In India, the identity of a student is defined by his grade. It's too bad students score grades that are not sufficient to satisfy the ego of their parents/relatives/society.
It takes a lot of time for people to discover that they are not limited by their grades. People who never discover that, define their children using the same yardstick.
It's really sickening. I really wish the parents understand that the real world is more about collaboration than competition.
Anyone interested in truly understanding what education is - please read this book "totto-chan , the little girl at the window".
It's ok to say that cracking the entrance exam is going to give them a great platform on which they can build their future.
But telling a 16 year old to clear it believing it's a matter of life and death . That has to be one of the biggest failure of the parents/society/educational system.
I really hope that Internet education reaches a stage where no one has to face such a situation.
Being one of those failed students, I would like to tell any one who is trying to clear the exam and reading this. Try your best, it's ok if you don't clear.
If you persist and keep working hard with whatever you have, you will do wonders.(Ignore people who say otherwise).
IITians are demi gods in India. This status puts a lot of pressure on student at a young age to crack this entrance. So much so, that there are regular cases of students committing suicide due to the pressure from society and family.
For many who don't know, there are coaching classes where preparation for the exam is begun as early as the 5th or 6th grade.
It took me 2 years to get over the failure of not getting into IIT. It's a really messed up situation.
I really hope parents understand the situation and stop traumatizing their kids.
The quote I mentioned was written from a different perspective.
He is talking about his companions. If we try to understand the author's perspective, he was somewhere between the spectrum of men who lost all hope and incorrigible optimists.
For someone like that, I believe the incorrigible optimists would be much more irritating. It's like, there are so many problems and instead of fighting them, the optimists don't want to acknowledge they are there.
Frankl in Man's search for meaning writes that in Nazi concentration camps "Some men lost all hope, but it was the incorrigible optimists who were the most irritating companions."
Seems like acc to Dr. Frankl incorrigible pessimists are better companions than incorrigible optimists.
It's no only the university course / curriculum, but the environment is also very important. You have colleagues with whom you can discuss and learn. Online forums are still not as good as that!
One thing that has helped me is trying to understand exactly the task I am supposed to work on.
Because I read once on HN, that there is nothing worse than implementing wrong solution in the right way!
What generally happens is, without understanding the task properly in depth, we try to form a solution and start execution. Then, while execution we continously run into problems, slowing us down and causing frustration.
Another thing that has helped me is searching/asking for help. You see majority of the problems that happen with us, someone or the other has encountered them and tried to solve them. It can be very useful to look at what they have done and see if you can apply it.
Actually, according to some of the greatest people who have practiced meditation (like gautam buddha), consciousness is a manifestation of your subconscious. It originates there!
I read the book with conflicting views on communism/socialism/fascism in mind. Need to read in more detail. Thanks for the clarification.