Gearing up for exams

Looks like it's that time of year again. Exams start up this Saturday, and are scheduled to go on until June 9th. Huge waste of a couple of weeks if you ask me - I could be wasting them so much more profitably...

For the next two weeks, therefore, things are going to get rather painful, with non stop studying day and night. More than any of our previous exams actually - this semester's syllabus seems to have that quality that dreams often have - you wake up and remember them perfectly, but by the end of the day the memories have faded away into nothingness...

Here's the usual TopCoder update: too much studying made Nadeem a dull boy at the last match. Though I cracked my usual quota of the first two problems, I might have taken the last one too, if I hadn't been so bugged...as usual, the solution was so damn simple I felt like kicking myself once it was done. Anyway, there'll be plenty of time to improve after the exams are over. These vacations are gonna rock!

On a more (ahem) *academic* note - I've been studying computer graphics today, and was once again amazed by the way a bad system and indifferent teachers(who are first class products of the system, and so by definition powerless to change it) can turn a fascinating subject into something inhumanly boring. Still, we can always have some fun learning it, but watching something wonderful perverted like this is more than my delicate sensitivities(yeah right...) can stand...

Lately I've begun wondering if the problem is me - every so often I turn up and rant about our bogus system, trashing it mercilessly every single time. Do I just have unreasonable expectations? Presumably that's the answer the *intelligent* people in charge would give me, muttering something about idealists who don't understand the problems of the real world. Gimme a break - there's nothing unreasonable about demanding competence from the people who teach you, and some understanding of the things that really matter from the people in charge.

What we really need is a filter - something that gets rid of those who don't give a damn or can't be bothered. That's why I really love competing at TopCoder - because unlike most of my classmates, everyone there really cares about coding. Of course, it's also true that there are things that I couldn't be bothered about, but I'm fully prepared to be filtered away in those cases. Paul Graham, in one of his fantastic essays about us nerds, happened to mention that American schools were something that most nerds hated - but college was something they loved, since the ones who didn't care weren't there(or at least, weren't doing computers or mathematics or whatever subject a nerd might be doing). Sadly, since our colleges are just glorified schools teaching more complex stuff, we still end up surrounded by people who don't love what they're doing. Worse still, they're in the majority, so once again being a nerd is something odd. Sigh...

This phenomenon isn't really restricted to India - after my last TopCoder match I was chatting with a fellow coder from Croatia who said things were the same there...

Hmmm...the filter suggests an interesting experiment - after the exams end, I'll send a little email to our class mailing list and ask everyone to join up at TopCoder(God knows Mumbai University needs a rating boost, and the same could be said for the country). If even 10 people start competing regularly, I'll...uh, decide at that time.

Looks like it's back to visible surface detection methods for me. To all Mumbai University engineering students out there, all the best for the exams - may your minds survive the experience...unless they've already succumbed to the numbing drudgery.