VTU survival guide

I'm about to start my last semester under our "beloved" university, VTU. In the past 3 and a half years, I've been through some of the most awesome moments and some of the crappiest days of my very short life. When I was in the middle of these not-so-great moments, what I really wish I had was some early advice on what to expect, some do's and don'ts and some decent advice on how to handle a bad situation under VTU. In true spirit of the free internet culture, I'm going to share some of my thoughts and advices to you poor guys who're still starting out under VTU, with the hopes that you'll not land up in the same mess that I currently face myself in.

Warning: Following my advices and opinions have always lead to huge disasters!

This post turned out to be much longer than what I expected. I've tried my best to keep it short but given the nature of VTU, and an old habit of trying to expand two sentences into a 10 marks answer, the post has become REALLY huge.

Use the index below to jump to a topic you are interested in, or jump to the bottom for some tips and points.

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0. Index

1. About VTU.
2. Syllabus.
3. The real problem with VTU.
4. Things that no one told you when you joined VTU.
5. Big mistakes and how to avoid them.
6. Generally good VTU practices.

Ok, so here we go....

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1. About VTU.


Visvesvaraya Technological University, is one of the biggest Universities in India. (Yea, I know you already knew that.... I just needed something to get started with). What most people don't realize is that the government of Karnataka has a lot to do with VTU, in terms of administration and regulations and so on. For all the effort the government puts into VTU, the only thing they expect in return is building the University's reputation and improving its overall ranking. True, there is a lot of corruption somewhere behind the scenes and a lot of people are making big bucks out of VTU, but in the end, atleast one person somewhere really wants to improve VTU and make it the best University in India (Yea I didn't believe this initially either.)

The point is, someone has made some decent improvements behind the scenes. Compared to a lot of Universities in South India, VTU is very good at procedures, standardization and regulations. If you have lost your marks card, there is a very clear procedure on how to get another one. If you want to withdraw your marks and repeat a semester again, there is a procedure for that. There is a procedure for almost everything. These procedures might not be great, but they exist, they work almost flawlessly, and most importantly, someone always knows where you can find details about any procedure. Compared to most other Universities, VTU is really awesome when it comes to all this (There are very very few cases where the word "awesome" and VTU can exist in the same sentence. This is one of them!).

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2. Syllabus

Another thing that is pretty good under VTU is its syllabus. (I can see a million people rolling their eyes at this...) I'm not saying VTU syllabus is the best, but it is definitely not the among the worst. All you 2nd and 3rd year folks will realize what I'm saying only when you come to your final year and start interacting with people from other Universities. Before I go any further, I want to clear something: I'm only talking about the syllabus set by the VTU, not how it is implemented in the classroom and exams. The VTU syllabus, that is just the topics set by VTU, is pretty comprehensive, and if you want proof, take a look at MIT's open courseware to see their syllabus- you'll see that the topics covered in our syllabus is pretty awesome!

The most frequent complaint that I heard in my initial few semesters under VTU is that the syllabus is too shallow. This is absolutely true: VTU does not go all the way to the deepest depths of every concept. There is a reason behind it, that I discovered only in my 7th semester: a B.E degree isn't the ultimate degree. After B.E, one can proceed to do an M.Tech and later a PhD. And why do these higher education levels exist? Because engineering is too vast and too deep to be covered in 4 years (Even if you replace the useless first year with better subjects, there is still too much to cover). To get a scale of the depth involved, consider this: to get a PhD, a person works only on one topic, for around 5 years. In your B.E, that topic will probably be just one insignificant paragraph in one Chapter in one subject in one semester in one branch of engineering.

The point is, there is a border that divides what you should know to be able to work in a field and everything else there is to know in that field. It is not a well defined border, and what is not required for one person will be vital information for another person. Now VTU, like every other university, tries to draw the border line between everything there is that you can study in a field, and only what you need to know to work in that field, and limits B.E only to the latter part. You are always free to study further if you want to know more about something.

The second most popular complaint is that VTU syllabus is outdated. That is not true. Well, part of it is true, but its a little tricky to explain. Let me use an analogy to explain what happens:

Imagine you want to buy a computer. A computer with the newest technology will be too expensive for your budget, the cheapest computers don't have all the features that you need. You'll make a trade-off between the features that you want and your budget, and land up buying a computer that has all the features that you desperately need, and only some of the newest features. 3 years later, those new features would have become common in computers, but you will still be able to manage without them. About 7 years after you buy the computer, your computer will be so old that it will be impossible to continue using it, and you will have to shell out some cash and go for an upgrade.

This is a very common experience, and anyone who has ever purchased a computer will know exactly what I'm talking about. Ok, so how does VTU's syllabus relate to this?

