I am writing this not to show my love or hatred against anyone. But, to express the truth. If any student/teacher finds my words/views/expressions offensive then feel free to drop your views.

Guest faculties at CTAE are not visiting faculties from other colleges. But, they are fresh college graduates of engineering (B.E. / B. Tech.). 

Dear Sir/Madam,

We, the last benchers, absentees, students with backlogs or so called “ignorant and failure” students are not so. Not attending class doesn’t mean that we are ignorant, care less or we don’t respect you. We respect you just like we respect any other teacher/elder in this world.

The reason for not attending the classes could be different. One major reason which is common to all of us is that when you are reading out books, it doesn’t really mean teaching. We do the same on the last day of our mid-sems and sems and score pretty well.

We are the ones who are absent for the whole month but score 14-18 out of 20 in mid-sems and even pass out sems with good marks. No, we are not proud of this. But, we don’t find any sense in attending a class where you make us write what’s written in books. Instead of explaining how things are, how things work, you speak out how things are in the book.

We understand that experience comes with time and freshers always face some problems. We also understand the efforts you put in reading the book, making us writing the notes, checking our exam papers. But, that’s not everything that a student needs. A student attends the class for gaining “knowledge” not for mugging up books.

We don’t have any hatred towards you or your subject. But, we don’t like it when you shower your love over a particular student or group of students or compare us with others. It’s good to appreciate the work and efforts of hard working students. But, it’s not at all good to be biased.

You check our papers to find out every possible mistake, the most stupid questions during viva are meant for us, every request of ours is considered as “argument”, we are the ones who are humiliated whenever we attend the class and when we don’t, we are criticized.

We reply back arrogantly when everything goes beyond the limit. We behave like this but we are not so by nature. If you have freedom to express your views, we oppose the misuse of freedom.

To be very clear, we are not the ones as you think of us. We are also good at heart, we are also humble, we also respect elders and we also study like all other students. The sad thing is our way of studies isn’t acceptable for you.

For you, good students are those who are regular in class, who complete their work on time and who study regularly. Definitely, we are not so good because we think differently. We spend time drinking chai at thadi, we spend time doing things we like, we spend time learning new things and not being a part of “bhed chaal”. We are not even jealous of anyone because we believe in living a careless life, we don’t believe in comparisons.

We are not proud when we succeed or get placed, but we don’t even cry when we score less or fail. We live the life, enjoy and celebrate.

We will happily attend every class if you start imparting “knowledge” rather than making us write notes. We will reply to you humbly if you stop considering our “requests” as “arguments”. We will be “good students” if you stop criticizing us and humiliating us.

Please start imparting knowledge and stop behaving as you know everything and we don’t. Sometimes, everyone needs to be strict and humble at the same time.

Thanking you.

Yours sincerely, A student of life.

This article is First published on iampuneet.com