Creativity
Edit : This was published in April 2010, before I removed it amid concerns of backlash from college.
I study at a college, named ‘Madras Christian College’, fondly called MCC.
I study Physics at this college.
Physics is a wonderful subject. (People disagree with me on this. I completely understand why. But hear me out.) Beauty of the world, etc. The mysteries of the universe explained. What hasn’t been explained, you can happily go out and try to explain. Someone once said to me “Wouldn’t the sunrise be ruined if you knew why it happened?” My answer to that is quite resoundingly no. It looks better, and even more fantastic, knowing what happens behind it.
Instead of me elaborating more on this, let’s assume that I’ve convinced you that Physics isn’t boring black and white text on pages, with math no one understands. Moving on, to my wonderful college.
My wonderful college has brilliant teachers.
Said brilliant teachers adopt one of the following attitudes in teaching the (in my opinion) most enlightening subject on the planet.
A) God created all things. You cannot question him.
B) You will need to study this for your exam to pass.
I’ve obviously got a problem with both these arguments. Attributing everything to God is fine. Not every Physics teacher needs to be an atheist. Heck, Einstein wasn’t an atheist. But when you ask questions about protons colliding, etc. and you’re met with a reply that says ‘God made it so. Stop asking questions’, that’s just hiding. That’s hiding ignorance behind a fake moral attitude of respecting God. I’m sure he’d want you to figure it out, even if he did create it. Seems a benevolent enough chap.
Attitude number 2 also infuriates me.
“Protons colliding? That isn’t in your syllabus.”
“Yes… but I’m interested. Surely that’s got to count for something?”
“Interest won’t fetch you marks in the exam.”
“Can I meet you after class?”
“Meeting me won’t fetch you marks in the exam.”
“How do I answer this question?”
“Answering this question won’t fetch you marks in the exam. It isn’t in your syllabus.”
“But I’m interested. Surely that must count for…”
You get the idea.
It’s a black hole. There’s no way out of it. It breeds, and feeds off enthusiasm and happiness. I swear my teachers look smugger and fatter than when I first joined. I’m markedly less enthusiastic, even if it’s just about my prospects in Physics.
Their staff room is crazy. If you light a candle in there, you won’t see more than a few centimetres. You take a baby in their, it’ll start wailing. Dogs will bolt on the mere sight of it. Cats’ hair stands on end. Cows… well, they’re cows, aren’t they? Not particularly bright upstairs.
That department can sense and detect joy miles away, and makes sure that they do everything in their power to annihilate it.
The dark side has nothing on the Department of Physics, Madras Christian College.
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On a side note – We have to submit a record at the end of every semester, of our practical work. We’ve got to get it attested on the front page of the record, which has a pre-printed thing saying ‘Work completed by……….. in………. B.Sc Physics”. Now a friend of mine filled it in with his name, and the second blank was filled in with ‘II’, ’cause he’s in the second year. My ‘professor’ scratched it out, and wrote in ‘II B.Sc Physics’, so it read ‘II B.Sc Phyics, B.Sc Physics’. They’re overflowing with brains, too.
Well said. But unfortunately, saying things well won’t fetch you marks in the exam!
Saying college is a black hole wont fetch you marks on the exam. Black holes are not on your syllabus.
You should note though, you cat keep a good physicist down. I mean you can physically, because they’re usually about as strong as you or me. But metaphorically.
Good Post!
Thanks, boss!
I believe you mean you can’t keep a good physicist down. My cat can’t either, but that’s possible irrelevant, I think.
Kitchi ! This is a brilliant post ! But sadly, I have to inform you that I’m your physics teacher writing ! And you sure do know this isn’t a good enough guarantee of a continued healthy lifestyle for you ! Don’t you ?
And don’t ask how I got here ! It won’t fetch you any marks in exams …
Still if you want to to wonder how I got here, … god did it ! so there !
See you in the Uni :D :D
Thanks, Umair. ;)
Brillianto kitchi/kichy/kitschy.
But your physics staff room seems like a brilliant lab of sorts. You can learn more about black holes. And next time you find a cat (suicidal only, we dont want to waste a good cat however well the experiment turns out), call me, and we shall try schroedinger’s cat experiment after rocketing him into your staff romm.
So’s your face.
Also, there’s a their where there should be there. I laughed. Physics is sucking the English out of you. Incidentally, I typed that Enlgish. So… yeah.
Okthankyoubye,
Also, funny.
Haha.
Vaibu
Kitch, you don’t have a cat.
Also, in the same vein as II BSc Physics BSc Physics, they do a host of other crazy things.
Here’s one I particularly loved. They made me redo an experiment because I’d converted my readings to seconds (We had to measure the time something took on a stop watch). My classmates had taken it down as 1.3 for 1:30, and done the math with it in decimal instead of base 60. I was asked why my answer didn’t agree with the rest of my group or the previous group who had done the experiment. (This despite me pointing out that 1 minute= 60 seconds, not 100, to my group mates, who understood but were too petrified of getting an answer different from the last group and having to repeat the experiment. Turns out they were ‘smarter’ than me!!) I had to ‘redo’ the calculations, i.e; use 1.3 instead of 90secs.
Also, they’re very keen on virginity if you’re a girl.
*grins*
There’s a MCC Physics alumni site on facebook, and my hands are itching to post this link there. Should give those stuffy oh-look-how-good-we-were-during-our-time alumni some idea of how bad the department has gotten. And the oh-we-are-the-best-in-the-world profs some much needed criticism they can’t cover up.
That said, maybe should just wait for you to get your degree. :)
Have you got your degree yet? Like Bikram, I’m itching to make this viral as well.. We should all add anecdotes.
Like the time when a certain prof had written “E = – dV/dr, where V is the volume” on the board. A silence ensued in class and when I raised my hand and said “um.. V is potential”, the prof argued that it was volume for 10 minutes, poured over a text book for another 5 and then finally grudgingly accepted it was indeed potential.
Ah well..