Archives March 2007

Once again there is a problem of the dates of exams. AFMC of Pune, Karnataka's Corned - K's Under graduate Entrance Test, Maharashtra Associate CET (AMUPMDC) hold their exams on 6th May. UGET Manipal exams are from 3rd April to 1Oth May. But they are ail on-line exams. While we do not request that every exam including fashion technology exam of NIFT should bother about the exam dates of other institutions, it is common knowledge that many students attempt both Engineering and Medical exams and finally choose the one where they get a 'good' course which means the course they ask for. At least the entrance exams of Medical, Engineering and for undergraduate courses of l.l.T. for pure sciences should not be on the same dates. Then who will change the date?                    This is a situation which can be best tackled more...

To understand the students' mind-set, one has to think like a student. That is why every teacher is first a student and then a teacher. In one of the top research establishments in India, it is the periodic interviews that motivated the scientists to take interest in general things also apart from their specialities. Weekly seminars also keep one abreast. Questions asked in interviews range from the difficult ones to  test their speciality to simple ones which will probe their mind Let us take a sampling. What is Avogadro's number? What is sin? What is the mass of the photon? etc. The same questions are asked by the students. How does one make the student understand this mysterious number of atoms in one mole of any substance? One has to start with simple examples, if a match stick, weighs 40 mg, what is the number of matches in 4 g? more...