Exams@ IIT B

I had written about the grading system in IIT-Bombay. Now I thought I will write about the examination system.

I think one reason why IITs have been center for excellence (despite being Government institutions) for such a long time is the autonomy that they enjoy. Here the profs have complete freedom to design their course, their syllabus and also evaluating mechanism.

Generally purely theoretical subjects contain 2 Quiz, one end sem, one mid sem and weekly assignments as evaluating criteria. The number of marks alloted to them are not so important what matters is the “weightage” each of these criterias have. E.g. End sem for some profs is of 50% weightage where as some profs it’s only 10 and weekly assignments are of 80% weightage.

Other subjects where theory can be applied, e.g Artificial Intelligence, we have 2 Quizs (surprise quizs), Lots of programming assignments, 1 paper presentation, 1 Seminar is the form of book discussion. (Emperor’s new mind and Society of Mind), end sem and mid sem. And Guess what? All th Exams are open book exams. You are free to get your notes in examination hall and use them. And still I got only 40% .

Software Engineering is a subject where we haven’t got any exams at all. We are supposed to do a real project for real clients using the methodology in the class. 25% of marks are purely on what your client thinks of your project.

What I have realized here in these few months is, it is not about studying for exam but it is about accepting study as a way of life. I haven’t referred to a single textbook except one on mathematics till now, but the amount of thinking I have invested is lot more that what I did in 4 years of undergraduate education.

It is a real pleasure to learn these subjects from people who have absolute clarity about what they are talking. For example DBMS course will be taught by Sudarshan, the Korth and Sudarshan textbook fame.

I have not been able to make full benefit of the system yet. I rarely open my mouth in class because, my thinking process is very slow compared to others. It takes me more time to understand the subject and when the questions really occur in my mind, the prof is out of the class. Besides, for last so many years I had absolute disrespect for the Teacher-student learning model mostly due to the teacher I had in Goa Engineering College.

But overall the system is good and it is good because of the autonomy the institution has in managing its own affairs. Arjun Singh did screw up things by a fair amount that that is why 4 of us have to share one room. Lets hope Mr. Sibbal would not screw things harder.