Wednesday 31 August 2011

Tuesday 23 August 2011

corruption

Assuming the new lokpal eradicates corruption, how will we have elctions? No funds -- no campaign-- no elections.

Sunday 21 August 2011

journalism.

The TV channels are full of the drama of Anna Hazare's fast. No one discusses the contents, its merits/otherwise of the bill they have proposed. I am happy to see some small peek of other viewpoints ...Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander have commented and that is seen at least as a scroll on our TV screens........the TV channels really need to learn some journalism.

Friday 12 August 2011

MSc and self confidence

A student who passed out from our college couple of years back, came to meet me the other day. He said he had finished his MSc in Organic Chemistry from one of the smaller universities in Maharashtra,
"Good to see you. So what are you planning to do now?"
"I wish to get into drug design, but I am not getting an opening in that area. I have a few offers for QC work, but my prof said I should do drug design."
"Good to see you are clear about what you want to do, but since you say you need a job urgently, why don't you take up the QC job and then shift to a drug design job whenever you get an opening?"
"No ma'm my prof said I must not take up QC jobs but must get into drug design"
"OK, that's good if you are so passionate about it, you must stick to it. What is it about drug design that you like?"
"Oh you know, like parenterals, formulations etc what we were taught in BSc"..he said this condescendingly to me ...as if he was enlightening me on the concept of drug design.
I was speechless after that.
Maybe he thought that drug design is making nice designs on capsules....shall we make the chloramphenicol pink and blue instead of the horrible green................The story is really tragic. We give very high degrees to students and make them believe they are now experts in the area of study. We do not give them any basic training in the subject, and worse, we do not evoke in them any desire to learn further.
Many students who are now pursuing a post graduate degree in state universities believe that since they have cleared the PG entrance exams, they are now experts. Their confidence in themselves is very high...much higher than what I had when I was 22. Is this a good thing or not? I am unable to decide.
Their confidence is really misplaced and prevents them from learning more. But on the other hand, lack of confidence is paralysing and leads to a lot of bad career choices.

Thursday 11 August 2011

IYC

There is a serious mismatch between the calendar year and the academic year. At the end of the last calendar year, we had thought we would do something to popularise Chemistry amongst the students and teachers in other departments during this year of Chemistry. However, Jan is not a good time for anything since there is a race on to complete the syllabus before the exams start ......internals in Feb and University exams in March. Then come the vacations.
In the next academic year, before we settle down with our admissions etc, it's the end of July.
So we have just started putting our plan in motion for what's left of the year.
The year has just begun for us!

Ceiling fan

 I read somewhere that as a solution for student suicides, IISc has decided to remove fans from hostel rooms. No fan, no suicide. This shoul...