English for Engineers
The topic of this blog is the name under which English was taught to us in the first year at college. The major change I found in "English for Engineers" from the normal English course syllabus in other colleges was that we didn't have to learn literature. (Although many of my college-mates would heave a sigh of relief at this, I was very unhappy because of my love for literary stuff. I missed Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton and the likes..!!) On the other hand, we learnt many practical topics such as report writing, understanding technical essays, etc. I am not very sure how useful it turned out to be today, as I have moved away from the scientific world. Also, as I had developed a way of writing even when I was at school, I don't think this course had any significant impact on the way I write.
But much of the course was questions and exercises oriented, which really helped later when I wrote CAT (Common Admissions Test for IIMs). One topic I still remember was about using watermills for irrigation. That was a very boring piece of article and we were asked to rewrite it in our own words, describe some other everyday process using the format given, etc. Horrible stuff..
I am generally very enthusiastic in participating in the class in the linguistics courses and this course was no exception. Probably I was too enthusiastic is what I believe. I have heard some of my friends from rural schools remark that they would come to the English class expecting only a dialogue between the prof and few students including me. That is true to a certain extent. Especially true in the first semester, when our lecturer Ms.Padmini, used to encourage this behaviour of ours a lot. The notable offenders apart from myself were Chinthu, Bivash Das and Balaji.
A very happy thought from the first year is that the lecturer of the other section organised a debate competition for her students; and the judges were invited from our section. I was selected to be one of the three judges along with Chinthu and Kamini Dhanapalan. It was a very pleasant task (and a tough one too.) One topic in the debate was "Religion is the Opium of the masses" and it was debated upon by S.K. Paaul Randhip and Saishankar, both of them heavy weights. That was one of the high quality debates I have ever seen.
In the second semester, the English classes were held for the Instrumentation students together and we really mixed a lot during those classes, especially the day scholars. We would irritate our lecturer, Mrs. Kaveri, by doing all kinds of pranks in the class. I think I scored the highest grades in both semesters in the course. So no regrets. It was a very satisfying experience on the whole.
(Posted on 04-Aug-2003)
But much of the course was questions and exercises oriented, which really helped later when I wrote CAT (Common Admissions Test for IIMs). One topic I still remember was about using watermills for irrigation. That was a very boring piece of article and we were asked to rewrite it in our own words, describe some other everyday process using the format given, etc. Horrible stuff..
I am generally very enthusiastic in participating in the class in the linguistics courses and this course was no exception. Probably I was too enthusiastic is what I believe. I have heard some of my friends from rural schools remark that they would come to the English class expecting only a dialogue between the prof and few students including me. That is true to a certain extent. Especially true in the first semester, when our lecturer Ms.Padmini, used to encourage this behaviour of ours a lot. The notable offenders apart from myself were Chinthu, Bivash Das and Balaji.
A very happy thought from the first year is that the lecturer of the other section organised a debate competition for her students; and the judges were invited from our section. I was selected to be one of the three judges along with Chinthu and Kamini Dhanapalan. It was a very pleasant task (and a tough one too.) One topic in the debate was "Religion is the Opium of the masses" and it was debated upon by S.K. Paaul Randhip and Saishankar, both of them heavy weights. That was one of the high quality debates I have ever seen.
In the second semester, the English classes were held for the Instrumentation students together and we really mixed a lot during those classes, especially the day scholars. We would irritate our lecturer, Mrs. Kaveri, by doing all kinds of pranks in the class. I think I scored the highest grades in both semesters in the course. So no regrets. It was a very satisfying experience on the whole.
(Posted on 04-Aug-2003)
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