Going that extra mile.
A lot of what I am talking about here might just be something that happens where I am but it might as well be somewhat a more global phenomenon.
Engineering course is kind of over-rated in the region where I live and a lot of people just get into engineering in hopes of getting a job and not because they are interested in the course. This might be one of the reasons as to why it is visible what I am talking about.
The title itself states that it is a personal choice of individuals and it is not something that can be generalized or be expected from everyone. The context in which I am talking about going that extra mile is when it comes to college-related work.
A lot of people consider that the syllabus is out of date or irrelevant to current practices. They have their reasons to come to that conclusion. But one thing that seems to be the main reason why they come to that conclusion is that the syllabus mainly consists of fundamentals and not too many applications. Today everyone talks about applications of a subject and that is impressive, but the fundamentals are hidden behind. This results in everyone working on something they are interested in, which is good but they are not too concerned about the course they are enrolled in. One has to be responsible and work on the college courses as well. And since they are fundamentals it is not good enough if one works hard, they should also be willing to go that extra mile.
Going that extra mile need not necessarily be reading more about fundamentals and becoming better at it. It can be trying to understand what are the applications or how exactly those fundamentals make that application better. But the balance is being lost because only the applications seem to be interesting.
College is not a place where they talk about what is interesting, it is a place where they talk about what is important. As students, it will be our responsibility to try to see why it is important by doing a lot of homework. Which includes reading more about the history of those topics and what are the current fields that are making use of them.
A lot of people do manage to do that extra work. But since they are doing all that work by themselves they may feel that attending some lectures in college may not be necessary. I have no idea whether it is right or wrong in general. But I see it as something that is not completely right. It is fine to miss a few lectures to do something better which would not be possible otherwise. At the same time, we need to understand that missing too many of them to do something on our own may not be wise.
We enrol to college because it is a structure created by society and holding a form of acknowledgement from an institute or university is a form of saying that one has done what he/she is expected to do to proceed in a particular field. If you are not interested in attending classes but you want that acknowledgement then that is wrong. In that case, you should be quitting college to do something on your own. But a lot of people hesitate to do that because they care about what society thinks about them or what their parents think about them. They just get into the system so that they won’t be judged. And when they get into the system, they start judging the system.
When someone is busy judging why would they go that extra mile in order become better at what the system is trying to provide. And if the majority of the people in the system are just there to judge and very few are doing that extra work, then the system will be affected in a bad way. The system starts to lose its value.
Whatever I have told is my perspective and the way I see stuff. I am new to this and I have a lot to learn. It would be nice to hear your perspective. You can drop it in the comments.