You -> Engineering Industry
Latest features that your computer did not have -> Latest technology
Features that you desperately wanted -> Technology that is vital to an industry
Cost of upgrading to a new computer -> Cost of upgrading to new technology

The difference is, a computer can become outdated in 5 years, but some engineering concepts live for decades before they become outdated. What VTU tries to do is to present all the concepts that are required by an industry right now, some of the concepts that will soon become industry standards, and leave the remaining for M.Tech and PhD levels. This is not just done by VTU, but most universities follow this practice. If you have ever stepped into an industry, you'll be surprised to see how things you learnt in 3rd semester are still in use in most places.

Also, there are some cases where you need to know the outdated concepts to understand the current technologies. VTU tries to keep such stuff to a minimum, but in many cases they just can't be avoided.

Ok, by now you must be thinking I'm a huge VTU fan. I'm not. I was just trying to start on a positive note.

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3. The real problem with VTU.

The real problem with VTU is with the colleges affiliated to VTU, and more importantly, their faculty. This comes as no big surprise: India is a developing country even after 60 years of independence. For a lot of complicated social reasons, the only thing that most Indians are interested is money, good job and good family. Infact, a good job means nice salary and nice family. Now if you are an engineer, and have your whole career ahead of you, which would you pick? A great job in an MNC or a lousy paying job as a lecturer in a college? The choice is obvious. The result is, most of the people entering the teaching profession in engineering colleges are those who were of such bad quality that no one else wanted them. This is not always the case- there are people who take up teaching as a profession because they love to teach, but such people are usually found in IITs and NITs. Under VTU, most of the lecturers are people who can't find any other jobs.

This is where the problem starts. Even if VTU sets an amazing syllabus, it is these lecturers who are responsible to teach in classrooms, set the question papers and evaluate the answer scripts. Picture this: thousands of engineers graduate every year, most of them get jobs in an industry, and the worst are filtered out and put back into the system as lecturers. This problem affects different departments with different amplitudes: It is most pronounced in Computer Science fields, and is not all that apparent in say, a mechanical engineering department. When the worst of the lot return to set question papers and then evaluate the answer scripts, the result is the severely dysfunctional system that is VTU examinations.

If the whole point of examination is to test your skills as an engineer, then the effectiveness of the examination system in testing this is a good indication of how good a University is. And in this department, VTU scores a big fat zero.

In my opinion, the examination system is the most difficult part to implement in an engineering University. The reason is simple: A good engineer is one who solves problems in the most efficient, and usually, in very creative ways. In theory, a good engineering student is one who also demonstrates this ability. But to test a student's idea, one might require a formal proof or even a lab experiment to confirm the validity of a students idea. This is not very practical while evaluating an exam paper: no one can test the validity of every single idea in every single answer of all students. So, the evaluator has to rely on his personal experiences and knowledge of the field, to consider if an idea presented is feasible, and if it solves the problem as required, and then judge the overall quality of an engineer.

I can not imagine a VTU lecturer doing this!

Now if a lecturer can't test the answer, then he decides not to ask such questions. He will only ask those questions to which he can verify the answers. And this usually involves heavily depending on a textbook for the "correct" definition and the "correct" answer, and the whole examination system shifts its focus from "how good an engineer are you?" to "how much of this text book can you remember?".

The end result is the top scorers are the ones who are best at memorizing answers, not necessarily the best engineers in a class. I once heard a story about a VTU information science 4th rank student who didn't know how to update an antivirus software... Welcome to the reality of VTU!

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4. Things that no one told you when you joined VTU.

Here is a short list of points that I wish I knew about VTU early on.

- VTU does not test your knowledge of a subject in theory exams. Reading research articles about something and consulting wikipedia will not help you score more marks. Mugging up the textbook will help you score marks.

- Marks matter. You might have read all the research journals, written your own research papers also, and might know more about something than everyone else in the country. End of the day, what people will ask you are your marks. Be it an interview, or an application form for a masters in a foreign country, or even something as simple as how much a faculty member will try and help you- The only thing that matters here are your marks.

- Most colleges in VTU exist for making profit. They will not engage in research, they will not have great quality improvement programs to improve the quality of their teaching, and they do not invest in training and motivation workshops for their faculty. All they want is money, and they know that given the demand for an engineering seat is so great that there will always be someone who will come and take a seat in their college, irrespective of the quality.

-Good colleges are colleges that show atleast some interest in improving on the above points. Bad colleges are those that don't care about anything other than profit.

- All lecturers have ego, pride and a sense of self importance. Respect that. It pays.

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5. Big mistakes and how to avoid them

- Flunking in a subject in your 6th semester. Most of the important things happen during your 7th semester or just after your 7th semester- Job interviews, searching for a project for 8th semester or applying for higher studies. While having flunked in the past generally affects your attempt, it is not as serious as having a "running back"- a subject that you have flunked and still not cleared. This is the easiest way to get your application rejected immediately. The problem with flunking in 6th semester is, even clearing the subject along with your 7th semester is useless because you usually can not wait for your 7th semester results. Moral of the story- when you get your 6th semester exams, you should not have flunked in any subject.

