A fearless, focused future

When it comes to college life, the first few semesters seems to come straight out of Archie Comics. There is a Archie in every college muddled between Veronica and Betty, the lazy Jughead, the annoying know-it-all Reggie and silly Moose.

While it's all about bunking college, breaking boundaries, making and breaking relationships, in the final semesters these students are suddenly asked to snap out of their perfect comic world set up and asked the question “What next?”

Then starts the scramble for credits, attendance, to complete projects and get the certificates in order and befriending the nemesis in the form of lecturers.

Forgoing their grunge look, these students embrace sobriety in the garb of formal wear to convince the companies that their wild days are over and they are ready for all the responsibilities that life throws at time. But the situation is no longer similar to that of Hrithik Roshan from the film Lakshya, most of these students have figured what they want and how they will achieve and therefore placements mean much more than just getting the best pay package.

“Though the final pay package matters but more importantly the portfolio of the company should match our area of interest,” says Prince Gupta a third year Electrical engineering student.

He says that someday he would like to start something on his own but at this stage he just wants to get as much experience as possible.

“I feel with a good work experience and the brand of the company will open a lot of doors for me in the future,” he says.

While most colleges provide the final year students with career counselling and train them through mock interviews, the short listing of companies and deciding on the offer is a student's prerogative.

Though teachers and parents stresses on good grades in order to get a good job, placement coordinator and a B.Com third year student Hazel Rashmi says as long as the students clear all the papers they are eligible to sit for placements.

“In fact, every company has a specific cut off, if the students clear it they are eligible to sit for the placements,” she says.

The past record of the college and its brand name matters a lot when a company short list a college for placements, says A. Shruti, HR executive of a MNC. “If the company is happy with the performance record of the students hired in the previous placements, they normally go back to the college for the next hiring process,” she explains.

Apart from the aptitude tests, it's the extra curricular activities and their performance at the interview matters when it comes to hiring a fresher.

“I am satisfied when a student clears the 60 percent cut off. It is qualities like eagerness to learn, out of the box ideas, attitude of the student that matters more when it comes to hiring,” says Amrita K. an interviewer. “I have often seen that if a student is ambitious their resume shows a healthy balance between marks and activities,” she says.

G. Madhu Sudhan a Mechanical engineering student adds, “During placements all the students are on the same platform. In fact a lot of the toppers don't get placed while the average performers land up with the best offers.” Sometimes, personal recommendations from professors also help students with the placements though none of it is official.

There are also some students who prefer not to sit for placements and have figured their own career plan. “I have always wanted to get into research and I have decided to do my masters in Robotics in Zurich,” says D. Krishnan Manaswi another engineering student.

It is no longer about marks and the rat race or securing a job but students are pursuing their interests and planning it well which even makes Rancho from 3 Idiots a little outdated.

IIT-JEE: Cracking the success code

A childhood dream nurtured by ambitious parents for some or an entire year after school completely dedicated to preparing for one test for some others. Ultimately it all boils down to one day — April 8, 2012, when the IIT-JEE is slated for.

Being the last year, the IIT-JEE continues to be as elusive and no one can really predict about. “There are no patterns that can be traced in JEE. No question is ever repeated,” says R. Gurumurthy, who trains students for the JEE exam. “However, since it is likely that the exam would be scrapped from the next year, there is high probability that there will not be any radical change introduced this year. The pattern is expected to remain the same.”

It is quite common to find students who have worked hard lose their cool in the last few days approaching the exam but students who have cracked the exam say it is important to remain clam. “JEE is about the concentrated effort you have put in over two years. There is not much that can be done in the days running up to the exam. So it is better that students read those areas they are thorough with. This can boost your confidence,” says Chandranshu Nanda, a second-year student of IIT-Madras.

The last few days can be effectively spent by working out question papers of previous years and answering test series in a simulated timed environment. It will also help in better time management during the examination, say trainers.

