A-B-C

When the focus of discussions in my wing shifts markedly from life, cricket, campus and girls to courses, classes, assignments and tutorials, an awkward feeling of deja vu sets in. A feeling that reminds of long nights and hard fights. A feeling that reminds of exams.

But they are commonplace in the department that I am in, aren't they? In the last semester, we faced atleast one of them in every week of the semester except two (out of which, one was the Shaastra week and the other Diwali). Yes! I'm talking of 'exams'. Other branches are yet to see them in this semester...and we have already come across a few! While most others tend to be afraid of them, we have become bored of them.

Last semester
An otherwise good performance in the previous semester was spoiled by an isolated occurence. I secured a 'B' grade, my first-ever since joining this department; in a course titled "Analog Circuits". Some of my mates hailed the achievement and congratulated me, saying, "Sabash, Misraji! Ab aap line pe aa gaye ho!" (Well done, Misraji! Now you have come on track.) Some others, expectedly, tried pepping me up saying I shouldn't feel disppointed over a B-grade, which is, afterall, the most abundant grade in the institute (True! I hadn't realized it till then). But, it was not for the B-grade that I was disappointed (to whatever minuscule extent I was), rather it was for the reason that the incident occurred largely due to mistakes that could easily have been avoided, for the fact that the result was not a true indication of the effort that I had put in for the course.

With assignments and quizzes thrusted upon us every fortnight throughout the entire semester, the journey through this course was another first of its kind. A B-grade doesn't necessarily mean that the victim wasn't able to figure out well what was happening in the course. Infact, in my case, I used to understand all the concepts reasonably well; I used to even solve the assignment problems correctly and in reasonably quick time. Even during those fortnight-quizzes, the first thoughts coming to mind after reading the question paper used to be, "Come on, Rakesh! It's pretty simple. Go for a centum!" But then, somewhere, I would miss a negative sign or use the gate voltage instead of the gate-source voltage or commit some other silly blunder and get the whole damn question wrong! Never before had I felt so helpless over my performance. For not guarding against those cockamamie mistakes in quizzes, for not being patient enough to re-check my solutions, perhaps, I deserved a 'B'! Lesson learnt.

This semester
Things are looking brighter this semester. I seem to have found my feet in all the courses; except, to some extent, in VLSI design. I'm sure many of my classmates too in this course haven't got into the groove as well as they would have liked to. Prof. Vinitha, who greets us with a bunch of MOSFETs on the board every class, gives us 'homework' every other day. And everytime, we go to the subsequent class with blank looks and blanker note-books (as if acknowledging the fact that 'homework' is meant for home and not hostel). Since recently, she has been drawing, on an average, fifty (!) MOSFETs on the board per class (Yes! I'm not exaggerating).

In Analog and Digital Filters, after a brief and brisk opening spell by Prof. Prabhu, whose dictation and numbering of mathematical equations were more entertaining than the equations themselves, Prof. C.S. (Clock Sharp?) Ramalingam has been handed over the "torch" (did he mean "we, the bulbs"?). Possibly run by some atomic clock, he is reputed for ending his classes as exactly on time as beginning them. With his authoritative voice and frequent jokes (which are so subtle that they make someone or the other in the class quip, "Was that a joke?"), he has definitely spiced up this course.

EM Fields and Power Systems Practice are going along fine. Prof. HSR (EM Fields), by conducting 'mini-quizzes' almost every week, has maintained the reputation of our department, that "IIT Madras's Electrical Engineering is the toughest engineering branch in the country to be in" (which, though, is very very untrue, as I had mentioned in my previous article). Prof. Kalyan Kumar (Power Systems Practice) bears a distracting resemblance to SPB that makes me go musical whenever things get boring in his class.

Analog Communication and International Trade & Finance, so far, have been recollections and revisits of already-known stuff.

Looking ahead...
Inspite of all other activities and responsibilities on campus, I've been trying my best to make sure that my performance doesn't 'B'tray my efforts, like in the previous semester. With the first round of quizzes coming up next week, it's time to put words into action. Good luck to all my classmates! Good luck to myself!

By the way, in case you're still wondering how the title is related to this article, A-B-C stands for Analog-'B'-Circuits!