At the very outset, I would like to submit that I have planned to include a wider view of the experience of studying the engineering degree course, by inviting views of some friends who were senior to us at LD – even though they happened to be in the ‘old’ course of three-year studies for earning an engineering degree. As such, these memoirs will be not simply recounting our memories but also will be retrospectively reflective as well – with that proverbial a pinch of salt that would make the nostalgia a bit tasteful, and meaningful, as well!
When I started recollecting the memories of the First Year of our five-year graduate engineering course @ LD College of Engineering, I thought that looking at it from so far-off (time) reference point, I should be able to see it in a clearer perspective than I indeed did see it then, from the very-close reference point of the present that we were actually living in. But as I try to put down more and more memories of that year here, do I see such a difference? When I started putting down my memories of events of the first year, I perceive that some events ought to have dazzled us or confused us or frightened us. Some of those events certainly were pleasantly interesting, whether direction-orienting or direction-determining or not, at least, then.
As such, I plan to organize these reminiscences of our first year in the three-part posts. Grouping them under the titles of these experiences that living those events that we felt or should have felt.
Dazzling . . ..!?
The very first thing that was ‘new’ to us was the semester system. However, our initial understanding that instead of five annual examinations, to be conducted by (Gujarat) University, we will now have ten examinations. I think we all accepted that ‘fact’ ‘as is’, since we did not have any reasons to think beyond that.
We also knew that we have entered a new field of studies. So, the titles of subjects, in our first semester timetable like Engineering drawing -1 or Workshops or Strength of materials – 1 etc. also we accepted ‘as is’, perhaps subconsciously knowing that we will have to cross many such ‘new’ bridges, so be it. However, seeing the familiar nouns like Mathematics, Chemistry, with the prefix ‘Engineering’ also did not cause any crease of curiosity on almost anyone of us. Possibly because, we, all, have been trained well to learn new ‘what’ and ‘how’. without ever thinking why we need to learn that ‘what’ and ‘how’. [In fact, I was to understand and appreciate the importance of ‘why’ almost two decades later, when I had to address the mechanism to assess the effectiveness of the training as part of the portfolio of ISO 9001 related activities.]
In the retrospect, it seems to me that in the natural course of development, a child gets conditioned to learn ‘what’ and ‘how of new things without questioning the ‘why’. However, during the schooling phase, if our education system had instilled the faculty of ‘why’ things are they were and then learn ‘what’ and how’ of it, then perhaps the questions that these issues would have raised in our mind or the answers that we may have got should have been of the dazzling magnitude.
I do not remember whether there were any discussions on such issues among the then first-year batchmates, primarily perhaps because getting to know ‘new’ mates had occupied all the space of our collective minds.
I will correlate this abstract looking thought with my personal example. At my personal level, I had had serial experiences of dealing with (totally) new environments that perhaps had conditioned my auto-adjustment system to get activated to adapt to any new situation. My first major face-off with ‘new’ environment was when I entered Virani Highschool, midway during an academic year in the 5th standard. Landing into Rajkot from Bhuj itself was a major change, both in terms of the first ever exposure to the ‘outside’ world and in terms of a totally new social culture. Then two and half years later, we again shifted to Ahmedabad, again leading to getting acquainted to life in a major city, that too in a new social milieu. Two more years later, we shifted the residence from a government colony located in a predominantly blue-collared working-class area in East Ahmedabad to a government colony in a middle-upper middle class solely residential area in West Ahmedabad. And then, I was required to study my Pre-Science course by staying at a hostel in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand. On the whole each of the change certainly had helped my overall development, one of which my auto-conditioning to adapt to a change. Of course, its should be certainly noted here that all these changes were because of factors beyond our control, and hence we had no reason, to ask ‘why’.
However, the entire batch of first year would not have had similar conditioning. By and large, everyone had as normal upbringing that every child gets through the adolescence. Therefore, more logically, lack of feeling any major surprise at the new academic environment can better be attributed to the possibility that we were (unconsciously) ready to tread a new path that would lead us to the engineering degree now that we had finally made it to the course. [The basic role of the first few days of first year was to induct us to the course that we become aware of what was in the store in the future and how does the course design is going to help us meet those challenges, and how the first year was going to provide that base. However, whether we did expect that we should have known such aspects or whether we were given to understand these issues or whether we could appreciate such issues is not relevant to the context of the present memoirs.]
Apart from the academics, one aspect that surprisingly did not apparently did not seem to have made significant impact on my (and so with most of the other students) was the vast, sparsely populated, but very-well laid out, campus of LD with imposing buildings, as it was then.
It seems it would be good idea to look at what feelings the students who had joined old – a three-year duration – course where one joined the engineering degree course after completing F.Y. B. Sc (or inter-science as it was known earlier. And see if they had had any other types of experiences in the first year that still remain fresh in their memories now.
Please permit me to take a pause at this juncture and regroup my recollections……Till such time that we meet again next month, I would request my LDCE71M batch-mates to share their recollection on the subject.
Continued till the next episode ….
The world is too small? or Is it? 