the same old generation-work-inspiration crap. why do you think this is so ?
well, i've been hearing for the past 2 years professors ranting about the fact that the quality of IITs are coming down, that the students aren't performing as well as their generation of IITians did. so, here is me ranting about the profs. well it isn't exactly ranting, but i would like to put forward my reason as to why we're not as good as their generation is. well it isnt exactly what we're supposed to do, like try coming up with theories as to why we're not as good when we can use the same time to try work and learn. well, i dont have an answer for that. so, well here goes my answer to the other question.
have you people(my generation of 21st century geeks) seen videos of the moon landing, have u seen web cast of shuttles taking off, have you read of the thrills of the wall street IT boom of the 80's, have you heard of the stories from people working on the first generations of the computers and the internet ...well if you haven't you may not understand the meaning of this post.
there are three things i think are really important to student life, for him to excel, for him to better himself, for him to realise his true passion and other crap like that.
the three i's of life - incentive, inspiration and innovation.
incentive :
from what i see, the only reason a student works is for incentives. as an example, students at iit madras work for shaastra and saarang because they can add something on their resume, bacause they get to brag about it to their friends and girls, because they get to interact with influential people in the campus and a very few bacause they are really passionate about tech, want to spread the awareness and they are all driven(by something like passion or red bull, hard to pin down). some do foreign interns because it lights up your resume, there are million things which students do, which are for an incentive that the prof might not realize, and think that the student is truly motivated to the topic, not wanting anything but knowledge out of the experience. and there are a lot of profs who say that they know of all our tricks, that they know how to pull all the stunts which we might try pulling off their eyes but they don'. because there is a great difference in the incentives of these generations. when compared to our patent generation, many of who had to work hard to get into a premier college, get a scholarship for undergraduate education and all for the sake of good future prospects. because their generation had less amenities compared to what we take for granted today, they in the process of wanting to provide for their children what they wanted to but couldn't experience, are ruining them. (i know it's kind of complicated to understand, but still try) we on the other hand have parents who shower money, gift the newest phone in the market, cover us from top to bottom whatever we want and now we've lost the incentive, the drive to look for something to provide to our future generation, we have so much that we dont care of the stuff we don't have right now, thinking that even those will be furnished sometime or the other, by someone or the other. so, there goes our incentive to work.
inspiration :
inspiration is really really important for a student to find interest, look for topics and try better himself in a field. in their generation, there were fewer radical changes in life, tech, economy and structures but whenever there were new developments, they were so big that they spanned the front pages of newspapers, they were discussed about for months on and students saw these huge path breaking developments which inspired them to work in the field. now, we have so much stuff going around, inspirational developments(in all sizes and shapes) going on every day, something huge is happening everyday, something important is being worked on every minute of everyday. so, when we try looking for inspiration we see so much stuff that we get lost in the sea of awesomeness. and the very few times when we do get inspired we look at another article on another topic which will just screw you over, blow you away and put you in a dilemma. so, finally we end up writing blog posts like these, wondering what to do.
innovation :
there is nothing much to write here. either you are a genius or you aren't. either your mind works every minute looking for a different way to do a different thing or all you can think of is why the blog is so long. but, you need not be genius to be be a brilliant person, all you need is enthusiasm, hard work and a lot of dedication. there are enough geniuses on this planet to last a life time, what the world needs is hard workers, who borrow ideas from the geniuses and develop them into something real, who are really just the messengers of the science and tech. but what would happen to science and tech without these messengers.
so, all i wanted to say finally is dont be depressed that you arent a genius, that you dont find any thing passionate. just take something up form somewhere and do something. it doesnt matter what you work on because if you dont like it, you can always change your topic. and it is never late to change. never. like i said,
" the world doesnt need anymore geniuses, it needs more hard workers who can implement the ideas which the geniuses are too busy for "
have you people(my generation of 21st century geeks) seen videos of the moon landing, have u seen web cast of shuttles taking off, have you read of the thrills of the wall street IT boom of the 80's, have you heard of the stories from people working on the first generations of the computers and the internet ...well if you haven't you may not understand the meaning of this post.
there are three things i think are really important to student life, for him to excel, for him to better himself, for him to realise his true passion and other crap like that.
the three i's of life - incentive, inspiration and innovation.
incentive :
from what i see, the only reason a student works is for incentives. as an example, students at iit madras work for shaastra and saarang because they can add something on their resume, bacause they get to brag about it to their friends and girls, because they get to interact with influential people in the campus and a very few bacause they are really passionate about tech, want to spread the awareness and they are all driven(by something like passion or red bull, hard to pin down). some do foreign interns because it lights up your resume, there are million things which students do, which are for an incentive that the prof might not realize, and think that the student is truly motivated to the topic, not wanting anything but knowledge out of the experience. and there are a lot of profs who say that they know of all our tricks, that they know how to pull all the stunts which we might try pulling off their eyes but they don'. because there is a great difference in the incentives of these generations. when compared to our patent generation, many of who had to work hard to get into a premier college, get a scholarship for undergraduate education and all for the sake of good future prospects. because their generation had less amenities compared to what we take for granted today, they in the process of wanting to provide for their children what they wanted to but couldn't experience, are ruining them. (i know it's kind of complicated to understand, but still try) we on the other hand have parents who shower money, gift the newest phone in the market, cover us from top to bottom whatever we want and now we've lost the incentive, the drive to look for something to provide to our future generation, we have so much that we dont care of the stuff we don't have right now, thinking that even those will be furnished sometime or the other, by someone or the other. so, there goes our incentive to work.
inspiration :
inspiration is really really important for a student to find interest, look for topics and try better himself in a field. in their generation, there were fewer radical changes in life, tech, economy and structures but whenever there were new developments, they were so big that they spanned the front pages of newspapers, they were discussed about for months on and students saw these huge path breaking developments which inspired them to work in the field. now, we have so much stuff going around, inspirational developments(in all sizes and shapes) going on every day, something huge is happening everyday, something important is being worked on every minute of everyday. so, when we try looking for inspiration we see so much stuff that we get lost in the sea of awesomeness. and the very few times when we do get inspired we look at another article on another topic which will just screw you over, blow you away and put you in a dilemma. so, finally we end up writing blog posts like these, wondering what to do.
innovation :
there is nothing much to write here. either you are a genius or you aren't. either your mind works every minute looking for a different way to do a different thing or all you can think of is why the blog is so long. but, you need not be genius to be be a brilliant person, all you need is enthusiasm, hard work and a lot of dedication. there are enough geniuses on this planet to last a life time, what the world needs is hard workers, who borrow ideas from the geniuses and develop them into something real, who are really just the messengers of the science and tech. but what would happen to science and tech without these messengers.
so, all i wanted to say finally is dont be depressed that you arent a genius, that you dont find any thing passionate. just take something up form somewhere and do something. it doesnt matter what you work on because if you dont like it, you can always change your topic. and it is never late to change. never. like i said,
" the world doesnt need anymore geniuses, it needs more hard workers who can implement the ideas which the geniuses are too busy for "
