My sincere apologies to The Idiot.
The Educated might give me a look…one
that reads “Seriously! Do you need to do this?”
Education is a bag full of books.
Education is weekly tests, unit tests and term tests.
Ask 10 random students on any random
street why they are studying. 8 will tell you that a good education
ensures a good job. The other 2 might grow up to be Research Fellows
in reputed Institutions!
I am not a Research Fellow. Maybe, I
could have been…but I am not. We will shoot off an altogether
different tangent if we followed this train of thoughts now.
Let’s just get to the point.
The IT professional has a pretty
stereotype life. System, code editor, outlook, coffee, occasional
text from that guy or girl you are dating, periodically checking the
groups put on mute to see if something exciting is lined up for the
weekend. That’s it. Some 9.5-10 hours of such randomness and you
are done for the day. If you are lucky to have a manager who believes
in the minimum working hours policy, you may get to go home early.
Home is equally monotonous. Food,
sleep, book, phone, sleep some more. If you are interested in
cooking…add one more item to the aforementioned list.
Three years of a lifestyle as sedentary
as this and you are sure to turn into the much hyped and over
publicized Idiot.
My sincere apologies to The Idiot.
Again.
All the Oh-so-important things that
these universities and colleges make us cram into our heads during
the semesters and all those industrial trainings, certifications and
whatever-whatevers that we do to fill up our semester breaks…all of
it…all of it…just leads us to the abyss called professional life.
You are so doomed to turn into an Idiot
the moment you step into it.
Being a Bachelor in Electronics and
Instrumentation Engineering, I currently hold the position of a
Software Engineer. Irony? No. That’s how it works here!
I have forgotten how a Push-Pull
amplifier works. I have absolutely no memory of Control Systems and
Circuit Theory. I vaguely remember something called Bode Plot and
Laplace.
So what is it that I know?
I know how to google. I know how to
read and understand codes…in whatever language it may be. I know
how to pretend that I know everything. I know which error message
means what and exactly what will make the error vanish. Oh yes, did I
mention, I can manage my juniors, assign tasks to them and get the
same completed. I can also politely battle with vendors/clients and
come out victorious at the end of the day.
Wow! That did make me feel like I was
filling up the annual appraisal form.
Doesn’t Appraisal rhyme with Hike!! I
like the effect!
The specifics that I had studied in
school are long lost.
I still remember certain facts and
pointers. Like, Khudiram was the first martyr of the Struggle for
India’s Independence. I remember Iltutmish, he founded the Delhi
Sultanate. I also remember a reference to the Slave Dynasty. Nothing
more…nothing less.
Charlemagne was this French King who
united most of Western Europe during the Middle Ages. There was some
reference to France and Germany as well. That’s the most that I
remember about him from School anyway.
The Nile basin, Thames…Ukraine…which
crop grows where and what are the ideal conditions for growing the
same. I have no memory whatsoever.
I dreaded Chemistry. Carbon spooked me
out totally. Versatile indeed!
I remember the little
fellas…Periplaneta americana and Bufo melanostictus.
The names fascinated me. But my interest ended there. Of course, I
remember very little about them. Heart partitions, some exoskeletons,
endoskeletons and external appendages.
That was school for me.
And then there’s Physics. The love of
my life.
One of the reasons why I took up
Engineering was Physics.
But how much have I progressed in it
since I became a Software Engineer? Blaaaah.
Thanks to the sedentary lifestyle and
the inherent desire to just sleep during weekends and off days.
That makes me an Idiot. Once educated,
now dumb.
I do feel like going back to some
School for further education. Like an MS in Physics or Economics. I
am good with Data and Analytics. I could Major on that.
Education is a strange phenomenon. It
teaches you 12000 things of which most students remember just 0.25%
or less …which is close to some 30 or so odd things. These things
will mostly be those that somehow stood out…something that affected
you in some way…you may have some memory associated with
it…something completely random perhaps. In most cases people
remember nothing worthwhile.
23 years of life devoted to Academics
and all you remember are things personal to you and what appealed to
you. Wow!
Life is an irony
in itself and so is education. What remains intact is perhaps our
sense of not knowing something. That is persistent…all through
life. Take it either ways…knowledge is vast and you cannot know
everything…or…I learnt a lot of irrelevant things of which I
remember nothing.
So tell me. Which one are you… The
Idiot or The Educated?
Come on…be honest!
