It always happens. Every single semester. Just when it looks like all the submissions will go down perfectly - BOOM! - they dump a cartload of work on us(and I mean cartload - the amount of paper that ends up in submission files every semester is phenomenal - the files weigh a ton!). The word has just gone out that we have to write stuff amounting to about 17 experiments and 10 assignments - and all in the space of two days. And so the suffering continues...
The most painful part is that the teachers all seem to take it for granted. It's almost impossible to find a teacher who will admit that the end of term screw ups are largely his/her fault - and even if they do, they don't seem to care. Teachers have shamelessly said stuff like "We suffered through this - what's wrong with you going through the same thing?" What's wrong? The fact that it's all completely unnecessary, that's what!
A huge part of applied CS deals with creating systems. Systems are created with some specific purpose in mind - they're supposed to do something. Without that unifying purpose, the system isn't just useless, it's pointless, just a big waste of time, money and creative energy.
This isn't just true for computer systems. There's a reason why management gurus talk about the 'systems approach.' It's because human beings create systems to do things all the time. In the long run, it's almost as natural as breathing.
Why have I suddenly dragged this into this rant? Because the stuff I'm ranting about is a symptom of a common problem we face with complex systems - losing sight of the purpose your system serves, and focusing all your energy on the system itself.
When you do this kind of thing, there's a sudden role reversal. All of a sudden, the system is all powerful and everything else is subordinated to it, including the people whose lives are supposed to be improved by it. Eventually the system turns into a vast, self perpetuating behemoth, and the original purpose is lost or hopelessly warped in the confusion.
Take a look at governments. Bureaucracy is the canonical example of a system having lost sight of its core purpose. The first bureaucrats were guys who decided to get things organized so that the government could run more smoothly, which meant that people's lives would be easier. What's the story now? Fill this form here, attach copies of such-and-such official document, make sure you keep painfully detailed records...
What happened? Why did everything go down the drain like this? Simply because the people who carried on the bureaucratic tradition weren't as smart as the guys who invented it. Most of them had only a rather hazy idea of what the entire setup was for, and so it was a lot easier to adopt the pencil pusher mentality and make sure that the little details were correct - this got stamped, that was signed, blah blah...And of course, each succeeding generation was trained by the previous one, eventually culminating in a bunch of guys whose only purpose is to sit around, take long breaks and quibble over ludicrously insignificant details.
Even today, people are still arguing over why communism failed. Though there were a billion other factors, the core reason should be clear - the rights and interests of the individual were subordinated to the interests of the state. Everyone totally forgot that the only reason the state existed was to make life easier for the individual.
One of the most famous slogans ever is JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." With respect to JFK, that line is ridiculous. Your country is supposed to do something for you - that's the whole point of having a society in the first place. People who 'serve' their country should properly do so out of a sense of self interest. In an ideal world, when you do something for your country, you indirectly do it for yourself, and patriotism be damned. In a nonideal world(read this one) you usually don't care enough, because at the back of your mind is always the nagging suspicion that somehow, you've been had.
Whew...that was pretty typical of me...what started as a rant turned into a weird sociopolitical discussion inspired by computer systems. Man, can I digress...
Running seriously low on sleep now...off to bed. Will continue preceding idea stream later...hopefully on Monday night, when most of the trouble should be over...
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2 comments:
Wanted io stick in that previous comment of mine for this blog, but i just scrolled down to the bottom of the page and hit the first "comment" hyperlink i saw....
Basically, this is where my previous comment belongs.
Its not as bad as u put it Nadeem. I agree that profs are not doing their work very well, but you are blaming the profs for your ignorance. Most of the people have finished all the work in the last week. Only ADBMS is left, which can duly be attributed to the prof's sloth and ignorance. But in the end, it is this sloth and this ignorance of his that will get us 20+ marks in termwork.
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