A letter from my ex student/ And my response ( Agony of a sincere student with scientific temperament, Studying from below average/average professors)

Here is a letter I received from one of my students studying in a reputed NIT (India) [ It touched my heart and brought back the memories of college days]

Context: He was a sincere student during preparation for IIT JEE and He has read some of the Ayn Rand’s works. I asked him how he’s doing.

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Yeah I'm good, still sleeping during the classes getting thrown out of the class by professors and making drafting 'engineering drawings' in freehand.... Gotta tell you they have really warned me that they'd give me an straight FF for such an attitude. Ha!

Well, its fine if you couldn't reply to the previous mail. You must have been busy, i can understand. Priorities should always come over obligations.
Well, i just went through your blog and i've quoted these following lines from it -

"Citing a logic which is not coming from heart is just a political truth (if at all truth)."
"It is not the "absolute truth" that will give you the peace but it will be "your truth" , the consistency between your beliefs and your actions that will give you the peace."

i must say !
Sir, i am going through some kind of a 'psychological turmoil' (well, that's just a euphemism for what i feel. I've actually gone mad) You might think i'm over-reacting or something but to tell you the truth I just want to quit from in here.
I mean, things here are being taught (though, 'taught' isn't the right word for it) in quite a way, i've never learned about things in my whole life.

Last week we had a lecture on 'BASIC THERMODYNAMICS' and the prof started with second law of thermodynamics for the first time by saying, " 2nd law of thermodynamics says that entropy of the universe always tends to increase during a process."..." And entropy is
'randomness'. for example, a broken egg has greater entropy than an 'unbroken' one" and then he started writing some formulae given in a stupid indian textbook concerning entropy and 2nd law. nothing more was discussed.......................... I FELT LIKE PUKING ON HIS
FACE. I was so pissed off. I mean , is this how you start a topic as interesting as 'second law of thermodynamics' ,which probably has one the most interesting scientific history behind it from CLAUSSIUS' statement to MAXWELL's demon.
I wished to give him a hard time so i asked the most basic question.. "excuse me sir, WHAT is 'entropy'?" "I've told you right, its randomness"
"no sir, i mean what exactly is "entropy" in technical terms, not the layman idea of it. And how does the mathematical formula ( dS=dQ/T ) represent the idea of randomness of a system?"

He sure had a very hard time, cuz i won't budge, especially when i'm pissed. i just won't budge. By those looks i'm sure, like other profs, he couldn't hate me more. But hate me for what? For asking questions? For not complying to the submissive nature of sitting "sincerely" in
the class and like 99% of the class raising no doubts and eliminating uncertainities. The very idea of scientific investigation is gone, sir.

I have innumerous examples of profs making us rote 'how things work' (that too wrong many a times) and students are so much into the system, they can dance naked on the beach for a single higher grade. What happened to the curiosity, to the desire, to the courage, to the
integrity of arguing, analysing , appreciating the beautiful ways of behaviour of things around us and by the ingenuity of human brain synthesizing that behaviour into things which can , in the most simple and economical way, revolutionize human life?
THAT is "engineering", right? Could there be any possible alternative definition of it which would
prove me wrong and yet be completely right? I'm a complete waste here. i still find time in solace to go through 'RESNICK HALLIDAY' and 'FEYNMAN LECTURES' which had initiated this
spark of interest for physics in me, to go through mathematics of function and vector calculus which describe the ways of nature in the most precise way. But all this for what? For loosing touch with whatever is going on in the class and being a complete disgrace in
there, with my fellowmates mocking me when i'm being sent out of the class. 'Complete loser', they say. I recently initiated and formed a team of 5 members for making an i/c
engine car. 3 guys out of the other four unanimously voted and threw me out of the team when i had spent like a whole month collecting all the possible resources for it, justifying their decision by saying that i am 'MAD' and my attitude isn't right for the proper functioning
of the team. This whole system is so dark, i literally cry at times for such a mess
i've put myself into. And i don't have a choice. After putting so much of my parents' time,
money and effort, and sparking their hopes from me of being a successful engineer, i just can't back-off and get myself out of the college.

I don't know why i am sharing it with you, cuz i have no reason to do so and probably you'd feel awfully guilty of wasting your time reading all this, but let me tell you that just by writing this mail to you, i've expressed my deepest, consciously hidden emotions and i now, i
know what is that i feel, that i've felt all these days. It will be alright, even if u feel like not replying to this mail, cuz i just wanted to express my self and by writing this mail i've done
so. Couldn't share it with my family for obvious reasons; i'm a loner here, i don't have much of friends and any of them won't understand.
Thank you Sir.

"And I will stand for my dream if I can,
Symbol of my faith in who I am."

My Response:

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Hi *********!

I would have replied to your mail earlier but I don't know why, for some reason, it did not land in my gmail inbox. But it got directed to my yahoo id. (Strange!).

I can understand what you are going through. The world is full of Peter Keatings, Elseworth tooheys(Even the tech world of so called brainy people) and the Howard Roark's and Hank Reardens temporarily Suffer. But believe me , in the end they come out victorious. I am glad that you are studying Feynman and Vector Calculus. Infact, I have also picked up Advanced Engineering Mathematics once again ( I am trying to solve Kreyszig again :-)).

So Now you are in a position to understand , why I didn't enjoy engineering. Boring Profs (By and Large, Though some of them are really interesting) , Boring Presentations .... Moreover, I personally didn't like engineering philosophy itself.... using same principles (formulae / procedures ) over and over again to produce variations of the same thing rather than something fundamental.

Btw Try reading about Grigori Perelman on Wiki, you will get inspired. (A real person like Roark)

On the practical side, I would recommend to you to do reasonably well in academics and at the same time, not to give up your passion for physics and advanced mathematics. (In this world , to patronize yourself you may have to choose a profession which you might not necessarily like, but then if it gives you a fair amount of time to pursue what you really like, it is fine!).
I see you as a passionate boy destined for success. After going through this torture I believe you will come out as a philosophically mature man- Ready to face life at your own terms, with your algorithms and your operating system, your processor.... ;-).

I wish you all the best,

- Proud to be your teacher

Ambarish
P.S. Reply back at Ambarish[dot]Srivastava[at]fiitjee.com