Cogito Ergo Sum

This is an update on the fast track semester.... I must admit that today I got a bit more excited than usual and hence I want to share the good news that caused it with my reader friends.

10 sessions of Signals and Systems are over, i.e. 20 hours out of 48 hours. Today I gave them the formal quiz. (Before this I had given them 2 practice quizzes). It is of 20 marks and it is a special feature of autonomous curriculum. VTU conducts just the tests; no quizzes. Quizzes consist of objective type questions of 1 or 2 marks. I was a bit tensed about the quiz, because this is their only quiz, whatever they score in this will be doubled and finalized. In the regular semester, they get three quizzes and the sum of the better two quiz marks will be considered.

There can be various reasons for a fast track semester teacher to get tensed. One reason could be, the teacher will be questioned for students' low marks. My reason is not that. I was very proud of my teaching so far and I wanted to prove the statement, "Aparna is a good teacher for good students only" wrong. For that, no amount of argument would suffice. Numbers should speak. That is why today morning I was a bit worried. I had told them that it would start on time and any late-comer would lose so much time.

Exactly at nine, one out of the four came. The other three came late. I did not give any extra privilege to late-comers. At the end of the quiz, I corrected the papers, after all there were six one mark and seven two marks questions only. To my amazement, two of them scored fifteen, one scored twelve and the fourth one got eleven. All of them got above ten! There was no scope to copy, moreover the questions were not direct, even though they were not very tough. It was neither an easy nor a tough paper. Class average was 13.25/20 and so, I was just on the cloud number nine! I had prepared the Analog Communication quiz-3 paper last semester and the class average (of about 110 students) was just 10. Highest in that paper was 16 and second highest, 14. Considering that, isn't the today's performance by "so called dull" students in my paper great!! I want to thank these four students for making me feel happy and proud.

To some of you, this post might sound like bragging. My intention is not that. Today I watched the movie "Before Sunset" for the second time. The entire movie consists of only the conversation between two people in the early thirties - Jesse and Celine. In that movie, there is a mention of finding joy in little achievements. I strongly believe that if we wait for big things to happen to be happy, we will never be happy. Key to enjoy life is to cherish every moment of it; be present at that moment.

In fact, my students do the homeworks and assignments with atmost shraddha. Geetha says, "Shraddhaavan Labhate Jnaanam, Tatparaha Samyatendriyaha, Jnaanam Labdhvaa Paraam Shaantim, Achirenaadhigacchati" I have never seen this shloka working so effectively before. Their dedication is paying them well. The satisfaction I get by making these students learn the subject is much more than that I get by teaching during the regular semester. More updates in the next posts.