Board toppers, IIT-JEE toppers and personal reflections (End)

The student quality at BITS, Pilani – at least of my batch which was all board-toppers – was pretty good I would say. And how exactly can I comment on it? There needs to be some reference against which to compare. Well, the reference is me, myself. Now that’s strange!

Before joining BITS, I had almost always (barring one or maximum of two occasions) been a topper, the 1^st rank holder in all academic exams including all my high school exams to the state level 12^th board finals  in Assam. Anyways, those are distant memories, totally irrelevant and baseless now in my present life, frankly. And I don’t actually give a s**t now, but back then, it was a big thing for me! So soon after joining BITS, I found that I stood somewhat above average among all board toppers, but certainly not the topper. I started giving my best, virtually locking myself inside library and studying really, really hard to compete against the smarter ones. I challenged myself and challenged my ego that I wouldn’t let anyone else score higher than me in the next Physics-I test or that I would have to top the ‘Structure of materials’ course. This effort lasted more or less the first two semesters, me being in fresh blood. Apart from the ridiculously difficult and brain-befogging questions set by the professors in almost all the exams, soon I discovered that my best wasn’t good enough to hit a 60/60 on a test. The courses were very challenging, question papers were even more, and the insanely high number of tests and exams every week tore both my physical stamina and my confidence level. I could see someone else walk away with a 60/60 on a test and I might be 50/60, or maybe even 30/60 for courses which I didn’t enjoy. I found that the questions were almost always so brain teasing in nature that no matter how rigorously I studied or thought about it, someone would simply find the solution much faster than me, and in a much smarter way! I was at my lowest confidence towards the end of my second semester, and suffered from severe inferiority complex. I would complain to my mom everyday “Why didn’t God make me more intelligent?” which is so hilarious and funny when I look back now. I didn’t do too bad in my performance however, maintaining a cumulative 9.5 GPA on 10 at the end of 2^nd semester. There were at least twenty students with 10/10 at the end of second semester by the way, if you thought 9.5 was greatJ. Eventually, by the end of the third semester, I just realized that I was me, myself. I should simply try whatever I could and not whine and weep over why I couldn’t be the exam topper. I started appreciating my limitations, my abilities, my strengths and my weaknesses. That’s the best thing about undergrad life, about hostel life. It teaches you lessons which you won’t learn anywhere. It taught me my identity, my potential and an aspiration which was realistic and feasible. When I realized this, it did one good and one bad thing. Good thing is that I became happier and contended in doing my best and so I stopped worrying if I got 45/60 while someone got 60/60. I felt it was okay to be 9.5/10 and stay happy rather than whine away all my time thinking why not 10/10. The bad thing was that I started ignoring all lectures and courses which I hated. Courses like Operations Research, C-programming, etc. were something I simply hated, and had I made a sincere attempt, I could have made a B grade at least, but ended up making C gradesJ. This lowered my final GPA when I graduated, but I had absolutely no regrets. I am still very fine with my 9.4/10 pass out GPA, and if given a chance to go back to my past and into my undergrad days, I would love to live it the same way, have the same fun with friends and would like to graduate with the same 9.4 GPA (instead of sacrificing my happiness and the fun I had in lieu of something like 9.7 GPA).  There were around 10-15 students in my core discipline, with GPAs higher than mine while graduating, which I really don’t regret about.

So much of unnecessary and irrelevant nostalgic reminiscences for justifying the student quality at BITS, Pilani! But, all the above facts do not still justify how BITSians were really smart and intelligent in my batch. Okay, so they were pretty smart and sharp compared to me since I had a hard time competing. But I am not a global standard to conclude that overall, BITSians (or board toppers) had a pretty high quality. 

