My two cents to my fellow aspirants

[Abhisek Bhattacharya]

After going through so many emails requesting to reduce cut-off marks and asking for re-exam, by my fellow students and aspirants, I thought of writing a few lines.

First, to give my introduction, I am an IT professional working in the software service/product industry for 17 years now. 

My exam was equally bad or worse than most of you as I have studied theoretical mathematics almost two decades ago.

Why did I want to join this program? 

Is it to get more salary? Is it to reboot my career? No, but to explore a futuristic domain and moreover to acquire a degree from IIT.

And I guess the second reason is true for most of us. We want to learn data science from IIT. The brand name matters. Otherwise, there are lots of institutes giving good training on data science and providing placement assistance. But we wanted to join this program because we want to experience the teaching of IIT standard.

Now when we are asking to reduce the cut-off marks, or requesting to consider only 2nd shift students for easy assessment, we are basically asking IIT to reduce their standard. The questions had been set by experienced professors and they want to maintain some standard of the students joining IIT. 

So is it even logical to keep requesting them to reduce their standard? 

Tomorrow if you appear in an interview at Microsoft, Google or Amazon after receiving the degree, will you request them to reduce their criteria to provide you a job offer?

Think logically, my fellow students.

Rather we should take this exam as a good learning experience. As confirmed by the course co-ordinators, we can apply again. If we do not qualify this time, we can be better prepared to appear for the next time. If we qualify, we know what level of study and perseverance is required from us for the upcoming course.

Just wanted to share my thought with you.

All the best and again thanks for the great level of support I received in this forum for the past one and half months.

Thank you,

Abhisek

[Yashwardhan Banta]

Wise words sir!

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[Pankaj Srivastava]

Dear Abhishek,

Nobody is asking IIT to lower its standards. Actually, people are upset with mismatch between practice questions and Qualifier. I will explain with two examples.

There was this question in Mathematics [Afternoon Shift] in which we needed to calculate y-coordinate of a parabola whose x-coordinate was given. Language of the Question was different. I am giving you the summary. Now in order to calculate y-coordinate you would need to first derive the equation of the parabola from the information given in the Question. Issue is that not a single such question was either in Activity Questions or Practice Assignment. How can you expect people from diverse backgrounds to calculate the equation of a parabola directly in Qualifier. There was time constraint, there was pressure and there was no practice of solving such question. 

Another point: There was this question again in Mathematics [Afternoon Shift] in which Salary and Increment were given and the candidates were expected to calculate the total payout by the company in the year 2020. The language of the question was ambiguous. It was not mentioned whether the increment should be considered simple interest or compound interest. Lot of candidates wasted lot of time on this question thinking that it's an easy one. But it was complicated of ambiguity in language of the question. I am thinking of writing about it to IITM. They should consider giving full marks to all the candidates of second shift for this question.

[Abhisek Bhattacharya]

I got both of the questions Sir, I was also a candidate at second shift. But was not it expected to receive trickier questions? That is why this exam is called a qualifier. 

[Pankaj Srivastava]

There is a difference between trickier and ambiguous, and there is a difference between what was taught and what was asked. All candidates are not from mathematical background. How can they expect people from diverse background to derive the equation of a parabola straight during Qualifier exam when there was not a single such question in the 4-weeks of content? They did not teach it. They did not give any reference material. They did not encourage going through additional sources. They kept saying that their content is enough for preparation. Because of these reasons, people are upset. Certain things have certainly gone wrong. May be because it is Batch 1. This is the beginning. So, expecting perfection from IITM won't be logical. They will surely make amends for future batches. 

[bhagyashree]

Hi , 

      Yeah , I do agree on  some points with you like we cannot ask the co- ordinators to reduce the standard or guide them ,it's none of our business , but what I think is that these feedbacks can give an idea to them to work on them  as to what kind of candidates ,I mean the avg . Potential of diverse candidates and the things which  candidates are finding difficult . 

Communication is very very important, and also when it's the first batch and also thg themselves said and discussed in a video that they will gradually learn more and more after the candidates' feedback and what to be done to do improvisations in the whole thing .

F, if you go through each video and things word to word , you should check that they have given utmost importance to candidates feedback .

For eg : do you know how come they changed the time of the exam even after the release of Hall ticket ? 

