Volume 10.3 – What’s Wrong with us?

Is IITB really an institute of excellence? InsIght takes a look at two student issues which need acknowledgment from within and immediate reform – dishonesty and lack of motivation

Academic Dishonesty

According to an informal survey, students rated IITB as (on a scale of 1 to 10) 7 in Academic Excellence, 9 in Cultural Activities and 5 in Academic Integrity. Why is it that only a fraction of us (students) do assignments honestly? What is the reason behind the lack of attention in classes? Why can we pass courses by studying just one day before exams? As a starting step, InsIghT interviewed a number of professors across departments with an aim to gain perspective on this problem.

“I do hereby certify on my honour that I have derived no assistance during the time of this examination from any source whatsoever.” – Princeton Honour Pledge.

“What’s yours in also mine”
“I come across assignments being cogged pretty often,” says Prof. A. Sanyal (CSE), who, while giving a warning, makes sure that those involved get no credit for that particular assignment. Although he adds, “It is very difficult personally to keep track of such cases and one has to rely on TAs who are largely responsible for checking the assignments.” While some professors take strict action, some feel that awarding of XXs and FRs is too harsh and others adopt different approaches. “I generally do not give assignments for evaluation. Problems given are discussed in class. In assignments, if I suspect that there is copying I try to ensure that the student knows the material,” says Prof. K. Rustagi (Physics), who otherwise awards no credit for cogged exams. Cogging is not restricted to assignments – “I made a student re-do his BTP when it was found to have been lifted from elsewhere,” states Prof. A. Contractor (Chemistry). With a similar view, Prof. S. Suryanarayanan (Mech) says, “Students found cogging in a BTP lose me as their project guide.”

“Copying of experimental data for projects has never been detected,” says Prof. K. K. Rao of the School of Biosciences, a school not admitting its students through the IIT- JEE. He also adds, “Copying of text invites
a penalty of rewriting the project.”

An Honour Code

Undergraduates at foreign universities agree to conform to an academic honesty policy called the Honour Code. Students write and sign an honour pledge, the breach of which invites serious penalty including expulsion. “Honouring such a code is not in the culture of the students,” says Prof. Suryanarayanan who believes that such a system will not work. Taking it further, Prof. Rao feels that the sympathetic tendency of the faculty will hamper it. “It might work if there is concerted effort on behalf of the faculty to enforce the punishment,” he adds.

Many students believe there is nothing wrong in cogging assignments or giving them to a friend to be cogged. The survey reveals that if harsh punishments are enforced, most of us would attempt the
assignment on our own before copying it.

Motivational Crisis

All of us agree there is a moral vacuum in IIT. But there is a general lack of motivation that seems to pervade in most activities across different fields. We have approached the issue of motivation from two different paradigms – 1) a basic lack of interest in academics 2) doing activities for ‘résumé value’. To quote Prof Ballal (MEMS), ‘Students are hawking the present for the future’.

Manifestations: Less than 30 percent of a class in any department does the assignments honestly. Proxies are rampant when the class is large and/or when the professor is known to be a lenient person. Fear of XX does have an effect on students; only cause them to come to class and sleep. The last couple of years has seen an inordinate increase in the number of organizations and posts, many of which are clerical in nature but seem grand on the résumé (E.g. Lights’ OC in PAFs). This rush is leading to a decrease in participation in cult and sports and a simultaneous reduction in quality.

Reasons

‘We can get away with it’: Or at least that’s what most IITians think. The IIT system doesn’t seem to be capable of checking these infractions, perhaps due to the sheer magnitude of the problem. Punishments that can have a deterring or reformative effect are hardly dispensed by the instructors. Most students believe that with minimal effort, supplemented with cogging and proxies they can sail through a course and get a BC or BB. ‘15/100…..pass ho gaya’: Professors know that a majority of students will not be able to answer difficult questions and a number of them repeat assignment questions or even previous years’ question papers lest there be many backlogs. “If the teacher finds that students are unable to cope, the course inevitably gets diluted,” says Prof. Rustagi. One can also ascribe this fact to professors being thoroughly disinterested. As Prof. Ballal says, “It takes time and effort to make a challenging question paper”. One solution he suggests is giving out strict punishments for a few years: give more FF’s, give more XX’s and severely penalize dishonesty. Leniency normally results in students taking calculated risks: the chance of being expelled when caught copying is really low because there is no precedent of it.

‘The balance sheet of life: Résumé’: Having a résumé with balanced academic and extra-curricular achievements is seen as crucial to securing the dream job four years down the line. Students however are influenced by misconceptions that merely being a CG or OC is a ticket to a good job as if it were a convenient subterfuge from academics. That this is hardly the case is supported by the recent BCG and McKinsey shortlists where the percentage of candidates with a CPI>8 were 90% and 70% respectively.

‘Brand IIT ‘: The rapidly expanding service sector demand for people with good quantitative ability is at an all time high. IIT with its brand value seems to be the ideal target for companies. They would rather hire an IITian with a low CPI rather than someone from a relatively lower ranked university. This means that students need hardly be good engineers: after all one need not perform structural analysis on the stock market right?

‘Weak branch’: Most students do not get the branch of their choice. Since there is no real interest in the branch, academics also tends to dip. Motivation wanes from lack of self esteem- the very chap who is the hero of his town feels insignificant here because he’s in the ‘wrong’ department. Most seek glory in organizing. The current third year batch has 35 managers, CGs and institute post holders in a class of 85. A reason for this phenomenon is also the perceived notion of what is required for a job: a CS 7 pointer is ‘qualified’ and likely to get a well- paying coding job; whereas core jobs for civil and metallurgy departments are hardly desirable opportunities.

‘Self Esteem’: This lack of self esteem is sometimes the reason behind cogging and copying. While most students hide behind the façade that ‘if we study we can do it’ most realize or feel that after some effort they will still not be able to do it. Might as well cog and get better grades!

‘Role models & collective culpability’: Most juniors idolize MI CGs and Techfest managers; the perceived glamour is a by- product of adept marketing. Students feel more satisfied planning an event at coffee shack rather than attending a lecture. Misconceptions are also handed down from seniors: about branch, CPI and job requirements.

‘Boring Lectures’: “Some students come to IIT considering it a stepping stone to a non-technical career and are not motivated towards their particular subjects,” says Prof. Rustagi. Were all instructors at JEE coaching centers interesting? How is it then that no one complained about instructors then? The reason could be that we all knew that unless concepts were mastered there was no way JEE could be cleared. If a similar system is applied here then maybe similar results could be achieved.

‘No time for Participation’: Despite a decrease in the number of events in the cultural calendar, many hostels put up poor quality entries or no entry at all. It is a commonly accepted fact across both the sports and cultural scene that the quality of participation is going down. No one really wants to practice a sport or pursue a hobby for the sake of it: the resume value is negligible. Many give up hobbies to pursue organization, but they do so half-heartedly leading to failure there as well. Many alumni have said that they learnt skills like scrabble, debating, and fine arts post coming to IIT. However these days prior knowledge is seen as an undue advantage: we can call it leveraging of a core competency.

(Arunabh and Rajlakshmi are final year students of the MEMS Department. Aditi is a third year student of Electrical Engineering Department. Sudarshan and Prachur are second year students of the Engineering Physics and Computer Science Departments respectively)