My experiences with education - Part II ( Pre - college )
As I have mentioned in my previous post, I did my schooling in Hyderabad- an educational hub.I doubt if there is any other city in India which produces as many engineers and doctors as Hyderabad does.I dont know whether it is good or bad but almost every guy who appears for the Engineering and medical entrance test ( EAMCET) gets a seat in some college or the other in the state.
Before I talk about my experiences in College, I will describe the educational scene in Hyderabad. Hyderabad is one city where the parents know more about the syllabus of the exams than the children themselves.There are certain localities in the city which are totally dedicated to coaching institutes, in these localities coaching institutes outnumber any other kind of business or non business entities, I think they even outnumber the grocery stores in that locality. There are also some offices where people spend more time discussing coaching centres and exams than on their work. Education in Hyderabad is a very very lucarative business at every level. You have coaching centres for almost every exam in the country- school exams ( class 2 onwards), board exams ( 7th and 10th), competitive exams like olympiads, science talent search exams,JEE, EAMCET, university exams, B.Com, B.Sc and IAS exams.People here are so obsessed with careers in Engineering and Medicine that preparation for the entrance exams like ( JEE and EAMCET) starts from class 8 onwards and sometimes even earlier (I am not kidding here).There are some interesting things about IIT preparation in Hyderabad which are worth mentioning. Not only are there coaching centres for IIT-JEE which conduct their own entrance exams for selecting candidates,but also coaching centres which conduct entrance exams for selecting students whom they can coach so that they can get into the reputed IIT-JEE coaching centres.As far as I know there are also institues( am not sure whether they conduct entrance exams or not) which train students for getting into coaching centres which train students for getting into the reputed IIT-JEE coaching centres.There are also intermediate colleges which give special privileges to students who belong to some of the IIT-JEE coaching centres.These special allowances are in the form of reduced attendance requirements, special timings for Laboratory Practicals which are a part of the Intermediate curriculum, special classes for subjects like English, Sanskrit, French etc.These colleges in return get the right to publish the photos of these students later in newspapers as a part of their advertisements if these students do well in the competitive exams.
Till class IX I was undecided as to whether I want to pursue higher studies in the Medical stream or the engineering stream because I liked maths and biology equally and I was decent at both the subjects.
My mom was a post graduate in Mathematics and my dad was an engineer and together they convinced me that pusuing higher studies in engineering was 'better' than pursuing higher studies in medicine because there were more options available for engineers, it took less time to complete engineering education as compared to medicine ( with its internship, specializations and super specializations ) and because engineering was 'relatively easier' when compared to medicine. Here I must admit that my greater liking for maths as compared to Biology also played a part in me choosing to pursue higher studies in engineering. It was drilled into me that I had to get into an IIT and I was also determined to get into IIT at any cost.Incidentally 12 members of my family( including my mom and my grandfather) are from IIT, Kharagpur. I must admit that I didnt know much about engineering then( not that I know something more now) and one of the major reasons for me wanting to go to IIT was the prestige associated with it and the respect people had for IIT.
From class 9 itself I started preparation for IIT. I registered for the Brilliant 1 year correspondence IIT-JEE foundation courses. Every month I used to get booklets full of theory and problems in Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I had to solve the problems and send it to the institute before I get the next set and they would send me back the corrected answer sheets.After a couple of times I was tired and stopped sending the solutions,I would just wait for the next set which had answers to the problems of the previous sets. ( Brilliant was lenient, there are some insttitutes where they dont send the next set unless you send them your solutions of the previous set).My mom ( a post graduate in Mathematics from IIT, Kharagpur) helped me with maths and my Grandfather ( a doctorate and a Physics professor from IIT, Kharagpur) helped me with my Physics.All this preparation helped me do well in the various science talent search examinations.
After I finished my high school exams in March 1995, I had a month to prepare for the entrance exams of the various IIT-JEE coaching institutes and the entrance exam for Little Flower Junior College.During that time LFJC was one of the very few intermediate colleges which had an entrance exam and it was also considered one of the best colleges in the city. As far as the IIT-JEE coaching centres were concerned, they were two institues namely Ramaiah ( There is also a Ramaiah Fan club on Orkut) and Krishnamurthy which were considered to be the best of the lot ( these were institutes with very high percentage of succesful candidates).I was determined to get into the 2-year IIT JEE coaching program at one of these institutes.
After one month of hard work ,I successfully cleared all the three exams I appeared for; Ramaiah, Krishnamurthy and Little Flower Junior College entrance exams.