“When students write the exam it is important to go through the entire question paper once. If you cannot crack a question beyond four minutes, move on. Instead you can spend the remaining time effectively in answering other questions,” says Mayank N.K. Choudhary, a student of Biotechnlogy.

Class XII portions matter

Over the last four or five years, it has been noticed that there was an emphasis on the Class XII portions. “Don't ignore the portions in the board exams while preparing for JEE,” says Nishanth Tipathy, centre co-ordincator, Kilpauk branch, FIIT-JEE. “The weightage for Class XII topics such as modern physics, increased from the earlier four per cent to 10 per cent. Similarly, in organic chemistry the NCERT textbook is considered the Bible,” he says.

Answers on the web

In an attempt to increase transparency of the examination and to make it student-friendly certain measures are being taken. “This year we are giving students two pages in the ORS answer sheet. Instead of pencil, students should use a pen. They can take home the second carbonated copy,” says Arindam, chariman, IIT-JEE 2012. “There were too many RTIs filed for the answer sheets. The answers will be uploaded on the website shortly after the examination, and students can cross-check their answers,” he adds.

All said, it zeroes down to the performance of a student in those six hours. “Even that two-hour break between the two papers is crucial. There should be enough enthusiasm when we go for the second paper, even if paper-1 was tough. Often when we chat with others who might have found the exam easy, we lose our cool and end up faring poorly in the second paper too,” says Chandranshu Nanda.

Mayank agrees. “The whole environment is really tensed and I didn't want it to psyche me out. I listened to music for an hour, had lunch and walked around. After all, there is more to life than JEE.”

Strictures for schools

With an increasing number of incidents of schools practicing corporal punishment, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked schools to constitute special monitoring cells to take prompt action in cases of physical punishment or harassment of children.

The NCPCR guidelines on elimination of corporal punishment, unveiled here on Monday to mark the foundation day of the child rights panel, suggest that Corporal Punishment Monitoring Cells (CPMCs) should hear grievances related to corporal punishment, child sexual abuse, mental harassment and discrimination without any delay and should forward recommendations to district level authorities within 48 hours of the occurrence.

The panel has suggested that school boards should ask the schools affiliated to them to ensure a “corporal punishment-free environment”. This would be one of the conditions for granting affiliation or recognition while practice of physical punishment or mental harassment should be one of the grounds for withdrawal of affiliation.

The guidelines suggest that school teachers should provide a written undertaking that they would not engage in any action that could be construed as amounting to physical punishment, mental harassment or discrimination.

It also says that schools should have annual social audits of physical punishment, harassment and discrimination. The guidelines suggest that results of the audit should be made public before start of every new academic year.

All school children should be informed through campaigns and publicity drives that they have a right to speak against physical punishments, mental harassment and discrimination.

The NCPCR constituted comprehensive guidelines following a detailed study which was conducted in 2009-10 involving 6,632 children across seven States. The study showed that out of the 6, 632 children, 6, 623 children had reported experiencing some kind of punishment. As many as 81.2 per cent children had been subject to outward rejection by being told that they were not capable of learning or some other kind of verbal punishment.

Based on the findings of the report, NCPCR experts have formulated guidelines that stress on “positive engagement” with children.

The guidelines advise teachers to pay positive attention to children and appreciate good efforts while ignoring minor lapses. They also lay down that life skills education should be made a part of school curricula and should address issues of self esteem, aggression, drug abuse, decision making, coping with stress and others.

The guidelines also suggest that school authorities should hold meetings with parent-teacher bodies on the guidelines and decide which procedures they should adopt to protect children and their rights in school.

Speaking on the occasion, the NCPCR chairperson Shantha Sinha said that the “Commission has brought together some of the best minds and experts to draft its guidelines on corporal punishment.”

It's A Techie Life: Crack it with a click

It's time again for the annual brouhaha that is the medical and engineering entrance examinations. For those who can't up and go to places such as Thrissur and Pala to enrol for crash courses at entrance coaching centres, young techie Saiju V. Stella and his team at the Technopark-based Oztern Technology have come up with a viable solution – an “e-solution,” to be exact. Hopeful candidates can either head to one of the 2,200 citizen centres of the Akshaya e-services network to ‘e-learn' the entrance training programme or subscribe to its online version at www.entrancewisdom.com. Since late 2010 Oztern has an exclusive tie-up with the Prof. P.C. Thomas Classes, a leading entrance coaching centre in Thrissur.

