D . The question papers seem to be testing our memory and not whether we have actually understood what the good old proffessors had written in those textbooks. I thinks its time that the whole written exam thing is scrapped, atleast modified. I mean wouldn’t it be better if an engineer is evaluated on how many useful things that he can do rather than test how many bytes of information he has stored in his brain. I know its not something that will change overnight. But surely its doable.

Then you might ask me.. How to make that change? Hmm.. I’m just a poor engineer from the University of Kerala. How would I know! ;)

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Posted by Anoop Sankar
  • http://be-shyam.blogspot.com Shyam Balasubramoniam

    I feel that this has been the case since S1S2. So makes not much of a difference. Instead of testing “whay they know” they are testing “how much they know”. I strongly feel that such a trend is not doing any good. All we do is mug up some stuff and “vomit” it in the answer sheet.

  • http://vysnu.com/ Vishnu

    I agree too. Examinations are meant to test far more than retentivity. I’ve been talking to DP a lot about topics like this lately, and realized that the “educational theory” that we follow is so far behind the times that it appears as a vague dot to people at the edge of the field. Otoh, I do not think aping the west (i.e. US) is the solution… I read an article recently about how scientific education at the undergrad level is so bad in the US that they’d need remedial education if they were ever to attend a school in India. The depth of the disparity has sunk in too for a lot of people there, and the issue is being seriously looked at.

    DP tells me in some ways it is good that we are trained to mug up a lot and retain a lot in memory. For any person in any higher field to be successful, she says, a measure of retentivity is required. The degree of the “mugging up” though has to reduce tho the greater you specialize in the subject… If the examination papers were a wee bit different, and the teachers who teach us were both inspiring and brilliant, I’m sure we’d have no cause to complain.

    Regarding the ISM stuff you mentioned, I did a real life SWOT analysis and a break-even graph… it surely makes a world of a difference when you apply what you learn.. :-)

  • http://rustyshack.sig9.com Anoop

    Good to know that I have support for my arguements.

    Hmm.. DP always has an answer to everything. Doesn’t she? ;)

    Regarding the ISM thing, I was so interested in it actually. I’ve decided to do some research into it after the exams, when marks won’t be the priority.

    :)

  • http://gurupanguji.wordpress.com/ Guru Panguji

    Hey Rusty!!

    Long time man! I thought this site was outta here! Anyhoo, some amzing pics in ur Gallery man!!

    Awesome :-)! So, what’s happening there? Life’s good at good ol’ Bangalore. Keep blogging. I am shifting base from Lycos, as I can’t access the blog thru my corporate n/w! Moving to WordPress…

    http://gurupanguji.wordpress.com/

    And about evaluating an engineer, buddy, DO NOT WORRY! Infy, I heard has all the necessary material and programs to make an engineer outta anyone :-)!

    Enjoy!!!

  • http://rustyshack.sig9.com/ Anoop

    true. this was almost dead. hehe :) then one day i thought why not? ;)

    life’s as usual in tvpm. you rocking in b’lore eh.. so good.

    hope infy trains me well.. hmmm.. if u can be an engineer any1 can be one right? just kidding :D

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  • http://rustyshack.sig9.com/archives/23/ RustyShack » Blog Archive » Rusty’s Zietgeist 2005

    [...] cket 2. Gallery 3. Blog » Bangladesh beats Australia 4. Blog » A New Beginning 5. Blog » How to Evaluate an Engineer Visitor Nationality 1. USA (49%) [...]