I had planned on three lectures. Two of these would be technical: one on compilers and one more abstract and theoretical on complexity that I'd prepared just for this trip. While I was glad that students showed an appetite for technical stuff, I was equally interested in the third event, a free-wheeling discussion on career advice to be led by Sridhar and Smita (also batch of '80). The idea was to get students thinking about alternative careers, through discussion with Smita, who does wonderful work with rural primary education NGO's, and with Sridhar, who after a career in multimedia now teaches six-year-olds at the non-traditional Mirambika School in Delhi. More about this lecture below.
All the lectures took place in the brand new lecture theatre complex behind the C Block. Here's a view of the quadrangle inside the complex.
And here's Sridhar dispensing wisdom.
The classrooms in the new lecture theatre
complex are impressive: they're terraced,
aircooled and have modern projectors.
Attendance at my technical lectures was quite good, about 40 students in all. My second one spilled over my alloted time, but the students stayed on. I quite enjoyed the give and take at the end.
I wish I could say that our career advice session went as well as we would have liked. We tried to be provocative with our flyer but failed to draw a large audience. Apparently, the flyer was either not distributed sufficiently or did not receive prominent space on mess bulletin boards. Smita could not come and so Sridhar and I did our best with the kids present. We tried to provoke them into going beyond their first-IT-job fixation, something to which they readily admitted. We talked about alternative careers, office politics, stress, mid-career crises and such. Generally, the students were receptive, if a little shy. Many stopped to talk afterwards:
During my visit, I learned about an entirely new
category of students, M.E. students, now numbering about
60-70 per year, and therefore a visible presence on campus.
They live together, and sometimes pool in for a faculty
house. Who are these students? They're all interested
in the same first job and come from undergraduate colleges
without the quality or name that BITS has.
No BITS undergraduate, it seems, stays on for a Master's
degree.