Before I talk about my experiences in College, I will describe the educational scene in Hyderabad. Hyderabad is one city where the parents know more about the syllabus of the exams than the children themselves.There are certain localities in the city which are totally dedicated to coaching institutes, in these localities coaching institutes outnumber any other kind of business or non business entities, I think they even outnumber the grocery stores in that locality. There are also some offices where people spend more time discussing coaching centres and exams than on their work. Education in Hyderabad is a very very lucarative business at every level. You have coaching centres for almost every exam in the country- school exams ( class 2 onwards), board exams ( 7th and 10th), competitive exams like olympiads, science talent search exams,JEE, EAMCET, university exams, B.Com, B.Sc and IAS exams.People here are so obsessed with careers in Engineering and Medicine that preparation for the entrance exams like ( JEE and EAMCET) starts from class 8 onwards and sometimes even earlier (I am not kidding here).There are some interesting things about IIT preparation in Hyderabad which are worth mentioning. Not only are there coaching centres for IIT-JEE which conduct their own entrance exams for selecting candidates,but also coaching centres which conduct entrance exams for selecting students whom they can coach so that they can get into the reputed IIT-JEE coaching centres.As far as I know there are also institues( am not sure whether they conduct entrance exams or not) which train students for getting into coaching centres which train students for getting into the reputed IIT-JEE coaching centres.There are also intermediate colleges which give special privileges to students who belong to some of the IIT-JEE coaching centres.These special allowances are in the form of reduced attendance requirements, special timings for Laboratory Practicals which are a part of the Intermediate curriculum, special classes for subjects like English, Sanskrit, French etc.These colleges in return get the right to publish the photos of these students later in newspapers as a part of their advertisements if these students do well in the competitive exams.
Till class IX I was undecided as to whether I want to pursue higher studies in the Medical stream or the engineering stream because I liked maths and biology equally and I was decent at both the subjects.
My mom was a post graduate in Mathematics and my dad was an engineer and together they convinced me that pusuing higher studies in engineering was 'better' than pursuing higher studies in medicine because there were more options available for engineers, it took less time to complete engineering education as compared to medicine ( with its internship, specializations and super specializations ) and because engineering was 'relatively easier' when compared to medicine. Here I must admit that my greater liking for maths as compared to Biology also played a part in me choosing to pursue higher studies in engineering. It was drilled into me that I had to get into an IIT and I was also determined to get into IIT at any cost.Incidentally 12 members of my family( including my mom and my grandfather) are from IIT, Kharagpur. I must admit that I didnt know much about engineering then( not that I know something more now) and one of the major reasons for me wanting to go to IIT was the prestige associated with it and the respect people had for IIT.
From class 9 itself I started preparation for IIT. I registered for the Brilliant 1 year correspondence IIT-JEE foundation courses. Every month I used to get booklets full of theory and problems in Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I had to solve the problems and send it to the institute before I get the next set and they would send me back the corrected answer sheets.After a couple of times I was tired and stopped sending the solutions,I would just wait for the next set which had answers to the problems of the previous sets. ( Brilliant was lenient, there are some insttitutes where they dont send the next set unless you send them your solutions of the previous set).My mom ( a post graduate in Mathematics from IIT, Kharagpur) helped me with maths and my Grandfather ( a doctorate and a Physics professor from IIT, Kharagpur) helped me with my Physics.All this preparation helped me do well in the various science talent search examinations.
After I finished my high school exams in March 1995, I had a month to prepare for the entrance exams of the various IIT-JEE coaching institutes and the entrance exam for Little Flower Junior College.During that time LFJC was one of the very few intermediate colleges which had an entrance exam and it was also considered one of the best colleges in the city. As far as the IIT-JEE coaching centres were concerned, they were two institues namely Ramaiah ( There is also a Ramaiah Fan club on Orkut) and Krishnamurthy which were considered to be the best of the lot ( these were institutes with very high percentage of succesful candidates).I was determined to get into the 2-year IIT JEE coaching program at one of these institutes.
After one month of hard work ,I successfully cleared all the three exams I appeared for; Ramaiah, Krishnamurthy and Little Flower Junior College entrance exams.
posted by Vamshi Jandhyala at 11:10 AM
5 Comments:
nice to see u devoting time to blogging. I c tho that u havent given me the rightful credit :P
nice going :)
What about life after ramaiah? did u get into an iit?what are you doing now??
The fourth part of 'my experiences with education' is unpublished.Will publish it sometime soon.I did my B.Tech in Aerospace Engg. from IIT Kharagpur and then worked for 3 years in a software firm called Juno Online Services Development Hyd. I just finished my MBA from IIM,Calcutta.
Velocity, can you tell me more about yourself?
hii,nice posts...i am a bitsian in my final semester..am doing a project for which i was searching and landed in your blog..liked it!!!byee
Nice blog - being from Hyderabad myself but several years older than you, I passed out from LFJC as well. Your blog recpatured some of those fantastic moments when preparing for JEE. (Disclaimer: I didn't crack it though)
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