How do we compare the talent or intelligence level of IIT-JEE toppers versus board toppers? Is it by what they eventually become in their lives, or what they achieve – fame, wealth, power? Is it by the jobs that they make in campus recruitments (the most ridiculous idea!)? Or, is it by what they finally contribute towards their country India? After all, the IITs were established to be institutes of national importance (http://www.iitb.ac.in/legal/IITsAct.pdf) so that they could contribute towards the growth and progress of India. Are IITians on an average and in general, fulfilling that role?

So to answer my question of what the difference between an IITian and a BITSian was, the senior professor with years of experience of teaching both IITians and BITSians, game me a rather smart reply. He replied that the difference which he observed to be the most obvious one was that, BITSians in general, and on average, contributed more than IITians towards the growth and economy of India. He added that on an average, the fraction of IITians heeding to the USA for higher studies and settling down there permanently was higher than BITSians. So it was implied that IITians contributed more towards brain-drain and towards building a stronger economy for the USA in terms of research as well as entrepreneurship. Perhaps this is true; I am not too sure but seems there are more IITians in USA than BITSians. Then you might argue: of course IITians are smarter and more intelligent than BITSians, so they are more in number in the USA. If you say that, I will pity youJ. Coming to the USA for (unfunded) MS has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of undergrad education in India. I know so many students from so many ordinary engineering colleges coming to the USA for masters by paying from their parents’ bank balances. Such students pump money to the US economy. Why would universities not admit them?

Let me now state my opinion on what I think the difference between board toppers and JEE toppers is. Before that, let us all admit and accept that there is no global or universally justified yardstick to compare the two categories. Wealth, fame, achievements, power – all these are various criteria to judge but are very ambiguous and uncertain. So I will, for my opinion, be biased towards using one specific criterion in which I have a little experience or exposure on a broader perspective, in which I have seen BITSians vis-à-vis IITians in the same vista. And that criterion is – how ‘successful’ one becomes in research. I know this is a biased criterion, but I will stick to it.

My personal opinion is that, IITs or IITians are supposed to contribute maximum among all institutes in our country towards doing cutting-edge ‘technologically relevant’ research for the overall progress of India, so that we Indians come at par with China or USA. I personally don’t think high of undergrads cracking exams out of shape or securing high JEE ranks only to eventually go for MBA in finance or investment banking. You study four years of engineering at the expense of tax payers’ money (BITsians don’t!) and completely waste it immediately afterwards to become an investment banker where the courses of Fluid Mechanics or Analog Electronics have absolutely no role to play! Assume if all IITians went for MBA immediately after B. Tech, then I believe it defeats the very purpose for which IITs were established after all! Who is going to generate fundamental research, or file patents for new discoveries and inventions? Let me keep all those for a separate post.  

Let me seriously conclude- as far as research credentials and output are concerned, I see absolutely no difference between a BITSian and an IITian, at least in my area of research. In fact, I know so many non-BITSians and non-IITians from India who do amazing research and churn out quality research publications. Folks from NITs, Anna University, Delhi University, and lots of other universities are really doing kick-ass research here in the USA. Where’s the difference? What is this hue and cry over JEE? Do we seriously think that if my batch (2004-2008) of BITSians (board toppers) were hypothetically transferred as students into one of the IITs back then, then there’d have been severe degradation of the quality of that batch in that IIT? Really? This is why I believe it wouldn't have degraded - Aditya Birla Scholarship is by any means, one of the toughest and most prestigious scholarships for undergrad engineering students in India, for, it is awarded to only ten students in total from across all IITs and BITS, Pilani. It is based on too many difficult criteria and parameters, and involves face to face interview with a panel of Who’s Who of India – a really challenging and stringent selection process. Well, in our batch (2004-08), three out of those ten students awarded were BITSians, and the rest seven were from all other IITs combined. Now you can argue: Aditya Birla is a ‘Birla’ company, so maybe they were biased towards BITS, Pilani? In that case, they should be biased towards the otherwise neglected North-East India too, because, all the three BITSians who were awarded that year, were born, brought-up and educated in North-East India.