The Questions Unanswered

After all the brain wrecking done in making your time table, getting acquainted with the exam system, understanding the grading procedure, etc. a lot of questions arise in our minds regarding FFCS. Many of which are still unanswered. This article is not only for the freshers to read. Every VITian should read this. FFCS since its inception has faced many difficulties, it is fired with many question by the students; not only questions but also abuses. Fully F**ked up Crediting System has become a pet name of FFCS amongst those who have seen the dark side of it. Here are some of the discrepancies of FFCS which need to be corrected.

Lucky Strike

As discussed earlier, the registration of courses runs for 2 days for a particular badge. All the students are equally and randomly divided into different groups. Starting on 1^st day morning from 8:00 to evening 8:00, and the same timing on 2^nd day, each group is given a 2 hour slot. This is done since the university doesn’t have a server that can cater 3500 people simultaneously. Thus your registrations can be on 1^st day early in the morning if you are lucky enough and can even be on last day night if you are so low on luck. The thing that happens is if you have an early time, more seats are left in your desired subjects and you get a wide range of subjects to choose from. If you have the registrations late, hardly any seats are available in the slot preferred by you for that subject; worst case scenario: the subject is not at all available as all the slots are full.

The point to question is that what method are they adopting when it comes to dividing the students amongst these 2 days? Sometimes, this method can get very unfair on the students part. Although VIT has made 1 change that the preference will be given as per seniority in year. The registrations for Winter Sem 2011-12 were thus executed in some better way. 4^th year students were allowed to do it 1^st followed by 3^rd and 2^nd years and lastly the 1^st years. It ensured a bit smoother functioning. But nothing much was done on the method of giving preference amongst the same year.

It so happened in Fall Sem 2011-12 that many 3^rd years had their registrations before 4^th years. These people ended up taking those subjects that are ideally meant for 4th years. End result: the 4^th years didn’t get their subjects, perhaps the only subjects that were left for them to finish. This created a huge crisis situation when the semester started. Although it was soon solved during the add/drop period. But good thing is that the university learnt from its mistake and avoided such a crisis in winter.

The only suggestion to make the system better in this aspect is to make the server capable enough to cater 4000 people together logging in for registrations.

Running around the campus

The campus is as big as 350 acres. With the walking distance between some buildings being more than 10 minutes, the 1^st years face a lot of problems with this. They end up making a time table where they have to run 600 to 1000 meters in no time. Also, in most cases, teachers hoist the banner of punctuality and do not co operate with the students. Running a kilometer with heart rate being 160 bpm, the last thing you would like to hear when you enter the class is, “You are late, GET LOST!!!” Teachers recommend using a bicycle, but it often gets stolen. The other solution is to use the bus facility offered by the campus. Personally speaking, it is very unreliable. And that is what every senior would tell. The only worthy solution is that teachers should provide at least 10-15 minutes of buffer time to the students. Some teachers have also adopted this method, but most of them instead of excusing us, ask us, “why did you select such a slot???”

Well this remains to be a hot topic in the Student-Teacher Conflict; an issue which is discussed with an enthusiasm at VIT equvivalent to that given to the Human Wildlife conflict in the outer world.

While the seniors don’t fall in such a problem, a 1^st year is bound to get into this problem as he is unfamiliar with the campus.

Absolute Grading in Relative System

Although, as discussed previously, the whole system is relative, there are some things that are still absolute. Absolute grading is used for all the lab only courses. Why so? Another question – unanswered. For lab only courses, 90-100 marks gives you an S grade, 80-90 gives you an A, so on till 60, a D for 55-60, E for 50-55 and F for under 50. The problem here is that if it is a strict teacher, you are in some trouble, and if it is a lenient teacher, it’s party time.

What if an average student get 85 in a lab only course under his faculty and the topper of the class under some other faculty is stuck at 76, is it fair to give Mr. Topper B grade when Mr. Average will get A? Another one – unanswered.

 Although such a problem never arise in theory only subject, it surprisingly traps in the embedded subjects as well. The total marks of student in embedded subjects are decided by

total marks = (theory marks * theory credits + lab marks * lab credits) / total credits

In a theory class of 65, definitely the students will be in different lab classes. The problem with the lab only courses’ absolute grading also arises here and may affect the total marks of the students in positive or negative way. This is a very serious and delicate matter which should be dealt with proper understanding.

Biodiversity amongst the teachers

Each person thinks differently, each teacher has a different outlook in teaching. Some believe in strict correction, others in lenient. Some are skilled enough to put every thing into the students’ heads; some are dumb enough to put the students to sleep in their lecture. This becomes one of the major drawbacks of FFCS. You don’t know which teacher suits your learning style. An unskillful teacher can ruin your knowledge of entire subject. It is believed that a skilled teacher checks his papers a bit more strictly whereas an unskilled teacher tries covering himself with showering marks. This may be very favorable in the absolute grading system but it’s not at all helpful in relative grading. Remember, if you get high marks, everyone else will also get high marks resulting your grade to be around the average since average is very high. Thus an unskilled teacher is a liability to both, the university and the students. A skilled teacher on the other hand not only awards you deserving marks, but also strengthens your knowledge about the subject. Seniors always recommend their juniors to choose those teachers that shower marks. But that is not the case, I advise you to choose such a teacher who can make you capable enough to pull out good marks even in the toughest condition.

The question arises that how to find out which teacher is better on the day of registrations? That is again one of the questions unanswered.

Well these are just 4 of the many unanswered questions, the biggest being “Did they make a right choice by putting FF before CS…?”

Personally, what I think is that it is a brilliant system but not at all recommendable for the 1^st years. At least not in the 1^st sem. That is a better than all if not ideal solution that my experience can provide.

The system still is a very good one. Although it is still in its cradle, when it will become a fully grown system surely many colleges and universities will be inspired by it and will adopt it. This will leave the name of VIT Universities in the history of smart education as one of the Pioneers of a System that gives its students THE POWER OF CHOICE.

I hope you enjoyed and learned something from the blog, do comment your questions and queries. Thank you very much for following the blog.