Yes fellow learner , on the basis of feedbacks on mock tests by candidates and they have mentioned the reason too . 

So don't say that putting ones point and issues an feedback is worthless or else but yeah I might say one thing which can be done is to wait first and not to be judgemental or giving advices to the co ordinators of the programme. 

They are doing fantastic work and a lot of efforts have been put on the course design and all , offcourse things can be improved and will be improved ,but atleast be patient till further notice o results announcement ,I thing that we can do for the least. 

It's just that simple: we just have to mention what we faced ,issues and challenges and what they should do ,don't tell them again it's none of our business . 

 We are here for learning only ,so let's  take things in the supposed way ,let's wait fellow learner's  for now atleast . 

Thanks 

Bhagyashree

[Pankaj Pandey]

Sailing in same boat!

[Harsh Kumar]

U might be salesperson not coder in ur IT company we don't need ur 2 cents thanks and no thanks more appropriately.  An IT company professional has a bigger mathematics skill whether he works 17 years or 34.

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 10:15:47 PM UTC+5:30 abhisek.bh...@gmail.com wrote:

[Dibyamohan Acharya]

The basic eligibility of this course was that you must have maths and English in your higher secondary. That much mathematical background is needed. Those who are not from such background are ineligible.

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[Abhisek Bhattacharya]

Yes. I am totally agreed that feedback is always necessay and in any kind of course, learner's feedback is very important. And based on that only they have increased the timeline.

 I have seen so many constructive emails on how the course can be made more friendly to working professionals. 

But as I have mentioned in the very first line, it is for the emails asking examiners to be linient towards checking marks or to reduce the cut off.

[tirthankar choudhuri]

I don't see any reason why someone has to be rude ... everybody has their own point of view and I am in agreement with Abhishek here ... The qualifier is just based on 4 units of learning (4 courses for 1 month) ... For someone to complete only the foundational course its going to take 24 units ... and for the degree, 91 units (31 courses , 3 month each) ... how do you think you can manage that if there are so many problems you have with the qualifiers ... The best thing is to focus on what you can do and that is to study hard and leave it to the faculty and the co-ordinators to fix if there are any problems ... They are also learning in the process ..This is also new for them given this is the first online degree program in the country ... 

Thanks

Tirthankar

[JAYADEVAN RAGHAVAN]

That is it...we cannot degrade the value of our entitlements...Let us upskill ourselves... siddhirbhavati karmajaa!!

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Thanks and Regards,

Jayadevan R

[Kaushik Deka]

Dear fellow aspirants,

I completely agree with Abhisek and Tirthankar! Though there is nothing wrong with expressing one's grievances regarding the qualifier, crude language and personal judgemental statements are uncalled-for and absolutely unacceptable in a discussion forum for science. Worse, to email them to a personal inbox - I had to filter out a few to the junk!

Is it necessary to resort to juvenile behaviour to vent frustration over an academic entrance test ? Could we please maintain some decorum and discuss disagreements constructively.

Best,

Kaushik

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[Harsh Kumar]

If anyone want to understand how a tiny subset of entire population might lead in wrong conclusions in case of infrential statistics see suggestions of the people those who are agreeing from abhisek's opinion.

[tirthankar choudhuri]

seems like your statistics is very sound and you are using it to justify your insolence 

[Harsh Kumar]

First decide yourself brother @tirthankar wheather its sound or insolent seems you are a bit confused in your concepts.

[Rajeswary Balachandran]

Hello fellowmates

I am pained to see the infighting and rude words used. Let everybody express their views. Let us sit pray for our good result. Good luck rajeswatyn

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[Kaushik Deka]

Note: Inferential tests are not applicable to qualitative data, let alone unstructured data! 

At least, don't start insulting statistics now!

[Abhisek Bhattacharya]

Bro, you need to work to improve your English, if you want to pass. Even inside a single liner email you have at least 3 mistakes.

Peace.

[Kaushik Deka]

Hi Abhisek,

Yes, I didn't want to point that out - being kind and considerate. :)

[Harsh Kumar]

Hope so I'll learn some english from these useless suggestions of yours. Atleast they'll have some sense for English 
Learners coz i know they are valueless for course.