- Sitting idle in your 5th, 6th and 7th semesters. There will be a lot of techinical fests, competitions on both national and international scales. There will be opportunities to intern at an industry. There are a lot of such things that you can do to add value to your resume. Do as many of these as you can.

- Screwing around with a faculty member. This is probably the biggest mistake that anyone can do. In your final year, you will heavily rely on each and every member of your faculty. The engineering course is designed in that way. Just don't mess with anyone.

- Scoring less than 15 in internals. Make sure you have atleast 15 in your internals. You might be the topper of your class. Or you might be confident of your marks scoring abilities in the final exam. Whatever the case, simply don't have a score of less than 15 in any subject in your internals. VTU has a nasty way of messing up a paper and it is very common for class toppers to score 35 marks. I know a lot of people who scored 40 marks in final exam, but failed because their internal score was 7 or 8.

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6. Generally good VTU practices.


- Maintain good contacts with someone in your department in atleast 2 other colleges. It is extremely useful to know how a subject has been handled in another college.

- Develop contacts with seniors. College seniors aren't very interested in ragging, especially the folks from Karnataka. We are a decent lot, and as a senior, you'll find yourself eager to help any junior who asks for it. Don't hesitate to approach your seniors.

- Get involved in college activities. It is not a bad thing to volunteer for your college fests. Missing classes is OK in these cases also. It is the best way to make new friends in college.

- Make sure your faculty members know you and like you. Do not try to be invisible. It is extremely helpful if you are in friendly terms with atlest 2 or 3 members of your faculty.

- Find a way to be informed about the latest developments in technology. You can either get involved with the open source community, or follow a usenet newsgroup (most people under VTU haven't even heard of usenet), or join a hobby club in your college.


There are a lot of other things that I have to share, but this post is already too long. If you readers like this, then I will consider writing a part 2 for the vtu survival guide.

Thats it for now. Lets see how many people will agree with me on this.

Everyone who knows me well knows exactly what I feel about free and open source software kicking Microsoft's ass. So today, when I couldn't find a decent desktop blogging client for my fedora-gnome desktop after searching for 2 hours, I was completely frustrated. The thought of a windows-lover earning bragging rights for having a better blogging client was unacceptable! My best hopes were in blokkal, but I had to allow Kwallet to run in my gnome desktop for blokkal to be able to do its thing.

A kde program doing something gnome can't do is sad. But a kde win over my beloved gnome is still better than a windows win over foss!

And so, here I am, posting this from blokkal.

And to those of you who care to read about my horrible experiences with Linux desktop blogging clients, here is a list of clients I tried and what went wrong with them:

1. Drivel: The last update on their website was in 2006. That project looked dead.

2. gnome-blog: A package was not available in my fedora 14 repos. I downloaded the source but got stuck right at the ./configure stage. I was in no mood to go through a dependency hell all over again.

3. Blogilo: I can't believe a Google search for "Linux blogger clients" still gives results for "bilbo blogger" on the first page, while "blogilo" was nowhere to be seen. I am not sure when the name was changed to blogilo but, something must be terribly wrong if Google didn't show it in the first page of results. Anyway, Blogilo was available in a fedora repo, and the installation was smooth. But it simply refused to fetch my blog id and I was not able to configure my blog settings.

4. Thingamablog: Not for blogger!

5. BloGTK and BloGTK 2.0: Wow this was the biggest nightmare of the lot! BloGTK refused to even start on my fedora 14. BloGTK 2.0 does not exist in my fedora repos, so I had to install it manually. Installation was pretty smooth. Configuring my blog account was also pretty easy. So far so good. The problem started when I tried to pull some old posts from my blog. BloGTK failed here, and gave an error message. I googled the error message and found that it was a python bug and BloGTK was merely a victim of this bug. However, I was happy to see that this error message was also noted as a bug by the BloGTK folks. Hopefully they'll come around with a fix pretty soon. Meanwhile, someone reported that it was still possible to post new blog entries, the bug was affecting only retrieval of old posts.
Right now, BloGTK 2.0 is barely usable, but is probably the best bet on a decent gnome desktop blog client.

6. Blokkal: This is something that finally did work for me. Its not great, but it works. Finally!

Yes, there is that firefox plugin '"scribefire", but I'm not a huge firefox fan.

What I really want to see is a nice clean GNOME blog client that has the most essential features and supports all the common protocols. Right now, BloGTK 2.0 looks very promising. If you can hack python, and you love bloggers writing on FOSS software, go help these guys out. If you can't write code, you can still help by submitting bug reports or giving them a pat on the back and say "Good job. Keep up the nice work", or blogging about them to spread the word about the nice work they are doing. (This applies to all the blog clients mentioned here, not just BloGTK).

Anyway, it feels good to be back on the blogosphere. New year's coming soon. One new year's resolution is definately going to be "Blog MORE!".


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Update: Blokkal sucks too... It can't handle newlines! In the end, I had to log into the web UI and fix things by hand.
This is a black day for free software bloggers. :-(