With APOGEE finally kicking off, we begin the intense five day technical festival. It is
disappointing that many students take their projects or papers for granted and merely
“complete” it by working on it only on the last few days. Many projects are often taken as CV
builders and certificate generators rather than opportunities to teach and learn.
We often see students hurriedly putting together a mish-mash attempt at something that
resembles the result of their project and submitting complete hogwash. We have often heard
our friends speak about doing a project in APOGEE and often, when asked why, a standard
reply is received “It’s good for the C.V. Companies look for this kind of thing.”
We feel the general mentality of the larger part BITSian population isn’t academically oriented
and is, instead, directed towards different ways to avoid classes while still mainitaining the
minimum amount of understanding to get past the tests. We often also see the other extreme –
students who study only to get marks. This is very similar to the attitude of the participants
towards many technical events – except in this case the motivation is a certificate or monetary.
We have had friends approach us sometimes to help them with their projects and sometimes to
perform sheer miracles. It is not possible to grow bacteria, culture and isolate them in less than
a day. It is not possible to build a bot to wash your dishes in less than a day. It is not possible…
At the same time, these exercises can often lead to serendipitous discoveries – such as one’s
ability to handle tight schedules and discoveries of shorter and faster methods. Certainly, these
discoveries are more than welcome, but perhaps we are forgetting the true meaning of why we
are here.
This issue of the Pulse covers an interesting conversation with a unique teacher – Walter Lewin,
as well as a few previews of interesting events as well as a light hearted piece on “the ways to
die this APOGEE.” The Pulse also takes on a stronger online presence with the blog serving as
an active site for immediate information on all the activities on campus that simply can’t be
kept on hold till the next issue.
Angad, Pranita, Siddhanth, Spriha, Tanya, IG;
Keep up with APOGEE on the go–
visit the APOGEE English Press
blog at http://aep14.wordpress.com
Hate mail or fan mail– text/
Whatsapp your thoughts to
+91844100742 or
+918233344553and we will feature
them on the blog.
Ajay, Debolina, Dumir, Khatkar, Kruti, Murali, Neel, Nithya,
Passey, Prateek, Ramya, Ritvik, Shalaka, Shruti, Steffie, Viraj;
Ananth, Anish, Archit, Krishnan, Madhu, Pratik, Rusheen,
Soumya, Srishti, Tanay, Tanmayee, Vijay;
Adithya, Akhilesh, Anirudh, Danish, Deeksha, Devina,
Gayatri, Ishani, Karthikeyan, Lasya, Manesh, Nihar, Sanket,
Shaurya, Shubham, Vishal
In the next issue of
Pulse, watch out for
more interviews with
Think Again speakers,
previews of upcoming
events and opinion
articles.
Also, read our coverage
of the much anticipated
inauguration of the new
academic block and the
array of events that
follow.