To hell with this lab work.....

As I wrote in the last post, the Campus recruitment drive broke loose all hell in our college. Right from the next day we had to work night outs to get all our assignments and records completed. And finally we did it.

But all the while I worked on my record, I couldn't help wondering what purpose, completing the record serves. That we didn't exactly follow the experiment is one thing and that we didn't even take down the right observations is another. But both these things rendered every thing useless. What's more? Even writing down the theory of the experiment is useless because we didn't write it by our self. We were first given all the material related to the exp. and were asked to copy it down twice- once in observation book and once in Lab record. Does this copying down serve any purpose?

The importance of lab work i.e., experimentation can't be over emphasized, especially for us in technical education. Thankfully not all labs are like that. I mean, at least some of the lab work
is done properly. But saying so can we afford to be so, even if its related to only a few subjects? I don't think so.

In India, especially at this conjecture, when cream of the students community from every branch is being sucked into IT & ITES, we need to get things like labs right. Lab work is supposed to rekindle the students' interest in relatively dry and boring theory subjects. But as long as the labs are as they are now, I don't think this objective is going to be realised.

And no, growth of Computers is not a bane. Indeed they granted us a boon in the form of Simulation Software related to various subjects like CAD, CAM, SPICE, HDL etc. All these need to be incorporated if we are to produce better Engineers.

And same as ever all I can do is only write about this....and hope some one who can do some thing reads this....