[tirthankar choudhuri]

There is a dual problem of articulation and comprehension ... Its difficult to understand what he is trying to convey and of course its evident that he cannot fathom what others are saying ... I would suggest to ignore him as this discussion is a complete waste of time for everybody 

[Harsh Kumar]

Yes this entire discussion from very starting is a complete waste of time and the last person suggesting to ignore himself wrote in reply 🤣

[Kaushik Deka]

Yes, I agree. But, one good thing that has come out of this, besides the constructive suggestions by others, is that I'm now curious about how to apply an inferential test on the feedback data!

So, Mr. Harsh Kumar, if you could be kind enough to enlighten us on how to do an inferential test on the feedback/grievance data, I'd be very grateful to you. But, even if you numerically encode the data into nominal categories (order doesn't make sense here), what is the question that you want to answer ?

Regards,

Kaushik

[Kaushik Deka]

P.S. - "I agree." to Tirthankar's observation. :)

[Harsh Kumar]

Today's puppet show over guys my fingers are tired, hope so my puppets @Kaushik @Abhisek @Tirthankar entertained everyone in between the tntions of exams and results. Do not forget to thanks my puppets for this puppet show.

[Harsh Kumar]

Apologies to anyone who got disturbed or frustrated my role in this conversation ends now. And Apologies to iitm members and email account holder if i tagged them by mistake while replying to my fellows.

[Kaushik Deka]

Dear IITM support team,

I request you to kindly take note of the conversations in this thread for appropriate moderation. I have a backup of this for future reference. Hopefully, prospective students will not have to share the cyber space with provocatively abusive and unscrupulous people like Mr. Harsh Kumar during the course work.

Sincerely,

Kaushik Deka

[Harsh Kumar]

Dear IITM team,

Only Kaushik has a special problem with me(might be 2 more people) in a spam of 3-4 months so hope that you can understand there are some repulsive people who dont like anyone against there opinion. So I already apologized on my behalf and I do apologize on his behalf too as I think he was an equal contributer in the heated conversation which lead his accusations. Hope so he'll now like to end his agitation against me and end all this here.

 

Thanking You.

[Abhisek Bhattacharya]

Indeed, I was not expecting much maturity from you kid.

[Aditi Prasad]

Are we kids that we are complaining to the IITM support team, as we did back in school? 
I am cent per cent confident that they have a lot of work to keep them busy, so no time to go through conversations in all the threads. I don't want to spew any more hate, but @Harsh Kumar, speaking of repulsive, yeah, I do find you repulsive.

I think we should stop spamming.

Regards,
Aditi Prasad.

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[Harsh Kumar]

Okk agreed stopped @aditi thanks atleast for making them know to stop now.

[Pankaj Srivastava]

Dear Harsh Kumar, 

You are definitely intelligent. I would advise you not to waste your time and energy in useless conversations. Stay Cool and Stay Focused. Because this course requires lot of concentration. I would be glad to see you in Batch 1. 

[Kaushik Deka]

Dear course instructors and fellow learners,

As we all must know in the 21st century, cyber-abuse is a cognizable offence that can have detrimental physical and/or psychological effect on an individual. Though the internet has a plethora of information on this, here are a couple of relevant articles:

https://lexlife.in/2020/05/21/law-regarding-cyber-bullying-in-india/

https://scroll.in/article/956085/in-one-year-alone-cyberbullying-of-indian-women-and-teenagers-rose-by-36

Please do not encourage any form of cyber-abuse in the discussion forums.

Sincerely,

Kaushik Deka

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 8:32:45 PM UTC+5:30 prasad....@gmail.com wrote:

[tirthankar choudhuri]

Yes I agree Kaushik ... Bullying of any form is condemned and disciplined by all institutions. My experience in interacting with alums from IITs has been very pleasant over the years ... They have not only set themselves a high bar in performance but also brings along empathy and humility ... that's why they are so revered ... It would be interesting how the co-ordinators will identify and screen students with attitude issues ... some will manifest themselves ... some may not ... ironically those who does , also have a high correlation with poor performance and will weed themselves out of the system ... I am more interested in those who does not and hide in this virtual faceless world ~ seemingly innocuous in this program but bullies elsewhere ... they stand a greater risk of tarnishing this glorious brand ... Maybe there is a way of evaluating that as well in the intersection of psychology & data science  

Thanks

Tirthankar