Placements in colleges: now a history

All the folks in your graduation or post-graduation, please get ready to read this news in the media very soon. A lot of students have pinned their hopes on colleges for their lives ahead. All your hopes might come crashing down once this news becomes a reality soon. Prevention is better than cure. Instead of relying on the past record of history it would be quite helpful if students start relying on their own strengths and skills. Some of you might be wondering as to why this would happen very soon. Let me explain…

Few decades ago, there was nothing called as placements in colleges. Schools and colleges were meant to be places for pure education. They were just limited to teachers and students and a few other technical staff who would manage and run the entire show. Parents expected that their children would come out as the brightest students from the respective institutions and chose them based on the quality of teaching alone. Few years back, when the concept of placements was introduced into colleges, when few companies started recruiting people even before their graduation was complete it was a bonus for those students who performed really well up to the penultimate year in colleges. Since companies also could save time on interviewing a bunch of candidates just to select few, and hence save time, they collaborated with colleges to do the job of filtering the applicants. Even the few colleges chosen by companies, got the reputation amongst public for developing their students so well that they would be recognised by corporates even before convocation. So, it was a win-win situation for all. Unfortunately, as time passed this bonus no more remained a bonus; everyone wanted to make this bonus a part of the curriculum itself which started to ruin things in all directions for everyone. Applying facial make-up products at times can help you look better but applying them day and night shall only ruin your skin. The same started to happen in our education system.

Colleges were meant to concentrate to bring in good teachers, get good lab facilities, and conduct programs for overall development of students. Instead their focus shifted to getting companies to their campus to conduct placements for students. Naturally, the focus on earlier aspects reduced, and hence, the quality of education took a back seat. Companies also had to select students, no matter whether they were employable or not, only to maintain their good relations with the colleges due to past records and future hopes. On the contrary, students who chose colleges based on quality of education earlier, now started to blame the lack of quality, but still joined the same only with the hope for placements. Now, the students, who needed to concentrate on studying well and scoring good marks in tests, projects and exams, instead postponed their seriousness to the final year exclusively for placement tests and interviews. Obviously the subject knowledge went down in them. Hence the students’ quality also started decreasing cumulatively. Companies, who had tied up earlier with colleges depending on quality of education provided by the college and the quality of students graduating from the college, started losing hope on getting the best students from the college. Hence they stopped coming to colleges and students hopes went crashing down. Everyone was only losing in all directions. Colleges and companies started blaming students for lack of seriousness in studies and lack of skills while students started blaming colleges for lack of proper infrastructure and under-quality teaching. It only became a more vicious loop day by day as years passed by.

This has to end somewhere and equilibrium has to set in at some time in the very near future. As people say, ‘History repeats itself’, people will start realising soon the mistakes of their predecessors and start adopting the conventions of their predecessors following the rule of ‘Old is Gold’. Colleges shall soon shift their focus on giving the right quality in education than running around convincing companies to hire their students. Companies shall become choosier before entering any college, or might wait until the right candidates apply directly. Students have no other option but to change because college rules and company laws are in the hands of few wise people who might implement the changes overnight but, a student’s life is only in the hands of him/her. You need to make a wise choice for your life. You can no more depend on the college campus placements for deciding your future. Choose a college for the right quality of education, learn your subjects well, give your best in studies to score the best marks, use the time in college to develop yourself in multiple dimensions, and especially, take the help of teachers, not to adjust your attendance, but to clarify your doubts and answer your questions. Invest your time in developing yourself than your resume. It shall get built on its own and it shall speak to the company heads on your behalf in the interviews.

Many companies have stopped coming to colleges, many colleges have postponed their placement schedules, and many students are graduating out of colleges unemployed even with the best percentage. These are the signs to prove that the news in the title of today’s blog post is going to be in reality and in the media soon. Beware my dear students!

