"
The first half an hour of the exam passed quickly...
The next 1 hour was really boring...boring because mere paas kuchh karne ke liye nahi tha..
The last half an hour also passed quickly looking at my watch..
"
Before you start imagining that I had gone without any preparation for some exam...and even before you start thinking which exam was I busy giving in my PS sem (when all competitive exams for MBA are over..), let me tell you that I wasn't giving the exam..I was just INVIGILATING :P
.
.
.
A few weeks ago, our PS instructor visited our PS. Before he came, he had asked all those of us who lived in Delhi to mail him our addresses. We had already given him our addresses once,so we weren't sure why he wanted it again.
When he came on Thursday, he told us that the DLPD exam would be held all over the country that weekend. Also they required students who would invigilate the exam. Not many were willing till he told us that we would be paid 1000 bucks for 4 hours on each day. Well,both KP and me stay real close to the school where the exam was to be conducted, so we both volunteered. Sanket, who stays in Noida was also keen on coming.
So, on Saturday we reached the venue at 9:30 AM. We were given a bundle of answer sheets and an attendance sheet and told to go to any of the classroom. We were told not to allow any cheating. :|
We entered the classroom, and it seemed as both the opponents were sizing each other. Some of the students (who happened to be professionals working in the industry) were trying to judge whether I would allow cheating I was trying to guess which of these people who try to cheat. Anyways, while taking the attendance sheet around, I saw the hall tickets of the examinees who came from all over...there were people from small companies to team leaders from Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra, Alcatel, Cadence, ST, Border Roads Organization, a scientist C from NPL and even a scientist E from DRDO. :O
Anyways most of the people were okay..but there were some who had either becomes friends while waiting outside the exam hall or had come from the same company. They were the people who were trying very hard to cheat. I vividly remember three middle aged fellows (they must have been in their early 30's..) who had come from Gandhinagar. They tried all possible means to cheat, but they couldn't manage much.
Each exam was for 2 hours. In the class that I was invigilating in, students were sitting in alternate seats for 4 different papers (BITS waalon ne poori koshish kari thi ki cheating naa ho paaye ;) ).One of the paper was of Embedded System (wahi course jo hamne bhi last sem mein kiya tha...aur uske baad se kisi ko bhi woh course lena recommend kiya hai abhi tak ). Well, I was curious ki Embedded Sys ka level kya hai. Though I had heard (that too from a faculty) that the level of the DLPD papers were abysmal and that people got numbers just for writing anything...the actuality of it did shock me...The paper was damn easy (itne aasan mein to Krap ko bhi sharam aa jaati ...which is saying a lot...considering the fact that hamare paper mein ...in a class with average CGPA above 9, the average in the T1 and T2 was single digits (and yes I was below average CG in the class.)). The paper consisted of 5 question. In the first question only a flowchart was to be made. In the second question the students had to write the differences between SRAM,DRAM or something. In the third question ek system (jo hame poora design karna tha) uska sirf batana tha ki kya components lagenge and kaise connect honge.
Embedded was a very complicated paper for them. Even Maths I seemed to them what Numal or DSP felt to me (kuchh samajh mein hi nahi aata tha ki kya ho raha hai..aur kyon ho raha hota tha :| ). A student, appearing for Maths I left the cass within 18 minutes of the exam starting. And out of the entire paper (5 or 6 questions), three questions were on matrices. And I saw most of the people struggling with questions like finding out the inverse of the matrix. And out of the 8 people out of 24 in my class who left the exam hall within the first 45 minutes, 6 of the people were appearing for Maths I paper.
Elsewhere when Sanket tried to stop 2 girls from cheating in his class. one of the girl rudely rebutted him with "Aap lo jab industry mein aaoge to aapke interview hum hi to lenge..Agar aap ka chehra yaad reh gaya to dekh lenge ".Sanket later told us that this statement really made his head swim for some time. We told him he should have told them "Yeh papers check hone to Pilani hi jayenge naa Agar aap ka naam yaad reh gaya to phir dekhte hai ki number kaise aate hai tumhare.".(This part of the story later.)
Well..after the exams finshed, me, KP, Sanket and Kiran bhai (he's an ME student from Pilani) went to Ansal Plaza that was close to the exam centre.Thoda time wahin timepass kiya..and then we all headed back home.
I guess I must have done a good job on Saturday..because on Sunday morning, when I entered the same class which I was in on Saturday..kuchh logo ke chehre to utar hi gaye (which included the 3 guys from Gandhinagar too). I and KP had gone togeher because akele kafi bor hue the 1st day hum log.
