Events & the course developments
During the three year course, we came across several new exposures mixed with challenges .
1. With Books Examination This was a peculiar experience to the students. When the professor announced that there shall be "with books" examination, we all thought that this must be one way of encouraging students with motivation & give them high grades, But it was not to be !
When the professor announced the listing of the books in advance and allowed students to hand carry them into the examination hall everyone was thrilled and excited. Considering that involved cost for sourcing the recommended books we procured only limited sets and had understanding that the whole class shall share by rotational exchanges in the exam. All the students had the belief that our classmate Sh T N Somasundaram shall take the lead being the meritorious student ( His overall aggregate was 86.4% and his record was not broken as long as DMIT system was in vogue). The understanding was that he shall mark the answers in one copy of the book and circulate to reach the entire class. But surprisingly the asked question was so twisted that even he could not locate the chapter/page where the answer to that question was lying! After half an hour or so, we all resigned to fate and attempted to write some answer on our own without referring to any book/s. Everyone followed the general concept to the context and wrote. The joke was- even the professor who drafted that question paper could not really locate the pertinent answer in those books! He expressed blank. The end result- no student has failed since everyone attempted to write some answers what they thought was right. There the task of paper correction for the professor became tedious as there were no standard answers and several versions in place. We all enjoyed the miserable scenario.
2. Viva Voce examination The main objective was to test the orientation of each student for an interactive session where the entire class with most of the teaching staff present in a hall. The importance was to seek an objective type of response for the asked questions. Keeping that in mind, several students prepare some questions in advance and assign them to several of the classmates for questioning during the session. They shall ensure to take their seats scattered so that a feeling of questions emerging from all directions arose. Some of the staff members were aware of these dramas but in the interest of welfare of the students they used to ignore/overlook that aspect. Here I would like to share some examples: a) When the HOD asked Mr Ramachandran ( Koks) asked him why there was that long pause in response time to his question ? The professor was expecting that Koks shall answer it as 'second order lag" But Koks had different ideas. He came out with an ingenious response. As he was sitting in the last bench of the class, his response was - "Sir, it can be due to the effect of the velocity of sound". The whole clause including the professor applauded him.
b) As part of these viva voce, every student has to describe the functioning of any one instrument. As none of us have seen any instrument during the curriculum, it was left to our imagination. One of my classmates chose the Rain meter as his presentation and took a photo from a book. He took the help of another one to draw that in a portable black board and took help from others to transport to the hall. By mistake they placed the picture upside down and nobody noticed that folly. The session was over; then the one who copied it from the book questioned him. You know, what was his response? His reply _ "Nobody in this hall except me knows how a rain meter functions and none of us have seen that". So what I presented is final
c) We had one classmate who was champion in counter questioning. He was the one who shall never respond directly to any question asked. Rather on the same subject he used to put counters to the person who asked him that question. By that time the originator might have lost in thinking to answer him!
The original objective of the department to conduct these sort of viva voce was to train & orient the students to attend interviews as well as face large audience on the technical aspects of Instrument Technology.
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