Comments on Travel Tales from India: Third Time Lucky (Warning! This is a Long Post)

Nilesh, I will have to agree that there are timepa...

2005-10-18T11:09:00.000+05:30

Nilesh, I will have to agree that there are timepass teachers too. No doubt about that.

Para, someday I will post about my present job. Right now too much is happening at once.

Rajeev, it depends that the offers you have are from which place? It would be a good idea to not to rush into things but if it is from a established place then you will not find such issues there. Thanks for taking time to leave your comment. Much appriciated.

Hi Mridula,I found your blog to be quite interesti...

2005-10-17T22:08:00.000+05:30

Hi Mridula,
I found your blog to be quite interesting. Usually I don't comment on blogs but I decided to do so after reading your blog on your experiences of teaching in a higher education institute in India (the other being your trip to Groningen). I had been thinking of coming back to India (have a few offers) and take up an academic assignment, but I guess I have to rethink now and maybe i should not rush in too soon. I don't thing one can find the independence available in the West in India.

hey mridula..u take the cake again..was an amzing ...

2005-10-16T07:20:00.000+05:30

hey mridula..
u take the cake again..was an amzing post and just opens ur eyes to the real world..i know ppl thnk such instances happened ages ago..but the rot still exists and is there to be handled..Lord alone knows when we will wake up to this fact..

but hey i cant even wait till your next post on how u got to...where u are right now..!!!

Cheers..

Para

Mridula, Nice to read about your experiances. i fe...

2005-10-13T19:32:00.000+05:30

Mridula,
Nice to read about your experiances.

i feel the situation is same everywhere (private schools or collages). in most of cases management is bunch of idiots interested in making only money.

for teachers, we have very few good ones like you and most of others again are timepass teachers.

i had graduated from a very good engineering institute (good in the sense of quality of students it used to get, toppers from state level eng entrance). teachers were mix of brilliant/timepass. good thing is that they used to get deserved treatment as well.

cheers
Nilesh

Yes, looks like we are talking about the same plac...

2005-10-12T16:43:00.000+05:30

Yes, looks like we are talking about the same place anon. My email is on my profile page. If ou wish, you can write to me.

Regards
Mridula

hey mridula,nice post there. however some of the p...

2005-10-12T13:05:00.000+05:30

hey mridula,
nice post there. however some of the persons you mentioned in the engg college that u teached in does ring a bell. without taking names, however, i just wanted to confirm. maybe you can tell me if the name of the management course was actually "Principles & Practices of Management" ? (taught to II year students of 5 branches in that college ??)

if yes, then i would like to add that i was one of your students there. i graduated last yr.

regards
anon

Suzunita, keep blogging. I have seen a few other p...

2005-10-08T11:53:00.000+05:30

Suzunita, keep blogging. I have seen a few other people starting with a few hestitant posts but developing into steady and wonderful bloggers.

Sumit, thank you. I know there are things that do not work even in the best of the systems :) and I used to cribb a lot as a student. But what I saw in these private institutes is in an entirely different league!

Well written.. Its rare to see professors writing ...

2005-10-07T23:56:00.000+05:30

Well written.. Its rare to see professors writing blogs and having the courage to point out the sundry wrongs in our system.

Hi Mridula: Thanks for reading my silly poem and l...

2005-10-07T22:17:00.000+05:30

Hi Mridula: Thanks for reading my silly poem and leaving a comment. I am just starting you know and its you who really inspired me to blog:). You write superbly, and from this post I can say you are a superb person too. Kudos to you for standing up for what you believe and not wielding down to pressure or get institutionalized. Wishing you all the best in life.

Kuffir, thanks a lot for sharing your insight here...

2005-10-07T17:16:00.000+05:30

Kuffir, thanks a lot for sharing your insight here. I agree with you, teachers are not a priority at such places and AICTE approval can come by hook or crook.

Emma, thanks a lot for your comment. I am so glad that you can understand better the comment I left at your blog. I will surely return to the post about my current job sometime soon.

Mridula,This was very evocative and I can imagine ...

