Teaching Computer Science

Computer Science is one of the important branches in engineering today.  With vast areas of application and growth of internet has made it a specialized branch in engineering and applications. As far as a computer science student is concerned, if the engineering graduation is taken seriously, it has vast scope to build one's career being Mobile computing, Wireless networks, Network and Cyber Security etc., being the hot topics of today. Whatever is the subject of study, the teacher's role is to create interest in the mind of students by explaining the latest applications used by the students in their daily life. In particular to computer science, the best examples are FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn type of applications where algorithms, user interfaces, web technologies, etc. are used extensively to improve the features for the user.

The core subjects like Programming, Algorithms, Data Structures, Databases, Networks, etc. can be easily taught using the current social networking applications as examples. But the important issue is that the teachers should also be updated with these technologies and they should also explore the internal working of the applications. Most of the applications are now open source and the world is going by analyzing the tons of data that is moves over internet each and every second. Devices and applications used by the students are the best ways of relating the theoretical concepts with the applications.  This kind of approach will definitely make the students interested in the subject.  This also helps the students to think and improve their creative talents.  The concepts explained and the corresponding applications related should be thought provoking in the student's mind so that mind is driven automatically to the subject.

Most of the students have a wrong notion about programming, data structures, especially algorithms, mathematics courses, networks, compiler design, and other technology courses offered in the final semester.  When they cannot perform in programming in the first year, they lose the interest in the upcoming years. So, it is necessary to make them interested in problem solving thus improve their creativity.
(to be continued)

Finally what is (y)our contribution?

Education System of India

Teachers always blame the system, student blame teachers and need only marks, government needs money to run the institutions and finally who is responsible for a bad educational system?  It is the student who suffers and finally the nation loses.  Those who are brilliant find a room in any foreign university and starts contributing there! This is because, there is no proper platform in India for the engineers and scientists to grow. Why is that India depending on foreign countries for weaponary?  Why is that government promote foreign investment beyond a limit without encouraging traditional and domestic industries in all the sectors?
A lot of people write about the educational system in the news papers, discussions in the television channels, etc.  But finally, the question is what is (y)our contribution in improving Indian educational system?  I would say that as teachers, we can blame the students or the government or the statutory bodies only to a limited extent. It it the duty and responsibility of a teacher to make sure that a good percentage of students he/she teaches should come out with good knowledge in the subject taught.  I have seen teachers saying "this topic is out of syllabus".  Even if a topic is out of syllabus, what is harm in teaching that topic?  After all, knowledge is knowledge only.  Teaching is considered as a sacred job in Indian system and it is not a mistake to teach any topic even if it is outside the scope of syllabus.  The fact is that even if the topics are related, most of the teachers in teach only what is mentioned in the syllabus.  Syllabus book is their authority and not the teaching profession. One can also observe that the content in the syllabus is always based on the table of contents in one of the text books! Who knows if the publisher has bribed the university to recommend that textbook as the prescribed book? A good tecaher will always refer to more textbooks. Thanks to the internet revolution! Now there are lot of teaching materials available in the internet. There are tens of thousands of materials on all the topics and subjects under the Sun.

Now let me ask my dear teachers, what is your contribution to improve the educational system?

Time Management

Time management is one of the inevitable factors in life. Be it professional, family or a student life, it is very important. It is essential that the students have to apply dynamic time management to get best out of their studies. Usually, after joining the college, the student’s focus changes from time to time during the semester, based on the extracurricular activities, co-curricular activities, examinations, home assignments, and lab assignments, etc.  Especially in a credit based system, the focus changes according to one’s performance in the test and lab evaluation that happens as part of the continuous evaluation. I have seen students feeling depressed when the results for the periodical exams are published. Sometimes students become angry with the teacher for not getting the expected marks. The observation is that even an average student joins an engineering college assuming that he can enjoy the college life and this attitude in the first year itself brings disaster by scoring lesser marks in the subjects.  Along with that the new environment, new people, friends, etc make the situations worse to take the studies lightly. It is very much necessary for a student to have a flexible mind and attitude to adjust with the situations so that during the first year itself.  For a real aspirant, priority should be given to studies only and all the other activities shall be secondary. Why I mentioned "real" aspirant is that there are only a few ones who aspire to become an engineer in life to contribute something valuable to the society. Now-a-days, the number of seats for the engineering programmes in India is much more than that of the students who write the qualifying examination. Home Assignments, tutorials etc. should be seriously taken as aids for learning.  This helps to reduce the time taken to learn the topics later outside the class.  This may not be possible for all the students. In that case, better to invest more time for studies than the other activities. For that, one has to assess oneself and set the goal in the beginning itself.  Precisely, this depends on the interest and passion, nothing else. Co-curricular activities help to a greater extent if they are taken as opportunities to apply the technology and concepts learned in the class. Try to do the practical based on the theory so that the concepts learned in the theory classes become concrete in the mind.  In case if there is any failure in the subjects, it should be given priority, by allocating a certain amount of time each week so that finally during the examination it is easy to consolidate and write the examination.  As our ancestors say, it is not wise to keep everything at the end. Priority should be given to those subjects you find difficult to understand.  There are lots of resources available in the internet to learn all the subjects in this universe.  Make use of it.

