The topic of the debate was:
The lack of passion towards Civil Engineering among students: Is it due to a similar lack in teachers?
And what follows is roughly what I spoke.
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What is passion really all about? And on what parameters should it be measured? Before going ahead with the real debate, I think it’s worth considering these questions. To talk about it in a very broad sense, passion is nothing but a keen interest in a particular subject or activity. So when one says that a student lacks passion in civil engineering, what it ideally implies is that, that particular student does not have a keen interest in the field of civil engineering. So now if we have some way of measuring this ‘interest’, we can definitely make a judgment on the lack of passion or the abundance of it, whatever the case may be. But then, how does one really measure the interest of a student? What parameters to look for? A professor might say that the interest level of a student can be judged by the attendance, class participation, the performance in quizzes, the extra enthusiasm shown towards learning the civil engineering subjects and so on and so forth. But how truly can these parameters actually measure the real interest of the students? A professor might be witnessing very high attendance in his class. But then this could be because that particular professor happens to be an extremely great teacher. Students love to listen to him. They could be attending his classes because of what he is, and the way he teaches, and not necessarily because they are interested in civil engineering as a subject in itself. Similarly class participation might be a result of the some such factor which doesn’t really have to do much with the student’s passion in Civil Engineering. No, I of course do not mean to say that, those who actually are passionate for their branch or their courses, wont contribute towards high attendance or class participation. But yes, just because they score great marks on these parameters, need not necessarily imply that they really are passionate.
But then, for the sake of sticking to today’s debate topic, let me blindly assume for the rest of the discussion that students do lack passion in Civil Engineering. And here we have a very tricky question now: is it because of a similar lack in Professors. The answer is YES. My point in support of this answer will make much more sense, if we again, try to explore what exactly do we mean, when we say that a Professor is not passionate about civil engineering. On first thought, it looks like a weak statement. Why should one become a professor at the first place, if one is not passionate for Civil Engineering at all? Why should one even go for a PhD degree in Civil Engineering if one is not interested in it? Does anyone really do that? I will come to this in a while but let me first come back to the whole meaning of a passionate Professor and a not so passionate Professor. What are the parameters on which a Professor’s interest should be judged? Should be restricted to the consultancy work that he keeps taking and the research work that he supervises? Or should it also include how good can he teach his/her students and undergraduate students in particular? Once again, like we noticed while trying to measure the interest level of student, there’s no definite relation between any of these parameters that I just spoke, and the real passion that is the key issue of today’s debate. A professor does a lot of consultancy work. It might be because he is passionate towards Civil engineering and wants to use his brain to crack real world problems. But it might be because he gets huge money for doing that! A prof is a great research supervisor. It might be because he actually is passionate towards Civil Engineering and genuinely believes that these researches will go a long way in helping the civil engineering community. But it might be because that’s the only thing he can do. May be he is just too bad at consultancy. A prof teaches really well in class, and motivates the students to learn his subject with heart and soul. It might be because is truly passionate towards Civil Engineering and realizes that his students are the future engineers, and so does his best to get them interested. Or it might be that, he just happens to be a good teacher and a great communicator. All I want to say is that, there is no single parameter which can actually establish how passionate a Professor is.
We will do the same thing, that we did for students. Let us, for the rest of the discussion assume that in general the Professors do lack passion in Civil Engineering. Only when we assume this, we can move on to the crux of the debate.
Fine, the students lack passion in Civil Engineering. The professors lack passion in Civil Engineering too! Basically the two assumptions boil down to this: Civil Engineering sucks! So far so good. But does the second assumption causes first? This will be the topic of discussion for the remaining time that I have. I say yes, it is because of lack of passion in general from most of the Professor’s, that we the students lack the same. If the students are not passionate towards Civil Engineering then who else should be blames but the Profs? Aren’t they the only ones who can ensure that their students become passionate? Yes, they are the only one. They are the people who have taken the responsibility of introducing us to the world of civil engineering. In other words, we begin with looking towards this whole new world, through our Professor’s eyes. And if those very eyes are not passionate, how can it be expected for us to move over the mental block with which we enter the insti as freshers, having made the decision to take Civil all for the sake of being called an IITian. I had told earlier that the fact that someone spent so much time studying Civil Engineering to become a Prof should in itself be a reason to testify there passion. No it’s not true. The real reflection of their passion should show in a similar passion in there students. This is the only parameter that counts. Had that been the case, we would have been here debating not about the cause and relationship of the so called lack of passion. Instead, we would have been debating about what is the real cause for the immense passion that the Civil Engineering Students have for their courses: is it because of a similar passion of Profs?
With this, I end my debate.