2005-10-06T20:34:00.000+05:30

Mridula,
This was very evocative and I can imagine what it must have taken to put it down here. Thanks a lot for sharing. Now I understand better your suggestions about job-changing etc. I am glad you are where you are today, and thouroughly enjoying what you do. For all the struggles one goes through, this must be such a compensation. I would love to know more about how you got here.

those horror stories..what can one say ? it's good...

2005-10-06T11:00:00.000+05:30

those horror stories..what can one say ? it's good that you've recovered enough to look back and tell them.. i stopped looking at rankings after the first two years because i personally know a few people who run private educational institutions - they don't seem to think that good teachers, to put it in their own language, are a good investment.. they're just sundry expenses that've to be incurred in the course of running an institute. i'd long suspected that they consider the buildings and other 'infrastructure' that they invest in, mostly to wrangle the aicte approval, as the only things that are the essential elements of a college.. is it any surprise that they view pcs as more valuable than teachers..?
those of who were brought up on the old-fasioned notion that an educational institution is teachers and students need to rework on that idea..it is now smart management-venal regulatory agencies-degree buying students..the teachers are incidental elements in this new picture.
one of your best posts, mridula.

Momo, I do agree with you.Suzunita, IIT is not a p...

2005-10-06T09:58:00.000+05:30

Momo, I do agree with you.

Suzunita, IIT is not a private institute. People know about it, so much so that Dilbert comic strips now have a character named Asok, who graduated from IIT! I read your poem and enjoyed it a lot.

Pecos blue, someday, I will write about it. I feel so much more sane at my present work place. Thanks a lot for your comment.

Hey not fair I want to hear the good part and how ...

2005-10-05T02:20:00.000+05:30

Hey not fair I want to hear the good part and how you got to where are today. I am glad to hear you are somewhere better : )

I simply love your blog especially the travel tale...

2005-10-04T22:33:00.000+05:30

I simply love your blog especially the travel tales. I have been reading them and it has inspired me to start blogging (posted just one). Coming from India, I totally understand your experience in private institutions. At the same time, coming from one of the IITs I can tell you that we had to slog a lot on our own and there was no wish for cheating in exams. You have made this difference clear between the bad apples and others in the ensuing comments , but I would be grateful if you can make it clear in your blogs, so that students striving for higher studies abroad with all their integrity and hard work are not judged incorrectly. Please make it clear that this is not the case for all institutions in your blog.

I must agree - In the end, it's the relationships ...

2005-10-04T18:50:00.000+05:30

I must agree - In the end, it's the relationships with students that are the biggest reward.

Pooja, thanks for taking time and sharing your exp...

2005-10-04T09:57:00.000+05:30

Pooja, thanks for taking time and sharing your experiences with us. I guess, the lax attitude toward education at this scale is somewhat recent in India, and came with privatization.

Alka, I can see that reply by Thoughts got to you. I have to admit I too was taken aback, because it was so much against the spirit of whatever I had written, but let it be. Jaane bhi do.

Momo, I do not think that the institute used to give men any better time than women. In addition, many male faculty members were sole earning members of their household, so they had to take all the BS without retaliating. I always had the option of giving people a piece of my mind, because even if I left my job suddenly, it would not hurt our finances seriously.

I do cherish that mug, and the fact that a few of my students still call me or write to me.

mridula ~ Wow! What a fascinating job history. I s...

2005-10-04T04:28:00.000+05:30

mridula ~ Wow! What a fascinating job history. I see that these workplace difficulties are really everywhere across the globe. One thing I was wondering as I read this story (particularly at the part where the man questioned your ability to even close a window on a pc!) was how women are treated versus men in your particular job. As I read, I felt very angry for you because of how the management behaved. Were they equally rude/mean to the male faculty? Just wondering your opinion on this.

Also, it's great to see that picture of the mug. I remember you mentioned it on a comment on my blog sometime in the past. What a treasure to have it! :)

Thoughts attitude like this, that everything boils...