More later…

Teaching those ones who are not at all interested in learning

Teaching those ones who are not at all interested in learning - The fourth category in the class, How to be a good teacher - 4

This is quite a challenging job!  These students should be given assignments with minimum challenge or less challenging compared with the one given to other students.  This can change their mindset by accepting the fact that it is possible for them also to learn and do things by themselves.  Another option I have tried is to counsel them personally which is again a tedious job.  Talking and convincing the students about their studies is very difficult.  It is rather difficult with these type of students who have taken a vow that they won't study.  This category of students join the programme just because of their parents pressurized them to join.  Their interest and parent's interest may be different.  In most of the cases it is so.  By talking to them personally, it is easy to find out the reason why they are not interested in learning. Though these kind of students are less in each class, for a teacher this is a challenging situation to bring them up.  It is ideal to have a neutral stand so that the other category of students are not affected because of these ones. The teacher should have a good patience to deal with these students so as to make them motivated or at least to make them pass for the examination.  In a credit based system, if the student fails, it is very difficult to cop up with the rest of the semesters and in case if the curriculum or the syllabus changes, then their whole career is in trouble.  So, it is the teacher's duty to make them work and awarding them suitable grades so that they don't suffer with the backlogs or failed subjects.

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ICPC WF - Battle of the Brains, St. Petersburg and Me

It was yet another ICPC WF for me, different from all the previous ones, of course in a different country. It was a gathering and competition of world's best of the best programming brains from more than 50 countries.  These best programmers are chosen from each country and they are the top in their country.  This is a programming contest that requires good mathematical knowledge, deep understanding of computer algorithms and programming languages.  One should be wise enough to solve the given problem and select the programming language best suitable to implement the given solution. 
I always think how they are here for the world finals each year and how they reached the level of this standard in programming. It is passion, their hard work with the determination, dedication and with the goal in mind – to become world’s best programmer.  It also requires a good level of patience and enthusiasm to keep the momentum till they reach the desired destination. There are a good number of students who think that all these hard work is not necessary or important in the career.  One of the major reasons is that it is easy to get a job in a service based company with high pay. Most of these students finally end up in testing or some kind of development which is not at all relevant to what they have studied. But those ones, who have the determination and goal in mind, reach a product based company with a better job prospects and career options. These best of the best programmers are behind the development and enhancement of the social networking websites like the FaceBook, Quora, Twitter, Google Circles, etc.  I should emphasis here that the youngsters should take these brains as role models in the career and studies.  These brains have self motivation, determination, patience and keeps struggling till they reach the goal. It is possible for any student to reach at that higher level with TRUE determination and hard work. But this has to be put into practice in order to reach the goal. Though it may sound easy, it is quite challenging for a beginner. Again, one has to accept the fact that each new job one get after the studies is challenging. Without learning new things in one's work environment, it is not easy to get adapted with new developments in science and technology. This also means, to survive, learning new things is very much essential and is inevitable. 
Computer Science has grown to new world of horizons to that extent which a normal person cannot simply avoid it in day to day life.  Now-a-days, it is impossible to run any business without a mobile phone.  Applications are packed with most of the mobile operating systems free of cost, used in everyday life. Let it be travel ticket reservation, finding the route using maps or health care, there is an application available in most of the mobile operating system platforms.  Same is the growth of internet and its applications that connect people from anywhere in the globe.