Personalised training

“Oztern partners with content providers such as P.C. Thomas to provide personalised training to candidates. We don't create content, we just provide a platform to digitise existing content,” says Saiju, who began Oztern in 2009 with funding from five “like-minded” investors. The company specialises in cloud computing and has established itself as a player in the online education industry, capitalising on Microsoft's cloud computing infrastructure, Windows Azure, “to address the needs of training institutes, students, and education entrepreneurs alike.” To achieve this, Oztern created Rainbow, a comprehensive e-learning platform that enables customers to design and create content quickly and easily.

“E-learning is an emerging market in India. Most institutes and coaching centres have a good knowledge base in terms of content and expertise. Thus there is great scope for digitisation of content. Rainbow is an easy to use, simple-knowledge management platform, which any business user – be it a corporate, educational institution or government body – can use to gather and organise scattered knowledge assets that exist in their organisation, and efficiently deliver it to their learners, and that too with zero programming knowledge,” says Saiju, who worked for eight years in the United States and Northern Ireland before coming back home to the city to kick-start his ventutre.

“I've always been a fan of green technology, and wanted to start a software firm that specialises in environmentally-friendly cloud computing. That's why Oztern is named as such, the Oz referring to Ozone-friendly and ‘tern,' short-form for ‘tattern' meaning solution,” says Saiju.

His company, in association with Cell Technologies, also recently launched the e-tutor, a portable cloud-based e-gadget that makes available CBSE, ICSE, and State syllabi, supported with curriculum based info-graphics, all at the click of a button. The e-tablet was lauched by Infotech guru Sam Pitroda in January

Online education-Today's Buzzword

Students world over are whole-heartedly accepting online education. The advantages of online education have made it the popular mode of education among the students of all age groups in all parts of the world. This growing popularity of online education has led to the emergence of a large number of educational institutions offering online education for a wide range of subjects. The growth of educational institutions offering relearning facilities has been significantly high in the US, Europe and the developed nations of the world.

Online Education- Changing Perception

In the past people perceived online education as an unserious and unscrupulous way of laying hands of a fast degree and getting good grades without much effort and hard work. People also had doubts about the reputation of education institutes offering online education. However, the times have changes significantly and today the majority of educational institutions offering online education are well established. Most of the world's leading education institutions have commenced online programs, which vindicate the validity of online education. Most of the online courses offer in-depth learning to the students in their respective educational modules.

Factors Contributing To The Growth of Online Education

Online education is becoming popular because most of the educational institutions offering online courses ensure qualitative learning. Talented professors and subject matter experts are at the helm of affairs at almost all accredited universities and colleges offering online courses and online degree programs. The students can be assured of good results in such courses.

Here are some factors that have contributed to the fast paced growth of online education:

· Flexible schedule

The biggest advantage of online education is that the students can do effective utilization of their time, which is the most precious resource. People participating in online education have the freedom of maintaining a flexible schedule, which helps them tremendously and it has come as a boon for the people who are working and want to continue their education.

· Student-Centered Learning

The students in online education have an advantage because they are in charge of their learning experience. The students can prioritize their schedule and complete the assignments as per their comfort levels and convenience. This is possible because the teachers in online mode of education are not teaching you all the time. As an online student, you have the liberty to select the mode of learning.

· Fair Playing Field

Online education is growing in popularity because it offers a level playing field to all the students. When you are learning online, your performance is the only criterion that affects the decision-making and your gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and other considerations do not cloud the decision making process. This is one of the major factors contributing to the growth of online education.

All these advantages of online education may prompt you to join e learning. However, before you take the plunge and enroll in an online course, please make sure that you are familiar with the methodology of online education.