Some random judge said, "Let there be ID120.", and there was this totally vague and pointless course.
So yeah, we have these two courses that hardly a handful among those who do not populate the first two benches find it possible to distinguish between in their most wakeful of times. And about their nature, it would probably be an understatement of affairs to say that if a decade or two into the future a hearty old chap taps me on the shoulder in a crowded railway ticket counter queue and asks me to list the courses that I found the most futile, fiendishly loathsome and overwhelmingly anesthetic in college, I am confident of the identity of two of those. Brief descriptions follow.
ID120 - Ecology and Environment Studies or some such 8th-standard school course pushed up into IITM, supposedly after a startling revelation on the part of the Judicial elite of the nation as to the sad state of the air, water and general environment in the country. (The author disclaims vehemently any knowledge whatsoever of whatever was/is/will be taught in class.) After all, how high can expectations be of a course which is introduced with the lines, "This course is there by a Supreme Court order that all colleges should have such a course. You have no other choice but to study this. It is not in your hands.", by the Prof himself? (And ID in ID120 stands for something like Introduction to Design, I believe.)
BT101 - Biotechnology. Could actually have been a good course had it been less of a twin of the above mentioned ecology course and been handled a bit differently, especially without cramming about 600 students in three halls and devoting whole minutes each class to proclaiming a warning against bringing cell phones to the classroom. As it is now, I shall be surprised if anyone ever bothers about what the course involves. The question arises atleast thrice each class, once when entering the class and twice in those intermittent moments when one wakes up from glorious slumber to catch a wee glimpse of the goings-on around, as to whether one is in a BT class or ID. Seriously.
At the time of entering college, some of my foremost thoughts were:
1) Hostel!
2) Trees!!
3) Finally some time to pursue interests that the past two years hindered.
4) New friends!!
5) Freedom to study stuff that was of one's interest, and those alone.
In all the above I was satisfied quite amply, except the last one; and how at that - majority of the first year courses were stuff I'd gladly sacrifice to spend time watching this. I realised how mistaken I had been in believing that one could do just the courses one was interested in, and that most of your courses are decided for you and many among those shall as a rule be so leaf-witheringly boring and pointless that it becomes, in academic respects, not much more than a school. After school I was hoping to finally learn for some purpose higher than grades, but such an aspiration is all but devastated by the nature of courses you are made to take without your choice in it.
But then, in spite of this, I feel it likely that I am at one of the better-off places, with perhaps many of the best people around. One more thing - if I had my way, I should do away with classes altogether, for they seem to serve their purpose not as well as they were perhaps intended to.
And in light of Applied Mechanics 110, a few perhaps forgotten facts - I am in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and while all the stuff about bridges and trusses is occasionally interesting, four hours a week in that 3rd floor classroom isn't exactly what I bargained for.
An aside - for any claiming that engineering is a "better" or "higher" field than the sciences (there are quite a few of these guys) I have quite a few strong words.
