It’s no secret that Indian parents tend to meddle play more of an active role in their children’s lives than do American ones. Nor does this end when kids go away to University. Still, I was surprised to see how seriously even the IIT schools take their role “in loco parents” (which is Latin for “as crazy overbearing parents”).
The authorities in India’s premier engineering institute, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay (Mumbai), have cut off internet access to students in hostels at night. They feel that 24-hour internet access is hampering students’ academic performance and overall personality development… “they preferred to sit in their rooms and surf the net rather than interact with their mates. Academics are of primary importance for us but we also want our students to have a well-rounded personality…” [Link]
Helloooo? Who are they kidding – it’s a geek factory and proud of it. If students wanted a well rounded personality, they wouldn’t be at IIT, they’d be out partying and enjoying the Bombay nightlife. Amazingly, they’re not even the first IIT to do this either, IIT Madras cuts off net access for a shorter period of time, from 1 AM to 5AM.
What’s it really about? Well, in part I think it’s about pr0n:
The dean of students affairs, Prakash Gopalan, said one only had to look at the hard drive of any of the students’ computers to see that bad content dominated over good. “In the end, this is the Indian taxpayers’ money as well as the IIT’s network and we have an obligation to ensure that it is not misused,” he said. [Link]
And in part it’s about exerting authority and making students show up to lecture:
… they were beginning to see a drop in attendance during morning lectures … “In the morning the students would not be fresh and attentive” … “It is working well for us now,” he said, “From personal experience I can tell you that I have two morning lectures beginning at 0800 and attendance is always 95%…” [Link]
Quite frankly, it’s absurd. If you’re training engineers, you want them to be able to work all night on their projects, and they need the internet to do so. This is like saying that you’re turning off electricity at night so that students don’t stay up all night studying, or worse yet, reading trashy novels. If you want students to show up for morning lectures, make them worth attending, and make the exams depend on in-class material. Otherwise trust your students to act like adults.
Yes, I know that few hostels in India give students all night internet access, and that in India it’s a privilege and not a right, but still they’re being treated like children. Amusingly though, they’re being treated in a way similar to Bill Gates’ children:
Bill Gates limits the amount of “screen time” for his kids. Not including homework requirements, he limits the time that his children can spend watching TV or using the computer. For example, his eldest daughter is only allowed 45 minutes of time on weekdays, and 60 on weekends. [Link]
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p> Still, given that Gates’ oldest child is 11 years old now, and that these kids will never have to work a day in their lives, it’s appalling to me that multiple IIT campuses are acting the same way.
“This is what most middle class students who plan to attend a college where admission is competitive, have to do. I did it. I did not play any sports in the last 2 years of high school. IIT-JEE( Joint entrance exam) classes start from grade 9 a full 3 year in advance. There is no way in HELL a person can be well rounded with a singular focus on standardized test taking through out the most important of the formative teen years.”
Is this true only in India or in the US too ? I did a lot of studying for my ACT/SAT but apparently not as much as students in India do.. And I understand that during the school year it is hard to socialize but don’t students make up for this during the summer time ?
And Can someone please tell me how to get those 3 dots on the left side and quote someone else’s comments ???
I’m assuming you’re using something like Safari, which is why you can’t see the handy WYSIWYG buttons above the comment box; if so, all you have to do is type: (blockquote)The text you’re trying to quote or indent(/blockquote). Just use “>” instead of “()”.
🙂
^^^Or switch to Camino.
Speaking of geeking, Shodan-san, is it WAY better than Firefox? I went to their site to try and figure that out, but aside from happily noting that Om Malik approved and that it’s all apple-flavored…oh, wait…both of those things should be enough. 😉
It’s FF’s lil bro for Mac. Loads pages faster and plays nice w/ bloggers, WYSIWYG buttons and all. Offers fun things for black-belt geeks. I hear Safari’s catching up.
This is a hilarious post, they should cut internet access! as a technonerd myself, i think there will be lashback, its hard enough to get away from technology now.
life should not be lived through a computer…right or am i crazy? There are many who will argue this, but my best bet is that they’re prolly just ugly and would rather reinvent a cyber image doctored up with photoshop.
They should just make a class called “Socializing” or “how to get game for engineers” at IIT, perhaps bus in some girls from some local state school, lol. T
Pedantic DDiA, I believe they are still around, but as bicycle parts suppliers to other bigger companies.
I agree with that B_F pretty much. I guess the real hard work that people do is to get into it. After that things are generally much more laidback in terms of work though not in terms of competition. While here it seems the work and competition really starts in the undergrads. As for the ‘well-rounded’ personality thing, I will quote Musharraf, “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’
50k apps for 11k seats – UCLA 250k apps for 4k seats – IIT
MIT has a charm class, although it’s not for credit. Engineers, don’t worry, Anna finds you charming whether you’ve been to charm school or not 😉
Having been an 18-22 year old, I certainly wouldn’t trust them to act like adults.
“24-hour internet access is hampering students’ academic performance and overall personality development”
I didn’t care for well roundedness. I slogged my ass off so that I can get a decent prospects in the world. I am sure most of the IITians from middle/lower middle class background felt the same around the time I went to IIT. I think it is a little bit different now in India.
In US you don’t have to slog your ass off just as long as you have some talent at something to have materially successful life.
Yeah I totally agree.. Kids can be evil..
I think it’s really cool that even in colleges in India there are kids that are in bands.. But what kind of music are they making / playing ?
Being a recent grad frm the iit-guwahati, I can attest to the internet addiction thingy…but cmon, you can’t force us off PRon….and regarding geek culture, well you can find the geekiest creatures but at the same time, there are many people here who have found their calling in things like theatre, music (rock mostly) and so on….and they keep the rest of us interested in non-geeky stuff that exists in the real world.