.
.
Anways a few observations regarding DLP that I made
I just knew the full form form of the DL part was Distance learning, uske aage ke alphabets ka full form ussi din pata laga-for those who still don't know, its Distance Learning Programme Division.
The papers go to different faculty in Pilani to be checked (and they are paid extra for that too). They generally don't have time and in turn pass on the papers to people doing research or doctorate under them who in turn pass it on to higher degree students doing projects under them for a not-so-small amount of money.This I know because some of the higher degree people doing thier PS with us have in fact checked the copies. Also the payment is directly proportional to the number of copies checked and number of questions in the paper.The amount is inversely proportional to the level it has come down. The
prof at the top of the chain gets an amount X. The Phd student gets a percentage of that amount and the student gets a part of the amount the Phd student gets.
Also the people checking the papers are told the give marks liberally so that nobody flunks (again as told by a faculty).This fact became clearer when one person who on both days had left the exam hall within the first hour told me on Sunday that he had a CGPA above 8 5 (Shit even I couldn't manage that. :| )
There were also some people who genuinely worked hard A guy from Samsung told us that he had mailed the doubts he had to the e-mail id they had been told, However there was no reply reagrding his dooubts.Shayad Pilani ko bhi koi interest nahi hai..
One of the PS instructors was more direct, he did say ki "sab level dilute kar diya hai DLP se..."
Well..invigilate karne par paise(actually Rupees :P) bhi milte hai.We were told we would be getting 1000 bucks.Which was half truth.We were actually made to sign a receipt of Rs 1600.When we asked that why was this being done the person sitting there gave some shitty reason. It seems that the particular school was not taking a cheque for the services being rendered (to save some tax it seems). So Pilani showed in its records that it had paid every invigilator Rs 1600(on paper). And the 600 it saved on that was used to pay that amount to the school. My question is that Pilani payed the school in black (i.e. non taxable money).I am sure that Pilani could have found some other school...jaha aisa kuchh nahi karna padhta.
I still don't understand how a higher degree from BITS Pilani that says Distance learning is going to help a Scientist E from DRDO in any way..or anybody of them for that matter.
Uss degree ki koi VALUE hai bhi???
The first half an hour of the exam passed quickly...
The next 1 hour was really boring...boring because mere paas kuchh karne ke liye nahi tha..
The last half an hour also passed quickly looking at my watch..
"
Before you start imagining that I had gone without any preparation for some exam...and even before you start thinking which exam was I busy giving in my PS sem (when all competitive exams for MBA are over..), let me tell you that I wasn't giving the exam..I was just INVIGILATING :P
.
.
.
A few weeks ago, our PS instructor visited our PS. Before he came, he had asked all those of us who lived in Delhi to mail him our addresses. We had already given him our addresses once,so we weren't sure why he wanted it again.
When he came on Thursday, he told us that the DLPD exam would be held all over the country that weekend. Also they required students who would invigilate the exam. Not many were willing till he told us that we would be paid 1000 bucks for 4 hours on each day. Well,both KP and me stay real close to the school where the exam was to be conducted, so we both volunteered. Sanket, who stays in Noida was also keen on coming.
So, on Saturday we reached the venue at 9:30 AM. We were given a bundle of answer sheets and an attendance sheet and told to go to any of the classroom. We were told not to allow any cheating. :|
We entered the classroom, and it seemed as both the opponents were sizing each other. Some of the students (who happened to be professionals working in the industry) were trying to judge whether I would allow cheating I was trying to guess which of these people who try to cheat. Anyways, while taking the attendance sheet around, I saw the hall tickets of the examinees who came from all over...there were people from small companies to team leaders from Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra, Alcatel, Cadence, ST, Border Roads Organization, a scientist C from NPL and even a scientist E from DRDO. :O
Anyways most of the people were okay..but there were some who had either becomes friends while waiting outside the exam hall or had come from the same company. They were the people who were trying very hard to cheat. I vividly remember three middle aged fellows (they must have been in their early 30's..) who had come from Gandhinagar. They tried all possible means to cheat, but they couldn't manage much.