Learn the limits

Albert Einstein quoted that universe and human stupidity were infinite, while he was doubtful of the former one. No wonder that there is no limit to human stupidity. Its keeps growing day by day limitlessly. However apart from time and space which are eternal, everything else has a limit to its existence. Same is the scenario when it comes to we, humans. There is no question on the capacity of a human being which remains an ocean to be explored and exploited but in spite of this capacity there are certain shortcomings that we need to accept. These are called the limits or the check points which we need to learn about.

Everyone is blessed with some strengths and some weaknesses. There are positives and negatives in each and every individual. We can make a note of all our strengths and weaknesses. Earlier philosophy was to convert our weaknesses into strengths. As time progressed and the limit of available work time to finish all the tasks at hand started to crunch, new philosophy evolved which asked to only strengthen the strengths and just manage the weaknesses. I can be sure that the next philosophy to take birth will be a combination of both the earlier ones which will ask you to simultaneously strengthen your strengths while converting your weaknesses into strengths. Whichever of these philosophies you choose to follow is upto you as long as your work is completed within the time limit in the best expected manner. There are certain limits that we are used to till now in our lives. For example, one cannot go on continuously working for more than 8 hours, one cannot be awake for more than 16 hours continuously, one cannot read for more than 4 hours a day, one cannot sleep for more than 9 hours a night, one cannot write more than ten blogs a day etc. With respect to any work or fun we are involved in, we have certain threshold points beyond which we cannot go on. It's very important to be aware of such thresholds for the self in regard to various activities that we perform. These are what I call as limits and I advocate everyone of you reading this blog to learn such limits of yourself.

The disadvantage of being ignorant of such limits is that once you have tipped off the threshold for any such activity, you start feeling dragged towards the activity be it fun or work instead of being motivated. When you try to extend beyond the limit, you might end up with disturbed feelings and emotions which will further hamper the next course of action. When you are aware of your own limits, then you will clearly know as to when to take a break. Knowing your limits will also help you to plan your work and fun in proper balance to have a well-balanced life. Hence I reiterate to learn your limits.
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Unsettle the settled

Have you played the zig-zaw puzzle ever? Have you solved the rubik's cube? What did you feel when you saw the unsolved zig-zaw puzzle or the randomly arranged rubik's cube? Obviously if you're one who is interested in these you would have felt the urge inside yourself to try solving them. How would you feel after solving them? You would definitely feel happy to have solved them for few momemts after you solved them but later you will start losing the excitement that you had while solving. This is because there is no more challenge to your capability and there's nothing to solve, the problem itself ceases to exist. If there is no excitement in life then how would you feel living that boring life? This is not just limited to solving a zig-zaw puzzle or a rubik's cube or some maze, this is the crux of life.

Most of them are in the pursuit of settling their lives as soon as possible. Infact we are coached right from our childhood to achieve the same. The meaning of a settled life in today's world is to have a constant flow of income, constant hours of working, constant day-to-day work with a weekly off to complete personal work. Is this all life about? Did mankind evolve through series of civilizations only to live like a machine at the end of 21st century? People are under the false assumption that once life gets settled as said above you can live a happy life. How can one even accept this fact when one is being so monotonous with no adventure or excitement doing the same stuff in and out of the day? Friends! there is nothing called as a settled life for one who wants to explore life. Its only those who don't dare to put their strengths and skills to test and remain complacent with what's available think for a settled life. For those of you who are strong-minded to achieve and accomplish mighty dreams in life, settling is the last option that you can even think of. The moment you start feeling that you're doing the same work without any new innovation in it and start getting bored just switch on the light to take a leap. This is what I mean by unsettle the settled. Even in the age-old civilizations, those who settled down where good soil and water were available created small tribes but those who travelled and explored more of the world became the immortal names in the world history. The choice is yours to choose the life that you want.

Its a misconception that life gets settled once you start having a constant flow of income staying at one single place. New challenges and problems keep bouncing to challenge our settledness. People who don't modulate themselves for these new obstacles obviously get unsettled in this stream. So its upto us whether we wait for the problems to unsettle our lives or we move towards them because problems exist by default. Remember that you cannot construct storeys upon storeys with the same foundation, you have to break down the existing bungalow to construct the new monument.

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