A Sea Of Difference

It was a reckless Friday beginning for I studied till four in the morning for a pointless test in Object Oriented Analysis and Design hoping to clear the internals. I guess the teachers were as perplexed about the subject as me because the paper was a bit too analytical to be true. Too analytical to be true for someone studying in a private engineering college under the Anna University. For someone studying under any other college under Anna University the situation might have appeared worse and even unjust.

Later that morning, I had the opportunity of listening to a professor who delivered a lecture on "Digital Image Processing and Hardware Accelerators" and I must say I enjoyed the privilege of introducing him to the audience. After the introduction I took a chair hoping to doze off in about four minutes since I had burned the midnight oil and a bit of morning oil too going to bed at around four in the morning.

But there are circumstances in an average man's life when he just cannot sit back and let go. These are circumstances that will transform him and force him to act virtuous at least for a momentary period of time. I must concede that the lecture was one such experience.

The speaker was an eminent professor from the Department of Computer Science at the Pennsylvania State University and quite a talented man considering he had the reputation of guiding around 21 Ph.Ds by the young age of 37. He seemed very sharp and one could realize that he was certainly one of the finest in his field. At least that's what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) thought when they decided to fund his idea of developing "Smart Cameras" to study the movements of people and identify their mood and intentions through their actions. The lecture was delivered for about an hour and a half. I never managed to close my eyes. The speaker had truly achieved his purpose.

Looking back one just cannot refrain from commenting on the educational system that is being thrust on the college goers of today. There were quite a few observations I made that day. Our system is bent on churning out the same old stories that the computer scientists of yesteryear wrote in the history of Computer Science and more unfortunate is the fact that it is waiting for computer scientists of today on the other side of the world ( interpreted as Outside India) to write new stories to keep grinding in future. Another observation was that the people who truly make a difference to their field of study are those who find out a need and take care of it while those who simply use the field to live a life are those who read the solution and fill the need as an answer to a two mark question in their examination booklet. Yet another stifling observation I made was that the truly inspired scholars of Computer Science correctly understand every part of the solution they build even though they may borrow ideas from a variety of disciplines and subfields. But the majority on the other side of the line have enough troubles coping with their own area of interest.

There's a sea of difference between us and the people on the other side of the world (read US and Europe) and it's time we bridge the gap soon enough before it turns into an ocean and drowns us in our own ignorance and lack of application.

An interesting twist to the tale : The professor mentioned was an Indian.