Each exam was for 2 hours. In the class that I was invigilating in, students were sitting in alternate seats for 4 different papers (BITS waalon ne poori koshish kari thi ki cheating naa ho paaye ;) ).One of the paper was of Embedded System (wahi course jo hamne bhi last sem mein kiya tha...aur uske baad se kisi ko bhi woh course lena recommend kiya hai abhi tak ). Well, I was curious ki Embedded Sys ka level kya hai. Though I had heard (that too from a faculty) that the level of the DLPD papers were abysmal and that people got numbers just for writing anything...the actuality of it did shock me...The paper was damn easy (itne aasan mein to Krap ko bhi sharam aa jaati ...which is saying a lot...considering the fact that hamare paper mein ...in a class with average CGPA above 9, the average in the T1 and T2 was single digits (and yes I was below average CG in the class.)). The paper consisted of 5 question. In the first question only a flowchart was to be made. In the second question the students had to write the differences between SRAM,DRAM or something. In the third question ek system (jo hame poora design karna tha) uska sirf batana tha ki kya components lagenge and kaise connect honge.
Embedded was a very complicated paper for them. Even Maths I seemed to them what Numal or DSP felt to me (kuchh samajh mein hi nahi aata tha ki kya ho raha hai..aur kyon ho raha hota tha :| ). A student, appearing for Maths I left the cass within 18 minutes of the exam starting. And out of the entire paper (5 or 6 questions), three questions were on matrices. And I saw most of the people struggling with questions like finding out the inverse of the matrix. And out of the 8 people out of 24 in my class who left the exam hall within the first 45 minutes, 6 of the people were appearing for Maths I paper.
Elsewhere when Sanket tried to stop 2 girls from cheating in his class. one of the girl rudely rebutted him with "Aap lo jab industry mein aaoge to aapke interview hum hi to lenge..Agar aap ka chehra yaad reh gaya to dekh lenge ".Sanket later told us that this statement really made his head swim for some time. We told him he should have told them "Yeh papers check hone to Pilani hi jayenge naa Agar aap ka naam yaad reh gaya to phir dekhte hai ki number kaise aate hai tumhare.".(This part of the story later.)
Well..after the exams finshed, me, KP, Sanket and Kiran bhai (he's an ME student from Pilani) went to Ansal Plaza that was close to the exam centre.Thoda time wahin timepass kiya..and then we all headed back home.
I guess I must have done a good job on Saturday..because on Sunday morning, when I entered the same class which I was in on Saturday..kuchh logo ke chehre to utar hi gaye (which included the 3 guys from Gandhinagar too). I and KP had gone togeher because akele kafi bor hue the 1st day hum log.
.
.
Anways a few observations regarding DLP that I made
I just knew the full form form of the DL part was Distance learning, uske aage ke alphabets ka full form ussi din pata laga-for those who still don't know, its Distance Learning Programme Division.
The papers go to different faculty in Pilani to be checked (and they are paid extra for that too). They generally don't have time and in turn pass on the papers to people doing research or doctorate under them who in turn pass it on to higher degree students doing projects under them for a not-so-small amount of money.This I know because some of the higher degree people doing thier PS with us have in fact checked the copies. Also the payment is directly proportional to the number of copies checked and number of questions in the paper.The amount is inversely proportional to the level it has come down. The
prof at the top of the chain gets an amount X. The Phd student gets a percentage of that amount and the student gets a part of the amount the Phd student gets.
Also the people checking the papers are told the give marks liberally so that nobody flunks (again as told by a faculty).This fact became clearer when one person who on both days had left the exam hall within the first hour told me on Sunday that he had a CGPA above 8 5 (Shit even I couldn't manage that. :| )
There were also some people who genuinely worked hard A guy from Samsung told us that he had mailed the doubts he had to the e-mail id they had been told, However there was no reply reagrding his dooubts.Shayad Pilani ko bhi koi interest nahi hai..
One of the PS instructors was more direct, he did say ki "sab level dilute kar diya hai DLP se..."
Well..invigilate karne par paise(actually Rupees :P) bhi milte hai.We were told we would be getting 1000 bucks.Which was half truth.We were actually made to sign a receipt of Rs 1600.When we asked that why was this being done the person sitting there gave some shitty reason. It seems that the particular school was not taking a cheque for the services being rendered (to save some tax it seems). So Pilani showed in its records that it had paid every invigilator Rs 1600(on paper). And the 600 it saved on that was used to pay that amount to the school. My question is that Pilani payed the school in black (i.e. non taxable money).I am sure that Pilani could have found some other school...jaha aisa kuchh nahi karna padhta.
I still don't understand how a higher degree from BITS Pilani that says Distance learning is going to help a Scientist E from DRDO in any way..or anybody of them for that matter.
Uss degree ki koi VALUE hai bhi???