2005-10-04T02:33:00.000+05:30

Thoughts attitude like this, that everything boils down to "fun" makes eventually serious teachers to treat students like "fun" and ultimately teaching jobs as "fun" too. So in the end, its amply clear that who are having real "fun" and getting paid for it too. One of my teachers used to say "Chaku chahe Kharbooje pe gire, ya Kharbooja, Chakoo pe, katega Kharbooja hi!" I'm glad that we have the sense not to treat his lectures as "fun" time, today we know more about that subject than written in textbook. In fact he used to teach so nicely, that students from other streams used to come to listen to him, his everyday lectures. Sometimes no seats were vacunt and students used to stand through entire lecture! I too had fun with Profs but only with those, who "deserved" this and were poorely informed at their subjects. But they too made sure that in the end we gained something and not came out as zombies in front of this world. As far as I know Mridula puts her heart and soul in preparing every lecture and used to make it as near to international standard as possible reading latest happenings in that subject. No one can get her notes in 2-3 books put together. But still, if it is "fun" time for students, I think she too should concentrate on her research, rather than wasting her time with non serious persons like these who are only interested in having "fun" indiscrimately.

Mridula,Strange that I got to read this post today...

2005-10-04T00:04:00.000+05:30

Mridula,

Strange that I got to read this post today and only yesterday an interesting thing happened. I am visiting my husband presently who is doing his MBA studies. He got a call from one of his classmates who wanted him to give him the solution set to one of the take home assignments. My husband had to wiggle out of this one by politely saying "no". This was one of his newly found friends at college who was panicing right before the deadline for the assignment and I am sure my husband would have liked to help. The whole situation was very awkward for him and he pretty much spent the rest of the night wondering whether he should have helped or not or how he could have handled the situation better.

Infact, coming to the US and getting to experience first hand the educational environment here was a big eye opener for me and my husband. Its very different from what I had experienced in India with a lot of stress on academic integrity. I remember as a teaching assistant in Buffalo, I had discovered a student cheating on an assignment and she was immediately taken to task.

Thoughts, I was never with IIPM.

2005-10-03T20:58:00.000+05:30

Thoughts, I was never with IIPM.

Are you still at IIPM? Delhi/mumbai?Your posts do ...

2005-10-03T20:53:00.000+05:30

Are you still at IIPM? Delhi/mumbai?
Your posts do make interesting reads... reminds me of the time we gave the Profs a hard time.. and also the fact that the class used to be overfull for some of the lady profs thnx to the students from the other sections !those were fun days ....

Abi, thanks for taking time at my corner. I saw th...

2005-10-03T16:27:00.000+05:30

Abi, thanks for taking time at my corner. I saw that you teach at IISC! I guess having post grads only must be a blessing.

Many of the private colleges in India are bad. I am sure many government ones will also be bad but I have no personal experience of them.

Hi, I came here through a link at DesiPundit. Than...

2005-10-03T12:19:00.000+05:30

Hi, I came here through a link at DesiPundit.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I knew working in private colleges was quite horrible, but I didn't imagine that it would be this bad.

I have to break my responses otherwise they will b...

2005-10-03T11:36:00.000+05:30

I have to break my responses otherwise they will become longer than the post!

Teri, a friend left his Assistant Professor position at University of Michigan, because he said he could not teach 18 year olds! So I guess to some extent it has to be true. But in India at some places the atmosphere is outright shabby and dishonest.

Crystal, all my best wishes to your husband and you for finding a super postdoc position.

Charu, I remember attending a conference where one delegate told a member of the media that when it comes to college ranking, they do it by the suitcase, after a point. The member of the media had nothing to say in his defense.

I have no faith in India Today and Outlook surveys, after the first few ranks. After all, at some point Outlook gave IIPM a high rank. How did that happen? When I joined the place I am talking about, it was ranked 15, it still hangs somewhere there, though AICTE derecongized some of their programs recently and this may reflect in the magazine rankings.

My fellow faculty members (barring people like director and dean) and students at the engineering college were excellent. It was the management that was a bunch of idiots. Every year they would change the model of their cars, Skoda to Optra to Innova but the college had no money to buy new books for the library.